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Frances Alter
University of New England
Terrence Hays
University of New England
Rebecca O'Hara
University of New England
QUALITY ARTS EDUCATION CAN produce positive learning outcomes, such as creating positive attitudes to learning, developing a greater sense of personal and cultural identity, and fostering more creative and imaginative ways of thinking in young children (Bamford, 2006; Eisner, 2002; Robinson, 2001). Arts-based processes allow children the opportunity to express their knowledge, ideas and feelings in ways that do not necessarily involve words (Livermore, 2003; Robinson, 2001). Unfortunately, the value of arts-based learning can often be overlooked because of the social and cultural dominance of literal language and written modes of expression (Eisner, 2002; Kress, 2000). Forming models of quality arts education in the early years of primary school can also be a highly problematic task. This has been highlighted in a series of recent national reviews that have investigated the current state of arts education in Australian schools. This national attention has in part focused on the level of preparedness of non–specialist teachers, in teaching the creative arts; music, dance, art and drama.
THIS ARTICLE DETAILS ASPECTS of a qualitative research study that investigated 19 Australian primary school teachers’ personal arts experiences and training, as well as their reflections upon their own arts pedagogy. These teachers did not identify themselves as skilled musicians, artists, actors or dancers. Through in-depth interviews a greater understanding was formed of the ways the participants attempted to manage inclusion of arts learning, in what many of them referred to as a ‘crowded curriculum’. The discussion of research findings highlights the important influence that participants’ own interactions with the various arts disciplines had upon their role as facilitators of creative arts education. The recommendations and conclusions of this article call for improvements to the quality of creative arts teaching and learning in primary schools through a range of measures.
Introduction
The creative arts as a key learning area within the primary curriculum is an essential component of every Australian primary school. Though uniquely different in appearance and method from each other, creative arts disciplines employ similar cognitive processes, ultimately allowing language and thought to be expressed through a variety of representations. The creative arts are represented not in the ordinary sense of language, as writing on a page, but in either a visual, kinaesthetic, aural or tactile form. Engaging children in the creative arts can allow them to communicate in potentially profound ways (Eisner, 2002). As Russell-Bowie (2009, p.5) points out:
Because the arts can embody and communicate emotions, ideas, beliefs and values, they can convey meaning through aesthetic forms and symbols and evoke emotive responses to life with or without words.
There is also evidence to suggest that school arts programs can enhance students’ potential to engage with school and learning more broadly (Australian Council for Educational Research, 2004; Bamford, 2006; Catterall, Chapleau & Iwanaga, 1999; Fiske, 1999). Unfortunately, there are gaps in our knowledge in regards to the cognitive processes and social capabilities that can be effectively fostered through the arts. While substantial studies into the academic impact of arts education programs in schools have been conducted in the UK and US, Gibson and Anderson (2008) argue that within the context of Australian schools there is an urgent need for a detailed study of the impact of arts programs. This individual small-scale study provides further insights into the impact and status of the arts in Australian primary schools. It has the advantage of looking across the full range of creative arts disciplines and is grounded in the field of professional practice.
Breaking the cycle of neglect
Internationally, there is a growing body of evidence that creative arts learning and engagement has a range of positive outcomes in terms of the lives of young people both in and out of school settings (Bamford, 2006; Catterall, Chapleau & Iwanaga, 1999; Deasy, 2002; Fiske, 1999). Sadly, despite a renewed interest in the unique benefits of creative arts learning, it appears that the subject matter remains marginalised in Australian primary schools (Gibson & Anderson, 2008). This marginalisation has been highlighted in a series of Australian research reports over the past two decades. One of the earliest was the 1985 Taskforce, action: Education and the arts (Commonwealth Department of Education, 1985). The taskforce’s report noted a number of inadequacies in creative arts education practices. In 1995, a major national government–funded investigation into the state of creative arts education in Australia was conducted by the Senate Environment, Recreation, Communications and the Arts References Committee (1995). The Senate Committee concluded that creative arts as a subject remained marginalised in Australian schools, and this had resulted from a lack of teacher’s confidence, skills, adequate training and resources (Gibson & Anderson, 2008).
More recent reviews of arts education in Australia, such as the National Review of School Music Education (Pascoe et al., 2005) and the National Review of Education in Visual Arts, Craft, Design and Visual Communication (Davis, 2008) have shown a continued serious deficit in these areas in primary education over the past decade. According to the authors of the music education review (Pascoe et al., 2005, p. 11):
The perennial challenge of music education lies in developing, implementing and sustaining a music curriculum that effectively engages students with the full range of benefits which could be derived from being involved in music.
The report recognised the difficulties of delivering quality programs, and recommended improving the equity of access, participation and engagement in school music for all students, and teacher pre-service and in-service education. The National Review of Visual Education (NRVE): Visual Arts, Craft, Design and Visual Communication (Davis, 2008) considered a number of key questions, many of which are pertinent to this study. For example, one of the key questions was, ‘What are the characteristics of high–quality visual education?’ A critical factor identified in the NRVE (Davis, 2008) report was the role of the teacher in effective visual education. The report suggests that the place and value of visual education in Australian primary schools needs to be reformed because the generalist primary teacher is ill–equipped to teach the visual arts. While there is yet to be a national review of drama or dance education, it is possible to see a characteristic pattern in creative arts education practices emerging through the visual arts and music education reviews.
Teacher experience, training and perceptions of the creative arts: A brief overview of the literature
An issue often raised among creative arts education professionals and researchers at an international level is whether generalist primary teachers (with no specialist arts knowledge) are capable of realising the learning potential of the creative arts in schools (Hargreaves, Lamont, Marshal & Tarrant, 2003; La Pierre & Zimmerman, 1997; Russell-Bowie & Dowson, 2005). One of the most substantial hindrances to effective teaching and learning of the creative arts in primary schools appears to be a lack of confidence in teachers. For example, a study conducted in the UK (Hargreaves, Lamont, Marshall & Tarrant, 2003) showed that primary school teachers lacked confidence in teaching music, and that it was a subject which caused them the most stress in their teaching. Some studies have shown that the way that teachers’ perceive themselves in regard to their own artistic abilities connects directly to the level of effectiveness they demonstrate as arts teachers (Welch, 1995). Within a study conducted by Housego (cited in Welch, 1995) it was asserted that there are two significant, yet corresponding, factors attributed to a teacher’s self-perception. These include teaching self-efficacy (or the individual’s sense of whether they have the skills and abilities to assist student learning), and one’s beliefs about one’s own preparedness to teach. Russell-Bowie and Dowson’s (2005, p.7) study of 936 generalist primary teachers across five countries found (a) that most ‘… had very little formal background in any of the art forms’ and (b) that ‘… in every creative arts area, background is very strongly, and positively, predictive of confidence and enjoyment in teaching’ regardless of gender.
Research in North America and England has also shown that something closely linked to the issue of the preparedness of generalist primary teachers to teach the creative arts is the value and status teachers attribute to arts subjects. Eisner (1994, 2002) in the US and Holt (1997) in the UK argue that values and attitudes are fundamental to the role and purpose of the creative arts in education. Eisner (1994, p.17) claims that: ‘We are expecting [generalist primary] teachers to teach what they do not know and often do not love.’ A lack of value and support for the creative arts in learning at a systemic level can perpetuate already low levels of esteem for the creative arts among teachers.
Methodology
A total of 19 teachers participated in this study and were drawn from 12 different schools across rural and regional northern NSW. Teachers were recruited using the technique of ‘snowball sampling’ (Minichiello, Aroni & Hays, 2008, p.333) and drew upon people who were either referred to the researcher by other people, or in turn, were referred by participants as the research progressed.
The teachers represented a variety of backgrounds and ages (between 20 and 60 years) and their level of expertise in the creative arts was not a factor in determining who was targeted to participate in the study. The participants taught at a range of levels in primary schools, from Transition/Kindergarten through to Year 6. This cross-section also included teachers who held different executive positions, such as teaching principals, as well as teachers who taught classes with particular needs, such as mainstream special-needs classes. The participants were also drawn from a cross-section of schools. The sample included:
- schools with different-sized student populations—from one-teacher schools to very large multi-class per grade schools with a high proportion of Indigenous students
- schools from both the public and independent sectors of the education system
- schools located in regional centres
- schools that were remote and isolated in rural and regional settings.
The varied backgrounds and characteristics of both the participants and schools provided a typical cross-section of school and teacher profiles in Australia.
During the first stage of data collection, a focus group lasting 70 minutes and consisting of one male and five female teachers was used to explore the critical aspects of teaching creative arts in primary education. The teachers who participated in the focus group discussions also took part in the follow-up in-depth interviews. The purpose of these in-depth interviews was to clarify specific meanings and understandings that participants had presented within the focus group. An outline of the backgrounds of the six focus group participants is provided in Table 1. The backgrounds of a further 13 participants are included in Table 2. Aliases were used to identify and distinguish between the participants. These tables detail the teachers’ gender, the grade/s they teach, as well as a brief outline of the school’s context and location, their age bracket, and an overview of their teaching experience.
The in-depth interviews
All of the interviews were spaced and conducted over a period of six months. They commenced in March 2004 and concluded in August of the same year. The interview data collected was analysed using the methods of grounded theory. The use of this approach allowed concepts and categories to emerge, as key components were not pre-imposed before collection and analyses occurred (Wildy, 2003; Denzin & Lincoln, 2003; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Propositions and interpretations of the data were verified by employing deductive mechanisms that compared concepts, categories and links. Coding enabled the formation of concept and category groups that remained ‘provisional’ until they were found repeated in other interviews with other participants. For example, some of the concepts that were repeated in the interviews were:
- the practice of utilising others and working together to implement lessons
- the availability of galleries and resources to support teaching
- the influence of families and communities in developing creative arts skills and interest.
The data was analysed according to Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) methodology for grounded theory. Upon transcribing the taped in-depth interviews, open coding was applied to the transcribed texts, singling out key words and then comparing them in a variety of ways and searching for links. Through axial coding the data was then re-organised, highlighting central associations. This resulted in the establishment of categories and subcategories for grouping data, followed by the proposing and testing stage of the analysis process. Relationships between the categorical groups were tested and patterns within the data were discovered.
Member checking was used as a way of verifying the accuracy of the data and the final findings. Member checking involved reporting the research findings back to the focus group participants to verify that their understandings were accurately reflected by the data. These participants agreed that the study’s findings exposed the core and character of creative arts pedagogy in their primary schools.
Findings
The findings of the study revealed that the participants were concerned with the teaching expectations of the primary school curriculum, specifically the learning standards and outcomes set out for the creative arts.
A number of factors contributed to them believing they could not fulfil all of these teaching expectations. Some of the key issues teachers frequently referred to in their interviews were:
- inter-related issues of time and the quantity of curriculum material requiring coverage
- the accountability to which teachers were held in other Key Learning Areas
- the broad scope of subject content within the creative arts
- teachers’ evaluation of their own creative arts knowledge and skills; the level of confidence expressed by individual teachers to teach arts disciplines
- perceptions of the value and status given to the creative arts.
These factors are discussed briefly in the following passages.
Issues of time
The issue of time and quantity of subject matter in primary learning and development was a concern of all the participants. Many participants used the terms like ‘over-crowded’ or ‘crowded’ when describing the state of the curriculum.
The teachers expressed feelings of being overwhelmed with the needs of all of the curriculum areas, and said this resulted in a reduction in the time they devoted to creative arts education. Some teachers felt that the time devoted to the creative arts was also pressured by the preparation necessary to facilitate activities—such as provision of art materials, preparation and clean-up, as well as finding resources. Additionally, the majority of teachers believed their teaching time was dominated by an attention to English and mathematics because the demands of departmental directives necessitated that students achieve benchmark standards in literacy and numeracy. In the following reflection, Tony stated:
In the last four or five years the government’s seen how easy it has been to make schools accountable for maths and English, and schools often teach up to 60 per cent of their time in those two areas. That’s two KLAs [Key Learning Areas] out of six! Where’s the other four? And, by the way, the other four sometimes seem more difficult because we’re trying to divide them up into these little boxes.
At least eight of the teachers similarly felt the precedence of specific subjects necessitated a negotiation between whether more or less time could be afforded to teaching the creative arts.
Scope of the subject area
In general, the expectation of creative arts teaching and learning was considered a rather unrealistic expectation, demanding a breadth of knowledge and skills that most of the 19 teachers felt that they did not possess. The view that too much was expected of teachers in regard to teaching all of the creative arts subjects was clearly expressed by the participants, particularly Jackie, Jules and Gary. Jackie objected to the assumption that primary teachers were capable of teaching anything. She asserted that ‘No teacher can do all areas perfectly’. Jules said, ‘I just think that the Education Department thinks that primary school teachers are supposed to be good at everything, and people aren’t like that’. Gary also considered this a huge demand on their individual skills and knowledge. He stated:
I mean it is asking a bit too much to suggest that a person can actually adequately clench the six KLA, but the bits of the six KLA. When you look at drama, music, art and craft, you get only a very few performance people in the big world (laugh) who are good at all those.
Gary, like a number of other teachers in the study, considered it impossible even for people specifically trained in the arts to know and be competent in all teaching facets of the field. The fact that the educational system requires primary teachers to be skilled enough to teach ‘everything’ was felt by Jules to be an unrealistic expectation of them in relation to their individual skills and knowledge.
Skills, knowledge and confidence
Overall, the participants considered that their individual skills and knowledge in each of the creative arts influenced their ability to adequately deliver effective practices. In the following statement, Ross raised a point about the quality of arts teaching being highly variable among teachers:
I think everybody realises that it depends on the individual, how talented they are in an arts area is how good they are going to be teaching it (laugh) unfortunately.
It was found that most participants had similar understandings. It was also noted that each of the teachers tended to avoid speaking about areas within the creative arts where they believed they did not have adequate skills and knowledge.
The data analysis revealed varying levels of teacher confidence in relation to teaching in the four arts disciplines. The words and phrases teachers used to describe their degree of confidence were used to group them into one of three levels, expressed as: lack of confidence, limited confidence and confidence. These are presented in Figure 1, where the levels of confidence for each subject area are compared. The figure shows how the participants felt more confident in teaching visual arts, and least confident in teaching music.
All of the participants stated that they utilised the skills of other people to assist learning in different aspects of the creative arts. These people were often referred to as ‘consultants’, ‘artists’, ‘colleagues’, ‘specialists’, ‘the parent body’ and ‘highly qualified or trained people’. The delegation of teaching ranged from total delegation to partial delegation, and included working together in a partnership with others. At least half the participants said they delegated the responsibility for teaching music and choral activities to other people. The rationale for this delegation was that they felt very uncomfortable teaching in this specific subject area.
Many participants expressed the view that their arts experiences in the tertiary education environment had been limited. For example, when asked to describe her training, Lindi stated, ‘At Teachers College I had to do recorder, and then for art I can remember making a kite. It was just your very, very basic training.’ Lindi, like many others, felt she could have gained a lot more from these professional experiences if there had been a greater focus on pedagogy as well as skill development.
There were some differences in the ways both the early carer and senior teachers viewed their initial pre-service arts education training. Teachers with 10 to 20 or more years of teaching experience indicated that they were exposed in limited ways to the visual arts, music and craft activities in their teacher training encounters. Other participants with between five and 10 years teaching experience showed that they had been exposed to a greater variety of art forms. However, it was interesting to note that, although their experiences were broader, they also presented their teacher training as limited.
Personal perspectives: Valuing of the arts
Collectively, the participants indicated that the creative arts have value in learning and society. The teachers not only focused on their own values associated with the Key Learning Area, but also on their perception of the values and attitudes held by society in general, students, and students’ family members.
Participants described how they valued the creative arts for the foundational skills they provided for learning and development. They related how they used the creative arts to:
- develop fine motor skills
- assist in the development of social skills
- develop student confidence
- enrich learning throughout the curriculum as cross-curricular programming.
Despite revealing that they valued the creative arts for the way they assisted in the promotion of these outcomes, it was noted that there was little attention given to cognitive aspects of learning in the arts. Many of the teachers related how the creative arts were ‘not as academic’ as other curriculum areas. Many also admitted that creative arts subjects were practised irregularly, and that the priority they give to the collective area was often lower than other areas within the primary curriculum.
Participants often stated that they had particular interest in one area or another of the creative arts, although they had some difficulty in describing where their interest originated. Family support emerged as a factor in six of the participants’ interviews. According to these individuals, their families were influential in both positive and negative ways in developing interests and skills. Some, like Jules, Jean and Paula, stated that their family had a negative influence. For example, Paula said, ‘I don’t think I was encouraged at home to do, or to be involved in, the arts.’ Alternatively, Gabrielle, Marie and Jane indicated that their families provided some positive influence in dance and drama, and the visual arts and music respectively, and linked them with outside school activities as children. These were described as a casual development of interests. When reflecting upon the educational status of the creative arts, 15 participants thought that people in the community continued to believe that the creative arts are without functional or economic purpose.
Despite their view that the creative arts did not have educational status in the school and community, many of the teachers emphasised that they believed attitudes and opinions were shifting. They indicated that the creative arts were continuing to grow in importance within education and in other aspects of life. This was attributed to a greater valuing of the subject area. For instance, Dani stated that:
I think we’re more aware of the values [the creative arts] has than we were a long, long time ago and I think we value, in our schools, kids who are musical—they’re artistic or they’ve got excellent drama skills. I think we value that more.
In comparing past with current values, Dani appeared to believe that the creative arts have not yet reached their full educational potential.
Discussion
The study shows how teachers’ life experiences shape the way they approach the creative arts within the curriculum program of their primary classrooms. There was a direct relationship between the participants’ skills, knowledge and their confidence to teach each subject area—and these factors were dynamically related to their prior experiences within the individual areas of the creative arts. All of the participants believed that the lack of quality arts education, and the time devoted to teaching in this Key Learning Area at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, did not adequately prepare them for their responsibilities in the primary classroom. They felt overwhelmed by the demands of content knowledge and skills required to teach in all of the creative arts subjects. Many considered that it was impossible (including those specifically trained in arts disciplines) to be skilled and competent in teaching all facets of the field. Those with limited arts experiences, knowledge and skills in one or more of the creative arts subjects also found that they struggled to develop student learning in these areas. They said they either taught to their strengths or delegated responsibility for teaching to others with greater expertise.
The findings show that overall the teachers felt more confident in teaching the visual arts and least confident with music. This was attributed to insufficient music training, the complexity of music as a subject, and their own perceived lack of talent in the subject. The data showed these teachers used fairly simple approaches to introduce students to music, but with little understanding of pedagogy or developmental programs to build foundational knowledge. In contrast, the approach taken to the visual arts showed that the teachers not only provided students with structured learning tasks but also allowed them to be creative. They described how they provided students with the opportunity to explore an array of visual arts media and activities in the classroom.
Recommendations
A number of recommendations for future directions in educational policy and practice stem from the study. These include:
- a significant increase in the amount of pre-service teacher training in the creative arts
- further in-service teacher support in the area of creative arts for generalist primary teachers
- appointment of more creative arts specialist teachers in primary schools
- a greater allocation of time to creative arts learning within the general primary curriculum
- further research that examines Creative Arts education practices in Australian schools.
Further discussion of these five recommendations is included below.
Providing more arts training in pre-service teacher courses would go some way to redressing a lack of prior arts background. The regularity of comments about a lack of depth and relevance in these courses by the participants of this study suggests there is an urgent need for reforms to arts education curricula at this level. The findings of the study also show that it is difficult to compensate for an individual’s lack of arts background given the limited amount of time available for arts pedagogy in undergraduate pre-service training programs. Within NSW universities, creative arts education components in undergraduate teaching degrees have been systematically reduced in recent years (Gibson & Anderson, 2008).
Further levels of in-service teacher support in the area of the creative arts for generalist primary teachers would provide professional teachers with the opportunity to improve their knowledge and skills in each of the arts disciplines, and develop a valuable range of teaching resources. The findings of this study show there is an urgent need for greater support of qualified teachers in the classroom. In most cases the participants described a situation in which they had little or no in-service training and support.
The participants of this study often described how they actively sought out expert help from others when they felt their skills and knowledge were insufficient to the task of teaching any one of the arts strands. Appointment of specialist creative arts teachers in most Australian primary schools should provide mentorship, leadership and expertise within the whole school program. The number of arts specialists employed in primary schools varies between Australian states but there is an opportunity to break the cycle of neglect through active teacher recruitment. This study illustrates that the cycle of neglect begins in the early years of schooling, and that laying the foundations for future development in the creative arts is essential at this stage. Russell-Bowie (2009, p. 16) comments that, with recent structural changes in some state school systems, there is greater flexibility for school principals to advertise for teachers with specialist skills in the creative arts area. These teachers could act in an advisory role to assist and support other teachers who are less confident and skilled in the arts.
Reforms to the national curriculum in Australia could include a greater allocation of time to creative arts learning within the general primary curriculum. The teachers in the study consistently raised the pressures on time as a factor in maintaining the quality of their creative arts education programs. It appeared that the creative arts suffered the most of all curriculum areas in terms of regular and consistent time allocation. Currently the New South Wales Board of Studies (2009) recommends that teachers allocate between six and 10 per cent of their total teaching hours to the creative arts. The subject area, however, comprises four separate strands, and this can mean students may only spend 20 and 30 minutes per arts strand each week (Gibson & Anderson, 2008, p. 108). In contrast, English learning occupies more than a quarter and mathematics a fifth of the recommended allocation of total teaching hours (New South Wales Board of Studies, 2009).
Further research that examines creative arts education practices in the context of Australian schools would inform future strategic educational plans and policies aimed at improving the quality of education in primary schools. As some Australian arts education researchers have pointed out, research in this area is often small-scale and ad-hoc (Bamford, 2006; Gibson & Anderson, 2008). Unfortunately, there is a dearth of research in Australia that explores what might be considered as ‘best practice’ in creative arts teaching and learning (Gibson & Anderson, 2008). If this kind of research were to be conducted on a large scale and incorporate all the creative arts disciplines, it would create an opportunity to evaluate student learning outcomes and academic progress associated with quality education programs. It might also foreground positive teaching models that could act as a guide for both professional and trainee teachers in future years.
Conclusion
A number of valuable outcomes emerged from this study. Importantly, the study helped to establish a better understanding of the values and attitudes influencing approaches to creative arts education in the primary school milieu. The findings raise some of the core and contentious issues in regard to primary education in Australia, focusing on the central question of whether it is realistic to expect primary teachers to teach effectively in all areas of the primary curriculum. In this respect the study supports Alexander et al. (1992) in the proposition that the primary education system curriculum is a far too demanding expectation of a generalist teacher’s subject knowledge. Under such an arrangement it appears that creative arts suffer the most out of all the Key Learning Areas. Specifically, the breadth of knowledge and experience needed in order to teach all the creative arts subjects well was viewed by many of the participants in this study as beyond the skills of most generalist primary teachers. Furthermore, many of the participant teachers implied that because departmental directives in more recent years have demanded more time be spent on literacy and numeracy, this had direct consequences for the creative arts Key Learning Area. They also admitted it was difficult to have consistency and regularity in the arts curriculum, because of the time constraints and the lower educational priority given to the subject area in the curriculum. There are, however, promising signs that in future teachers will receive greater support at a systemic level. In late 2007 the Federal and state governments in Australia released a momentous joint National Statement on Education and the Arts that promises an unequivocal commitment to fostering arts education in schools. This arises because these government bodies understand the potential of the creative arts in fostering a culture of creativity and innovation in Australia’s school systems. In December 2008 the Federal Government passed a Bill to go ahead with a National Curriculum to be in place by 2012. The creative arts have been included in this new National Curriculum (Garrett, 2009).
This research study has shown that within the context of Australian education, the issues of teacher preparedness and value for the creative arts are highly relevant in regards to the quality of primary students’ artistic learning and development. It confirms the claims of a number of other Australian studies—that there is an undeniable gap that exists between the expectations of our curriculum frameworks and the preparation in arts areas that can be provided by initial teacher education courses, particularly at primary school level. Despite the fact that this study is particular to the Australian education context, the findings from this study are germane to the field as a whole. The information should assist individuals who are interested in promoting creative arts in learning and advocating for creative arts as core components in education programs or curricula.
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Australasian Journal of Early Childhood – Volume 34 No 4 December 2009, pp. 22–30.
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