I accept the challenge

That sounds fantastic!  I think it would be a great idea to expand our views by experiencing one another's classroom situations.  The school I am in does not have a strong Arts program and from what you have said so far your school seems to be very Arts orientated.  I would love to come and get some ideas and inspirations. Kirsten

Let the conversation begin

I invite you, Kirsten to come along and visit how the Steiner curriculum embraces creativity the arts, and I could visit your government school in a low s/e area and we can explore the similarities and differences as part of this on-line conversation?  Elise

Art and creativity

My name is Elise, and I am very excited about the subject ‘Introduction to the Arts’ as these subjects were amongst my favourite throughout primary and high school.  I enjoyed drama during high school and always took part in the high school plays.  Visual art was a subject at which I excelled in my final year, and I have since become a primary school textile teacher at a Steiner school in Hobart.  

During high school, I played flute for many years and have recently begun to learn the piano, as I believe music is essential in any classroom.  I am less familiar with visual media, however my previous career in marketing and advertising may assist me when teaching critical thinking and analysis.

The chapter in Education in the Arts (Sinclair et. al) particularly resonated with me.  I believe allowing children to ‘play’ is a huge part of their learning, where the arts occur spontaneously and naturally.  My work as TA in the Steiner school kindergarten reinforces this, as most of the day is dedicated to child-led play and all toys are open ended.  During children’s role play, I have seen ‘play cloths’ become robes, scarves, or river, and sticks become swords, buildings or fences.

Ken Robinson’s You Tube clip is inspirational but I disagree that every school places “creativity” low on the curriculum. Working in a Steiner school, creativity is used to facilitate all areas of learning. 

My arts experience

Hi, I'm Kirsten and I have very mixed experiences when it comes to Arts education.  A lot of my school experiences with the Arts were quite negative especially in drama and music.  I often felt very anxious in drama class because I was a very shy and quiet person.  I also felt anxious in music class but that was because I had a very negative (and grumpy!) music teacher in Grade 3 who told me I should never sing in public again and used to yell at anyone who did not know their scales.  

Outside of school my Arts experiences were always very positive.  I remember doing lots of drawing and craft activities with my Grandmother when I was younger.  When I was very young I loved to dance and sing and act in front of the family video camera.  I have always loved visual arts and one of the most positive experiences was when I was in Grade 10 art class and I learnt how to draw spontaneously with oil pastels.  I always spent hours doing detailed drawings and paintings so my art teacher challenged me to do a picture of a shell in 5 minutes on a HUGE piece of paper using continuous strokes.  This was extremely difficult but after a few tries I found it very liberating and it transformed my thinking about visual art.  Photography is another passion of mine and in college I had fun taking pictures and manipulating them digitally. 

I am really excited about this unit and learning new ways to integrate the Arts across the curriculum especially after seeing Arnold's work in the workshop this week.  Especially the use of photographs to teach children about different emotions.  It was good to see the emphasis on inquiry questions which is how I am trying to run my lessons to engage children who need extra support in their learning.  

I love integrating the Arts into my science lessons especially drama and I find it helps facilitate the understandings of kinesthetic learners.  I look forward to integrating the Arts authentically into my future lesson plans.

What were your Arts experiences?