Primary school visual arts education: Teachers’ perspectives
Juliette Laird
Abstract
The article describes my research project which sought to discover generalist primary teachers’ perspectives on including visual arts in their classroom programme, and the factors that supported or limited them in this. A picture of the everyday classroom and its complex demands emerged from the quantitative and qualitative data gathered in three primary schools. The participants’ experiences were consistent with those reported in the research literature and confirmed the marginal status of visual arts education in the primary classroom. I found that neoliberal education policies, and also the dominance of the “theoretic” over the “practical” in the mandated curriculum, have created some significant challenges for primary teachers in this aspect of their teaching.
This research project developed from my concerns around visual arts programmes in New Zealand primary schools. Visual arts are an important expression of personal and cultural values and identity. Making art has been found to have a range of personal, social and developmental benefits for children (Efland, 2004a; Eisner, 2002; Jarvis, 2004; O’Connor & Dunmill, 2005) as well as developing valuable workplace skills for the growing sphere of creative industries. I felt there had been a reduction in time spent teaching visual arts over the last 10 years or so, and informal enquiries found many teachers agreed that they taught visual arts less than they used to or would like to. When I asked one teacher why this was so, she replied:
It’s too hard. The school day is so full, and everything has to be justified. (Personal contact)
The effect of such pressures on visual arts education must be considered alongside a long-standing problem identified by research in New Zealand and internationally: many primary teachers lack the knowledge or confidence to teach visual arts beyond first steps. The Education Review Office found that less than half of New Zealand’s primary school classroom teachers are able to provide good visual arts programmes (1995, 2004) and, although art is often children’s favourite subject, the National Education Monitoring Project found that their art-making skills are generally not well developed (Flockton & Crooks, 2008). Primary teachers in Britain and the United States have reported feeling inadequately prepared for teaching visual arts (Ford, 2003; McCoubrey, 2000), but the problem does not seem to be simply one of adequate preservice preparation. A review of research literature in the area of primary visual arts education suggests that there are multiple, interrelated factors behind this problem.
Teachers are “at the epicentre of learning” (Schwille & Dembele, 2007, p. 11) and “central authorities … depend upon teachers to implement curriculum” (McGee et al., 2004). It is, therefore, vital to understand how teachers interpret the curriculum and why they make certain decisions about teaching rather than simply focusing on classroom outcomes. I began by considering the historical, political, professional and personal circumstances that may determine teachers’ daily decisions around what, when and how they teach, as preparation for an inquiry into the perspectives of teachers on teaching visual arts as part of the classroom programme.
The challenges for generalists teaching visual arts in primary schools
A. Curriculum reform and the visual arts curriculum
While art has been a core subject throughout the history of New Zealand’s state education system (Collinge, 1978) the content and purpose of art curricula have changed to fit prevailing values and social and economic aims for the nation (Smith, 2007). The political impulse behind curriculum development indicates the origin of some significant challenges for teachers.
Curriculum reform has been constant and substantial since the 1980s and a world-wide focus on quantitative measures of student achievement, influenced by neoliberal views, has had a major impact on what kinds of knowledge and achievement are valued (Biesta, 2010; Middleton, Codd, & Jones, 1990). When curriculum reform runs counter to teachers’ beliefs as to desirable outcomes for students, and undermines what they know to be effective pedagogical practice, this creates a dissonance which reduces their effectiveness (Harker, Gibbs, Ryan, Weir, & Adams, 2003) and can produce resistance to mandated change (George, 2009; Stokrocki, 2004). As primary teachers are generalists they must accommodate change in all curriculum areas. Standen (2002) found that teachers’ approach to teaching is determined by a coherent belief system which is composed of various interdependent elements including beliefs about self, relationships, knowledge, change, teaching and learning. Teachers are found to be motivated by a desire to “make a difference” for students and to have a strong ethic of care (Day & Smethem, 2009; Harker et al., 2003, p. 166; Locke, Vulliamy, Webb, & Hill, 2005; Pearson, 2002). In addition, teachers’ roles have been redefined and their workload greatly increased as a result of the adoption of business models in the public sector (Codd, 2005). The impact of these changes has been found to erode teachers’ sense of self-efficacy (Harker et al., 2003). Self-efficacy enables teachers to enthuse and support students (Day & Smethem, 2009; Hall, 2004; Sachs, 2003), and may be particularly important in enabling them to teach visual arts (Barry & Townsend, 1995), an area of education that has been marked by longstanding debate over appropriate content and pedagogy amongst its theorists (Efland, 2004b; Eisner & Day, 2004; Siegesmund, 1998).
In New Zealand there is evidence of the continued use of historic approaches to teaching visual arts in primary and early childhood education (Beals, Hipkins, Cameron, & Watson, 2003; Gunn, 2000) with continued belief in “child-centred” approaches. This approach, practised worldwide in the mid-20th century, was advocated as promoting the holistic development and social growth of the individual through imaginative play (Lowenfeld, 1947; Read, 1964). The role of teachers was seen simply as providing materials and a suitable environment to allow children’s inherent creativity to express itself (Department of Education, 1961). However, this view was subsequently discredited (Meeson, 1985) and replaced both in New Zealand and internationally by more structured approaches based on the belief that children also need to understand art ideas and practices. This belief was embodied in the Discipline-based Art Education approach, introduced to New Zealand from the United States around 1990 (Department of Education, 1989; Ministry of Education, 1991). Later curriculum reform (Ministry of Education, 1999, 2000) adopted the single arts curriculum model, which incorporated the postmodern shift reframing art as visual culture, and emphasising the need for visual literacy (Duncum, 2001, 2002). This move is seen as making visual arts more inclusive and empowering children to “read” the visual world (Freedman, 2000; Nyman, 2002). These different, competing rationales for visual arts education co-exist in the current curriculum document, creating a challenge for generalist primary teachers.
The visual arts statement in The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007, pp. 20–21) describes the expectations for visual arts education in Years 1 to 13. This statement has been in place since 2000, when it first appeared in The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2000), but the current national curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) lacks the detailed suggestions for a progressive development of skills in a range of areas which was part of the 2000 document. General surveys that Beals et al. (2003) and McGee et al. (2004) conducted after the introduction of The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2000) showed that primary teachers did not feel adequately prepared for teaching visual arts, even when they had taken part in the professional development that was provided across the country. They have been found to have a poor understanding of visual literacy (Beals et al., 2003; Byres, 2006).
As primary teachers are generalists they must accommodate change in all curriculum areas. Recent reviews (Schagen, 2011; Sinnema, 2011) of the implementation of The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007), which combined all curriculum areas into a single document and introduced a new dimension in the form of competencies, has been slow and partial. Often teachers reported feeling “unsettled … as if their foundations had been pulled from underneath them” (Sinnema, 2011, p. 33). Further pressures have been experienced by primary school teachers with the introduction in 2009 of National Standards in Literacy and Numeracy.
B. Teachers’ preservice preparation for teaching visual arts
Today many primary teachers may have little or no knowledge of visual arts content or pedagogy. Over the past two decades, reductions of “epic” proportions (Bell, 2010) have occurred in the preservice preparation and inservice support for visual arts teaching in New Zealand primary schools. This has been ascribed to the changed priorities that resulted from the “economic rationalism” (Bell, 2010) imposed as a result of the shift towards neoliberal economic and educational policies (Codd, 2005; Mansfield, 2000). These changes suggest that many teachers may have little or no idea of visual arts content or pedagogy.
While Duncum (1999) suggests that generalist teachers can successfully teach visual arts by applying generic teaching practices to material drawn from children’s experiences and cultures, research in New Zealand indicates that teachers do not transfer pedagogical knowledge from literacy, for example, to visual arts (Byres, 2006; Whitaker, 2006). Perhaps, as Bracey (2003) suggested, this is because they do not understand “the epistemology of art”, and so, not knowing “the theory behind their practice … they will be unable to improve it” (p. 186). In the area of visual arts, Eisner (1992) suggests that most teachers’ views of the nature of visual arts and appropriate ways of teaching them have, in fact, been “subliminally ingested as part of general … socialization” (p. 306). If teachers’ understanding of visual arts and views on how children should be taught has been unconsciously absorbed, then it is hard for them to reflect on the curriculum requirements or their own practice, as D. Brown (2006) found when investigating the failure of teachers in Western Australia to implement a new visual arts curriculum.
Generalist primary teachers have been found to have a poor understanding of the concept of visual literacy or how to critique artworks, and most continue to focus on teaching practical skills and to define visual arts in traditional, Eurocentric, ways (Beals et al., 2003; Byres, 2008). The reduction of preservice preparation and centralised support makes it unlikely that many primary school teachers will have a good understanding of the principles or practice of visual arts education today.
C. The primary school classroom context
Primary school classroom teachers have broad teaching, pastoral and school-wide responsibilities. They must deliver a programme that covers every learning area,1 meets the academic, personal and social needs of all children in their, usually mixed ability, class and incorporates the overarching competencies and values (Ministry of Education, 2007). While Holt (1997) argues that classroom teachers are well placed to facilitate art-making based on children’s interests and experiences, and to integrate visual expression into other curriculum areas, Byres (2008) found that teachers are limited in what and when they teach by the pressure of the crowded curriculum, “paperwork” and school systems. Visual arts flourish and bring greatest benefit for children when there is opportunity for open-ended exploration and “structured chaos” (Fraser, Price, & Henderson, 2008; Holland & O’Connor, 2004, p. 4).
Cross-curricular integration, recommended in The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) as a teaching strategy, is used by many schools to solve the problem of covering everything, but the Education Review Office (2004) found the specific learning needs particular to visual arts were often omitted in integrated units, with Irwin, Gouzouasis, Grauer, Leggo, & Springgay (2006) arguing that this strategy needs specific skills and knowledge.
Developing the research project
By reviewing research literature from New Zealand and from other countries with similar education systems I was able to identify potential challenges to the ability of New Zealand primary school teachers to cover visual arts in their classroom programme and, from this information, to develop the survey questionnaire and the interview schedule. The survey questions related to curriculum, the school’s systems and expectations, and personal knowledge and confidence in regard to teaching visual arts. The semistructured interviews provided opportunities for in-depth discussion of these areas and of any others raised by the participants.
The study uses a model for empirical social research proposed by Punch (2009), framing its design and data collection methods in terms of the research questions. My desire to arrive at a better understanding of how generalist primary school teachers make decisions about teaching visual arts led me to an interpretive approach, seeking authentic insight into individuals’ worlds (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982; Silverman, 2001, 2005) and to the use of predominantly qualitative methods.
The data collection methods
A “two-phase mixed methods design” was chosen, using qualitative data gained in semistructured interviews to expand on quantitative data collected by a voluntary anonymous survey (Punch, 2009, p. 296). I also conducted a document analysis of The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007). Some modifications to the planned data collection were made following the example of real-life problem solvers who select techniques to answer questions that arise as the investigation unfolds (Tashakorrie & Teddlie, 2010). Once the survey responses had been analysed, changes were made to the proposed interview schedule: a request was added at the start of the interview process for participants to complete a concept map which would give a visual description of their role and responsibilities as teachers; and the intended analysis of school policy documents for visual arts teaching was not carried out because two of the three schools had no such document. The use of mixed methods and different tools for data collection aimed to “generated multiple data sets about the same research problem” in order to develop a full understanding of generalist teachers’ perspectives on teaching visual arts as part of the classroom programme (Brewer & Hunter, 2006, p. 64) and to present a supported argument for change, if the need was identified.
The research participants and settings
For my investigation in 2011 I selected a random sample of three schools from all those contributing2 primary schools in the Auckland area that met the criteria for being “typical”.3 While the study is too small to allow for generalisation, it aimed to collect data that are likely to be representative of the perspectives of a wider number of primary classroom teachers. Care was taken to avoid researcher bias by using clearly defined guidelines, but at the same time, my practical experience and theoretical knowledge in primary teaching and in visual arts education were anticipated to be useful in carrying out this research (Brewer & Hunter, 2006; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Stake, 2010).
Just over half the classroom teachers in the three schools4 completed the initial survey. Out of those 26 respondents, eight teachers volunteered to participate in the second stage semistructured interviews. All but one of these were conducted at the teacher’s school in their classroom. Thus, although observation of the school environment was not part of the formal data collection plan, I was able to observe that in all three schools there was evidence of students making art, and displays within the classrooms and in public areas of the schools suggested that visual arts are valued. This impression was confirmed by teachers’ statements as described below.
The teacher participants contributed a wide range of experience and perspectives to the study and had developed different approaches to teaching visual arts. The two teachers from School A, Rainy5 and Jody, both taught junior classes, but while Jody was in her third year of teaching, Rainy had taught for over 20 years. At School B, Anabelle was in her fourth year of teaching a Year 3 class. There were five participants from School C: Kynan, in his 10th year teaching a Year 6 class had trained as a secondary school teacher before moving to primary; Alyssa, with a Year 5 class, was in her second year as a teacher; Mark, teaching a Year 6 class, had been teaching for 10 years after completing a one-year postgraduate teaching diploma; Angela, who had also completed a one-year postgraduate qualification, had been teaching at an intermediate school and had just a few weeks earlier taken up her position teaching a Year 1 class; and Elleen, in her sixth year of teaching, taught a Year 4 class.
The interviews were recorded and then transcribed. The findings are described as summaries based on all the data collected, supported by selected extracts from the transcripts to illustrate the teachers’ perspectives using their own words.
The teachers’ perspectives
Overall, the teachers valued visual arts education, believing that children benefit from making visual arts and are motivated by its inclusion in the learning programme. However, most described challenges to teaching visual arts which they felt either limited them personally or could limit other teachers in the school.
A. Visual arts education and its benefits for children
Visual arts education was, according to participants, primarily about children learning to use “different methods and techniques” (Alyssa) and “actually being able to manipulate materials and equipment” (Kynan). This approach requires teachers to be able to model skills themselves because children need “to view someone doing it who knows what they are on about” (Rainy). Several acknowledged that some extra preparation is required before starting to teach visual arts. Mark said:
I’m not that much of an artist myself so it’s always good to do a bit of background reading and practice just before you do anything … sort of making sure that I can teach the techniques and … concepts properly.
He did see interpretation, discussing not only technique but also “different significant cultural features” and “how different art has changed over time”, as an integral part of visual arts education, but not all shared this view. Elleen explained:
I think they need to know the skills … I like that more hands-on approach. The theory and stuff—if you are going to do art at high school … you can get all theoretical.
When teachers were asked to select from a set of 10 rationales for teaching visual arts from current and past curricula, the three most preferred statements were that they foster creative self-expression, develop kinaesthetic and motor skills, and increase self-confidence. These choices were consistent with teachers’ descriptions of their art teaching, and statements indicating the high priority they gave to children having success and feeling affirmed by others when they make art. Alyssa and others commented on the value of positive feedback for the student artist’s self-esteem, particularly for children who are less successful in literacy and numeracy:
It’s a big confidence boost for a lot of them that struggle in other areas, but they can express through visual art.
All participants considered the relevance of the subject matter to the students’ own lives to be an important criterion in planning art lessons as it made them “meaningful”. The importance of students’ having a sense of connectedness was linked to displays of student work in the classrooms and around the schools which, as Mark explained, give students “ownership of their environment”.
B. Factors that influenced their visual arts teaching
Teachers’ responses in both the questionnaire survey and the interviews, as well as the data from the concept maps, gave evidence of their full and varied workloads. For a relatively new teacher like Jody it is a challenge “to fit it all in”.
Time was identified as a significant problem by most participants, both the time art requires and finding a time in the week for it. Jody’s description of her timetable indicates the impact of school systems and expectations as well as workload on teachers’ ability to include visual arts in their classroom programme:
I do my maths from 9.30–10.30 and then from 10.50–12.50 that’s my guided reading and then my writing till lunchtime and then right after lunchtime is like handwriting, topic, assemblies, all those things so you know unless I keep them at school until 5 o’clock trying to schedule a set week—of having art in there would be quite tough so it goes into that afternoon block after lunch. We do 1.50–3.00, we’re back in class by the time we’ve done the roll, we’ve done our reflection, and a story, it’s 5, 10 past 2 so we’ve got 50 minutes to you know. And that means obviously at lunchtime I’d have to get the paint out or I’d have to cut up what we’re doing … I don’t make the kids stay and clean up ‘cos we’d have to start packing up at 20 to and there’s another 15 minutes gone and so—yeah—it’s a whole time thing isn’t it.
This response also brings up the issue for teachers in junior classes of management—containing the potential for mess in a room that has carpet on the floor, “readers round the place” and “other kids … walking past and knocking the newspaper” (Angela).
Several felt that the increased emphasis on literacy and numeracy is putting more pressure on teachers’ time and will further reduce time available for visual arts. As Kynan said, referring to both the school’s and parents’ expectations:
Do we have time, is it a priority? Because I mean … lots of things come up at school—you don’t necessarily always have the time to do everything so often visual art is something you’re doing on a Friday and if something else comes up it can be forgotten you know. Whereas, if the children are below average in writing at the end of the year you won’t be so forgiven.
Those who expressed the least concern about finding time for teaching visual arts were Mark and Anabelle, who both described visual arts as a tool for teaching and learning. However, while Mark felt that the new curriculum offered “more opportunities” he saw that looking for resources, now that the scope of visual culture is so broad, “can be quite time consuming”.
Teachers’ responses suggested that the most important factor that enabled a generalist to include visual arts in the classroom programme was personal, stating that “it can be done” (Rainy) if the teacher is interested and determined. While the ability to demonstrate techniques such as painting and print-making, and knowledge of art were important, several talked of how they had become stronger themselves in these areas and felt it was possible for any teacher to do so.
C. Preservice preparation and inservice support
The participants, with one exception, felt their preservice preparation to teach visual arts in a primary classroom had been quite inadequate, with more recently qualified teachers having had only a few hours of art-making in total, and no guidance in learning progressions or in teaching or organisational strategies. However, only some found this to be a problem. Angela had found it very difficult when she began with the Year 1 children to know what the standard should be in art. “I’m starting to get the idea … but the skill set for what they were doing I would struggle to assess” (Angela). Jody and Rainy had also struggled at times to know how to teach visual arts, but had found support from other teachers and professional development run by the school very helpful.
Teachers spoke very positively of the value of support provided by the school and colleagues. Their schools had all provided or paid for professional development in visual arts for some or all teachers to build skills in specific areas such as print-making. However, none of the participants were aware of or used the Ministry of Education material such as Painting (Ministry of Education, 2001) from the Exploring Visual Arts in Years 1–6 series, or of the existence of ArtsOnline, the Ministry of Education-funded website.
D. Planning and assessment
The task of planning visual arts was lightened by sharing a single plan among teachers of the same year level, often one used in previous years, and integrating it into the topic study. It appeared that The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) was little used for planning. Because the questionnaire responses had suggested many respondents were not clear about The New Zealand Curriculum’s requirements I had added a specific question for the interviews asking for the participants’ opinions of the visual arts statement (Ministry of Education, 2007, pp. 20–21). Only one of the participants had previously read it. Given the opportunity to read through it, they variously described it as “airy-fairy” (Elleen), “conceptual” (Mark) and unrealistic in terms of the resources a school could provide (Angela and Jody). Jody stated that she still uses the 2000 document with its lesson suggestions “because it explains to me what you could do”. Like Byres (2006), I found that teachers used the curriculum document “selectively if at all” (p. ii).
Significantly, all the participants expressed the view that it is not possible to plan, teach or assess visual arts “in the same way as other subjects”. This was described as being because visual art-making is too “personal” to assess (Elleen), and also because of the feeling that some children are naturally more artistically able than others (Mark, Rainy, Alyssa, Angela). The teachers were also reluctant to judge children’s work “because you wouldn’t want to discourage anyone” (Jody).
A discussion of the teachers’ responses
I was very encouraged by the evidence of schools’ valuing of children’s visual artworks as shown by displays both in classrooms and around communal and public areas of the school, and by the participants’ positive attitude towards teaching visual arts, particularly in light of the challenges they described. Although none of the interviewees mentioned the positive attitude of children specifically, I inferred from teachers’ responses that they were very motivated by this to include visual arts, either as a stand-alone project, or to display their learning in other curriculum areas, as indicated in the questionnaire responses. However, I felt concern that the inclusion of visual arts was seen to depend greatly on the individual’s commitment. While all participants stated that teaching visual arts “can be done”, for many this came with the proviso that teachers need to be committed to including visual arts in their teaching programmes. The participants who expressed least confidence in the likelihood of visual arts retaining a foothold in the curriculum were those who had experienced minimal preparation either as preservice or inservice training, and who had low self-confidence or knowledge in the area of visual arts. This finding is supported by research which shows that a sense of teaching efficacy is a significant determinant of time allocation and pedagogy (Wilkins, 2010).
I was also concerned by participants’ statements that visual arts could not to be taught in a structured, scaffolded way as is expected in other learning areas. Researchers have found that generalist teachers fail to apply strategies they use daily in other curriculum areas to teaching visual arts (Byres, 2006; Whitaker, 2006). The teachers said that as visual arts are so “personal” and results depended on “natural” ability, it is not fair to judge the results. Their responses showed that teachers use a mix of curriculum approaches and philosophies which are underpinned by a consistent desire to ensure that children have “success” in their art-making. This view is likely to be a reflection of the lack of preservice preparation, inservice support or practical guidelines on how to facilitate an improvement in art-making using objective criteria. Research in Australia suggests that teachers’ implicit, often unconscious, beliefs about art and its teaching were largely responsible for challenges they faced in implementing a new Arts curriculum (D. Brown, 2006). It did appear that beliefs about the “special” nature of art were an obstacle to some of the teachers in my sample. A lack of understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of the visual arts statement, and of The New Zealand Curriculum as whole, will also limit the ability of teachers to engage in critical debate over (G. Brown, 2006).
My concern about the status of visual arts in primary school programmes remains. All participants, to some extent, indicated ways in which visual arts were under pressure from other curriculum areas, in particular from literacy and numeracy. Visual arts could often be hard to “fit in” or even to “justify” spending time on. Several stated that they knew of teachers who taught no visual arts at all, and found children often arrived in their classes lacking basic art-making skills. It seems likely that the standard of children’s visual arts skills and knowledge may decline further. In addition, the evidence of the extent, complexity and steady expansion of teacher workload suggests that this factor alone may limit not only the inclusion of visual arts in the classroom programme, but also the likelihood of teachers being able to adopt new approaches to teaching visual arts.
Pressure from workload has been found to cause stress and reduce teacher efficacy and effectiveness (Harker et al., 2003). In addition, it could limit the ability of teachers to participate in either individual or group professional development in visual arts, even within their school. Teachers have been subject to ongoing curriculum change, in visual arts and in other areas. Research by Loucks-Horsley (1996) found that teachers needed time to implement change—to understand it, create teaching strategies and trial these, particularly in the context of maintaining a full teaching programme—and suggested a minimum 3-year time frame. The implementation of education policy has not acknowledged these needs. As Davis (2007) argues, the neoliberal view that curriculum is something teachers simply deliver to children, “fails to acknowledge the crucial, dynamic role that teachers and students bring to the active construction of knowledge” (p. 32).
Implications for the future
In the short term, there is a clear need for support for generalist primary school teachers in the area of visual arts. In the long term, I believe that any research or action to address concerns over visual arts education in the primary classroom programme should be strategically planned, taking into consideration the political motivation behind curriculum and education policy, the divisions within the ranks of visual arts theorists and the situated reality of teachers.
Teachers must see benefits for the children and for their teaching, and be able to identify manageable ways of making the changes, if they are to consider implementing different strategies or content in visual arts. Hlebowitsh (2012, p. 8) argues that debate about teaching, and curriculum, has been marked by “a greater investment in ideas than in people”, and similarly, Craig (2010; Craig & Voss, 2008) calls attention to Schwab’s (1969) concerns about the shift in curriculum development away from the “practical” to the “theoretic”. Flockton (2010) maintains that the ability of schools to create curricula which “best address the particular needs, interests and circumstances of the schools’ students and community” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 37) has been undermined by measures to limit “provider capture” by teachers (Clark, 2004, p. 131). These measures also removed teachers’ “voice” from curriculum development (O’Neill, Clark, & Openshaw, 2004). As a result, it seems, the expansion of the curriculum has occurred without consideration of its practical implications for teachers.
It is clear to me, from this study and evidence of the important role teachers are playing in maintaining the presence of visual arts in primary schools, that teachers must be engaged in the debate. As Burton (2004, p. 571) argues:
Change in practice emanating from new views of subject matter, learner, and instruction more often precedes than follows the findings of research … The bulk, and best kind of teacher learning, comes from the everyday decisions teachers are forced to make in the real contexts of their teaching lives.
In the long term, I hope that these findings will support arguments for a re-evaluation of education policy to provide a stronger place for visual arts within the primary classroom programme.
Acknowledgements
My thanks go to the participants in this study, in particular, the eight teachers whose generous sharing of their time, opinions and experiences enabled me to develop a rich picture of visual arts education in New Zealand primary schools. I would also like to thank Dr Jill Smith whose expert guidance supported and informed me throughout my research.
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Notes
The author
Juliette Laird’s research focuses on the impact of public policy on visual arts education in primary classrooms. She has worked as a generalist classroom teacher (junior) and is currently the visual arts specialist for Year 7 and 8 students at Glendowie Primary School. She is a practising visual artist.
Email: juliette.laird@gmail.com
1Teachers of Years 1–6 students must teach English, the arts, health and physical education, mathematics and statistics, science, social sciences and technology (including ICT).
2A New Zealand contributing primary school is similar to an elementary school, covering Years 1–6.
3For this study the definition of a typical school was based on the statistically representative sample selected in the 2003 Curriculum Stocktake (McGee et al., 2004). This indicated that 90 percent of all primary schools are urban, state and co-educational. Further selection was made on the basis of decile rating and size. All state schools in New Zealand are given a decile rating from 1to10 describing the socioeconomic status of their school population. Schools in the mid-decile (4–7) range are acknowledged by the Education Review Office as being typical or average, so all schools approached to participate in the project were in the mid-decile range. In addition, they had rolls of between 350 and 450 students, the most common size range for primary schools.
4 Referred to as School A, School B and School C.
5 Pseudonyms have been used where this was requested by participants.