education + arts-based Learning
“The art class is a space that new beginnings and new possibilities can be imagined; where students can create and recreate their identities and an understanding of the world around them. It is with paintbrush in hand where they can realize their authentic self and begin the process of actualizing this self to be a productive and creative problem-solving member of society.” J. Hakola Painting the Future: Art Education in Canada: A Critical Foundation Approach Review December 2022 EDST635
art +
education+
politics+
history
Paradigm challenge:
I was surprised to learn that art education has been used throughout history by political powers to change the values and ideals of society in Canada. The sociological and political motivations behind introducing arts into Canadian education was far more complex than I had been aware, including needing to entice adults to move from Ontario to Saskatchewan after the war. Art has always reflected aspects of society since the first mark ever made. It is not only a way of understanding culture and people but is historically a way that governments also created culture and people’s sense of identity. It was through this research that I learned this valuable insight.
“Studying our education system from a political science perspective is very useful in understanding our past, but also in predicting driving forces for change in the future. Finally, we need to connect these perspectives through the view of philosophy. This may be the most important lens, in that we can see simultaneously the past and future vision, along with the hopes, and dreams of what education and society can be. A collective co-creation of learning and teaching occurs within our schools, but who actually gets to be involved in the co-creation of education is part of a colonial legacy we have many challenges in shaking free from.” J. Hakola Painting the Future: Art Education in Canada: A Critical Foundation Approach Review December 2022 EDST635
Social Relevance:
Through this research I became aware of the important political role that art education played during the early years of Canada, during war time, and post war era up to present day. This made me realize that going forward, art education can still be used as a tool for social stabilization and political change, particularly bringing transformation to the systems of education in Canada today that are struggling to accommodate the real and rapidly changing needs of the student age population. My proposed theory that art education can be used as a bridge between cultures to bring about transformational change in society is a viable theory based on its use and success in the past. In the courses following this course, I pulled every paper over into the area of arts and creativity for social and educational transformation, to continue to test the theory that art education can be used as a cross cultural bridge for social change.
Self-Critical Thinking: The incorporation of land acknowledgments at the beginnings of papers was learned through the Indigenous Studies program courses through INST511. This felt like a positive way to pause at the beginnings of the written presentations to position the research where it occurred but also the lands where the content is originally from or about. This has become something I keep attempting and changing as I learn more about how to be respectful to place, land and people. In conjunction with adding a land acknowledgement, I have also been practicing incorporating and epoché statement which outlines upfront my position both socially and culturally, including biases or assumptions prior to the paper content. This feels like a positive addition to papers as it demonstrates the intended transparency and authenticity of the researcher.
This epoché statement, is included with the intention of transparency outlining my position and cultural background as researcher and my assumptions preceding the research (Griffin & May, 2017:519). While referencing Indigenous educational approaches and methods, I do so respectfully and with the understanding of the diversity of approaches, communities and peoples within the term Indigenous. Also acknowledged is that traditional Indigenous education methods were not only practiced in the past but are practiced in the present and need to be recognized by the western world with respect for the complex educational systems that they are and the values they teach.
Thoughts and ideas are rooted in cultural perspective and I recognize myself as a researcher who is a nonindigenous woman, born third generation in Canada with European ancestry, currently living in a small town in eastern British Columbia. I am a researcher who is middle-class, educated and a mother of two. I have an arts background and education in art. Employed as an art therapy instructor, I have entered this research with the preexisting belief in the value of arts-based learning and its ability to bridge differences and create unity. I have not spent time in Quebec, Saskatchewan or the Atlantic provinces in community dialogue regarding this specific research, but have conducted this research from written documents. In studying education, anthropology, and Indigenous studies, I am allied with the Indigenous perspectives and value protecting our ecosystems. I have environmental values that position me in opposition to extremes of resource extraction and abuse of ecosystems, but with an agreeable understanding towards sustainable use of natural resources.
Griffin, A., & May, V. (2018). Chapter 29: Narrative analysis and interpretive phenomenological analysis. In C. Seale (Ed.), Researching society and culture. (4th ed.; pp. 511–531). SAGE.
“Writing from an American perspective, Popkewitz takes a tone of certainty, confidence, and boldness. At the age of 82, he comes by this tone from experience, with over forty books in his name or editorship… No humility will be found in this article. With unapologetic self-awareness, he mentions his ‘ironic’ tone both at the beginning and the end. As a Canadian reader, it is challenging to not be distracted by a little voice inside resisting these theories with a them-not-us refrain. Unfortunately, this small voice of resistance to the truth only reinforces Popkewitz’s arguments; that yes, we all have been schooled to be a citizen in a society of a specific nation.”
J. Hakola Nov, 2022. Excerpt from Fabricating Citizens of The Future: A Response Paper EDST635 Nov, 2022.
Fabricating Citizens of The Future: A Response Paper EDST635 Nov, 2022
Learning about the role of art education in political and social history connected with my interest in arts-based learning as a tool for future transformation of systems of education and ultimately society.
Integrated Learning: In school, work and life we attempt to decolonize the systems and social structures that bring oppression and harbour arenas for positions of power. Studying the theories of American writer, Thomas Popkewitz expanded my time line of understanding to include the period of the Enlightenment and its prevalent focus on the concept of reason. He wrote that thought and reason are cultural practices that create systems for reflection and action, which we know can be for the better of some and the detriment and exclusion of others (Popkewitz, 2007:65). I always understood that national and political values were reinforced through education, but I came to learn this from a broader and multidisciplinary perspective to include political motivations in conjunction with historical events, schooling to create a society, a democracy and an economic market. Realizing that moving from a social focus on church to state, wasn’t only about the conflict between religious and governmental powers, but was also about fabricating citizens that believed in personal betterment stabilizing a well behaving society and capitalist market in which they participated. It was President Jefferson who began using schools as a place to train citizens to participate in society in an attempt to bring stability after revolution. This was eye opening to me, not just because of the topic, but because I could see clearly the value of examining a subject though multiple lens to uncover hidden and complex truths about the past threads that wove together to create our current society. The hierarchies in our society that exist today are echoes of the Enlightenment and its value on reasoning, specifically because this can allow for a division in society between those that are reasonable and those that are deemed to be incapable of reason. EDST635 was the course I learned the critical foundations approach to looking at subject matter through a historical, political, social and philosophical lens. These four pillars of interdisciplinary inquiry illuminate subject matter more clearly and fully than any one of them can do alone.
Popkewitz, Thomas S. (2007). Alchemies and governing: Or, questions about the questions we ask. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 39(1):64-83.