Karen Maras

8.4 High School Art Teachers: Discipline and Learner-centred Pedagogy/ies, Challenging Curricula, Issues of Compliance and Agency (Paper)

Karen Maras – University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Fiona Blaikie – Faculty of Education, Brock University, Ontario, Canada

Abstract:

The paper examines conceptions of learner-centred and discipline centred pedagogies in art education encapsulated in equivalents of grades 11 and 12 in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IB) in Visual Arts, and the Australian New South Wales Stage 6 Visual Arts Syllabus (NSW). Tracing similar epistemological and aesthetic roots, IB and NSW have evolved into differentiated orientations to high school art pedagogy, yet both provide scope for praxis-oriented experiences supporting students’ burgeoning autonomy as developing artists in formalized high-stakes final examinations that draw on criterion referencing, articulated levels of achievement, and external examinations. Starting with a brief history of IB and NSW and comparison of high stakes pedagogy and examination protocols, key will be preparation for final examination via discipline and learner-centred pedagogy/ies, students’ independent self-directed inquiry/ies, and students viewed as becoming practicing artists rather than neophyte art learners. Discussion will shift to issues of student and teacher autonomy, agency/ies, interdependence, and compliance in relation to implementation of pedagogy, formative assessment, and high stakes final examination protocols. We contemplate how curriculum and assessment protocols define what counts as art, and what counts as art education. Further, we examine how these conceptions are taken forward and operationalized by high school art teachers in relation to discipline and learner-centred approaches, challenging curricula, issues of teacher and student compliance and agency in relation to high stakes examination practices in the field of art education. Further considerations for practice encompass internal and external policing of high school art teachers’ work; the contested space between state and private schools; internal and external expectations of art teachers and their students in relation to curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, agency and compliance.

8.18 Teacher Agency and the Possibility of Curriculum Making in Visual Arts Education in New South Wales, Australia (Paper)

Karen Maras – University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Abstract:

After 24 years without change the Visual Arts Years 11–12 Syllabus in New South Wales (NSW) is under revision. Curriculum reforms aim to ‘declutter’ syllabus content and shift emphasis to core and essential factual knowledge. Despite pressure to rationalise the novel and distinctive syllabus content and practices that have evolved in NSW Visual Arts, there is strong support from teachers and other stakeholders for the retention of the existing syllabus structure. They see its value in its responsiveness to continuities and discontinuities in artworld practices, the understanding of which is demonstrated by students in the assessment and examinations in the final year of schooling. 

After a brief exploration of the origins and structure of this syllabus content, I show how a ‘knowledge rich’ and ‘decluttered’ curriculum is already in place and meets reform criteria. In asserting that any reduction to existing core and essential content in this syllabus potentially undermines the coherence and rigour of the syllabus, I draw attention to the potential risks for and impact on the quality of student achievement in art making and art interpretation. Further, I explore how the existing syllabus content resists the ‘learnification’ of Visual Arts and respects the role of art educators as transformative teachers in the classroom. In arguing that the current syllabus provides art educators the freedom to negotiate, mediate and interpret syllabus content, I highlight ways the existing syllabus content supports agential curriculum making in the enactment of curriculum in the senior years of Visual Arts. The significance of the presentation lies in its emphasis in understanding more deeply how art educators can be supported by the design of syllabus content in balancing obligations to fidelity of implementation whilst exercising professional agency in curriculum making to suit the diverse needs of students in the varying contexts of art education.