Annika Hellman

1.24 The Art of Becoming a Visual Arts Teacher – the Wildebeest, the Feeling-Beast and the Cat (Paper)

Annika Hellman – Malmö university, Sweden

Abstract:

In this research study, I ask what becoming a sustainable visual arts teacher might look like, and how a sustainable teaching practice might be created. The problem for education, and teachers’ becoming, is that formal schooling presumes how life should be lived there, how the assemblage of learning should be composed and the prescribed identities of humans and objects. This article aims to explore visual arts teachers’ becoming as a relational and entangled process. A Deleuze and Guttarian framework for thinking about the becoming ( – teacher) involves relational and differentiated co-becoming that fold, unfold and refold in the process of becoming. The research questions of this article explore the potentials of the concept of becoming animal to activate and facilitate thinking differently about visual arts teachers’ becoming. By mapping the academic degree project of one visual arts teacher student, this research investigates how multiple lines of becoming a visual arts teacher change and intermingle through the degree project.

4.19 Becoming a Visual Arts Teacher with A/r/tography: Dealing with Desires, Doubts and Fears in Examinations in Art Teacher Education (Paper)

Annika Hellman – Malmö university, Sweden

Tarja Karlsson Häikiö – University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Abstract:

Topic: Examination practice in art teacher education in Sweden is a part of the development of professional practice in compulsory, secondary and upper secondary education. In art teacher education, a double didactic perspective involves the learning of the student teacher and their future teaching of students in the visual arts [Sw. Bild]. This paper focuses on an examination of student teachers in the visual arts.

Aim / Research questions: The study aims at making visible complexities of student teachers becoming visual arts teachers and how they negotiate visual desires, research methods, and doubts and fears in the process of becoming teachers. Research question: How do student teachers negotiate their positions as artist, researcher and teacher in relation to challenges within the subject of visual arts, as articulated in their final examination projects in art teacher education?

Theory: A/r/tography is an exploratory research methodology (Irwin, 2004) entailing the triangulation of positions as artist, researcher and teacher. Göthlund and Lind (2010) define a double perspective in which research- and art-based methodologies are used in art teacher education to enhance student teachers’ learning. Compared to a/r/tography, the double perspective contributes to articulating knowledge in the making as a researcher and artist but sometimes sidelines the educational perspectives of teachers. A/r/tography offers a third position as a teacher for student teachers.

Methodology/Findings: The research question is analysed based on three examination project portfolios where the different subject positionings as artist, researcher and teacher were explored through a/r/tography in relation to double perspectives in art teacher education. The results indicate how a/r/tography can be used for reflected learning in becoming-teacher through student teachers’ efforts to encompass their future professional roles. The results show the challenges of student teachers in confronting their desires, doubts and fears in their learning processes during art teacher education.

References:

Göthlund, A., & Lind, U. (2010). Intermezzo – A performative research project in teacher training, International Journal of Education through Through Art, 6(2), 197–212. https://doi.org/10.1386/eta.6.2.197_1

Hellman, A. & Karlsson Häikiö, T. (2020). A/r/tography in visual arts teacher training program examination. In T. Karlsson Häikiö & A. Hellman (2020) (Eds.), TRACES Visual Arts Education in Sweden. IMAG InSEA MAGAZINE N.º 9, 210-–218. https://doi.org/10.24981/2414-3332-7.2020-21

Irwin, R. L. (2004). A/r/tography. A metonymic métissage. In R. Irwin & A. de Cosson (Eds.), A/r/tography: Rendering the self through art-based living inquiry (pp. 27–38). Pacific Educational Press.