Curriculum Renewal Through Policy Development In Arts Education

Abstract

Across Canada, the arts disciplines -dance, drama, music and visual arts -are integral to the school curriculum. However, there is neither a consensus on the knowledge and instructional skills required of practitioners to effectively implement arts lessons, nor agreement on approaches to teaching the arts in teacher education and professional development programs. In this paper, I discuss a policy Delphi undertaken for the purpose of developing a curricular image for the arts in a faculty of education. My motivation for this study derives from previous research which indicates that effectively designed and delivered arts education programs can enhance teachers' confidence and willingness to the arts in their own classrooms. Findings from this study indicate that elementary teachers need a level of comfort with the arts to teach them. They require the expertise to apply generic instructional skills in the arts, a desire to play and experiment with artistic processes, an appreciation of the importance of the arts, and an understanding of basic arts concepts. Specialist secondary arts teachers should foster creativity in their classrooms. They require expertise in two arts disciplines and a broad knowledge of the others, an understanding of outcomes-based learning and how to organize appropriate activities, and an ability to motivate and inspire young people to participate in the arts. Teacher educators need to re-focus the arts curriculum to emphasize personal expertise, comfort level, creativity, experimentation, and conceptual knowledge across the arts disciplines. Professional development programs in the arts should emphasize outcomes-based learning, generic instructional strategies, integration, and assessment strategies. theatre group arrived in the gymnasium, a fresh, bright collection of actors who dramatized our concerns -finding relationships which mattered, facing the pain of a home life fraught with violence, confronting the sense of inadequacy which children and adolescents of every generation music bear -and we were touched. In days past, the play might have been about alcohol abuse -today it more likely about drugs and the dangers of indiscriminate sex.

An Exploratory Investigation on the Influence of Practical Experience towards Shaping Future Early Childhood Teachers' Practice in the Arts

“…The statement also supports the notion that arts experience can be the first meaningful point of engagement in the education system for students. To achieve quality arts education, teachers require a high level of skill and training (Andrews, 2004). This suggests teachers require significant training to help develop a strong sense of perceived capability towards teaching in the area of arts education.…”

Seeking Harmony: Teachers' perspectives on learning to teach in and through the arts

“…Moreover, school boards are expected to ensure implementation of an arts policy when provincial funding for professional development programs in faculties of education has been elminated (Gurney & Andrews, 2000). Such a critical gap between expectations and fiscal reality led some boards of education to question the feasibility of the arts as a core area of study (Andrews, 2004). If the arts, however, are to remain vital to a child's education, then teacher development programs must be developed that prepare teachers to effectively integrate the arts into the curriculum (Smithrim & Upitis, 2005;Oreck, 2004).…”

Building Creative Partnerships through image and text

“…From the Australian perspective, as Tarr (2008, p. 20) argued, art experiences related to looking at and talking about art, knowledge and skills must be deeply enmeshed in authentic ways in the life of the classroom rather than an add-on to a curriculum that must be covered. The Australian National Education and the Arts Statement (Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs, 2007) supported the view that all children and young people should have a high-quality arts education but, as Andrews (2004) pointed out, teachers require a high level of skill and training in order to fulfil this role.…”