Seeing the Bigger Picture: Investigating the State of the Arts in Teacher Education Programs in Australia

Arts Immersion: Using the arts as a language across the primary school curriculum

“…This situation would suggest that the Arts need to be taught across the curriculum in both specialist and generalist contexts if the aims of our national curriculum for the Arts are to be fully satisfied. However, the reduction of arts education opportunities for pre-service teachers and school students in some locations continues to threaten sustainable quality arts education across our schools (Barton, Baguley & MacDonald, 2013). Therefore, specialist teachers with in-depth skills in only one arts discipline, and generalist teachers with limited introductory skills across the Arts, may be hard pressed to provide rigorous arts education in all arts disciplines, due to a lack of time, support, expertise and confidence (Ewing et al, 2011;Russell-Bowie, 2012).…”

“…By this I mean the development of a strategy which will equip both specialist and generalist teachers with an ongoing rigorous arts education pedagogy, that is sustained through appropriate administrative and resourcing support. Such a strategy would need to convince teachers that acquiring knowledge in arts pedagogy, and developing associated skills in delivery, are attainable and represent substantial benefits to both teachers and students (Barton, Baguley & MacDonald, 2013;Garvis & Riek, 2010). Policy makers and school administrators need to be convinced not only of the value of arts education and arts experiences, but that it is possible to provide for this within the school budget.…”

“…Researchers have reported unintentional adverse effects of high stakes testing on individual student needs, including: the systematic dominance of high-stakes test data on which the My School website depends (Ewing, 2012); a lack of emphasis on individual students needs and a preference for uniformity ( Comber, 2012); high-stakes testing being viewed as the "de facto curriculum" (Hardy & Boyle, 2011, p. 220), which refers to the practice of having the subject content and learning style of NAPLAN determine the subject content and learning style of the class room; a narrowing of the curriculum, which reduces class room learning to practice for the test (Angelo, 2012;Caldwell, 2012;Ewing, 2012;Thompson & Harbaugh, 2013); the privileging of high-stakes-tested subjects (Barton, Baguley & MacDonald, 2013, Ewing et al, 2011, and a lack of contextualised learning (Ewing et al, 2011;Thompson & Harbaugh, 2013).…”

“…Teachers' capacity to deliver quality arts education can be adversely effected by poor quality pre-service training (Barton et al, 2013;Garvis & Riek, 2010), limited experiences and expertise in the Arts (Jacobs, 2008), negatively biased perceptions of the status and relevance of arts education (Lemon & Garvis, 2013;Garvis & Pendergast, 2010), and limited opportunities for ongoing professional development (Guskey, 2002;Sze, 2013). RussellBowie (2012) contends that the development of teacher competence and confidence in delivering quality arts education will require reform.…”

Transforming Pedagogies: Encouraging Pre-service Teachers to Engage the Power of the Arts in their Approach to Teaching and Learning

“…Providing opportunities for pre-service teachers to build their confidence and explore the potential of learning in and through the arts within teacher education programs is impeded by time restraints and reduced funding, particularly expressed through limited staffing and narrow timetabling (Barton, Baguley and MacDonald, 2013), and by limited exposure to the arts during schooling (Lemon and Garvis, 2013). Arts practice has been squeezed in schools so that pre service teachers frequently come into teacher education with very little arts experience and confidence, unless they have actively sought out experiences or had some successes in the arts at school.…”