Abstract
This qualitative study explores how a community of enquiry pedagogy in combination with a social semiotic approach to visual analysis influenced the changing knowledge and concepts of knowledge experienced by students in an undergraduate teacher education course. The art of the Constitutional Court of South Africa was the focus of our study and students developed structured and logical frameworks for analysing artworks as well as playing with laterally extending concepts such as art, justice, equality and humanity. The findings suggest that the dialogical and embodied practice of a community of enquiry pedagogy and the meaning-making strategies offered by a social semiotic approach to visual analysis strongly influenced my students’ and my own awareness of knowledge as a creative and experiential opening up and as a companion to the equally valuable experience of not knowing. Visual and embodied forms of knowledge explored through artworks forged a link between ‘self’ and ‘learning self’. These findings have implications for the selection of appropriate teacher education pedagogies.
Highlights
Easy access to a range of meaning-making strategies in the early learning phases of schooling can enhance learning and create an inclusive environment for learners with different learning styles (Bruce, 2004: 107)
Due to a history of purposeful exclusion of creative activities for the majority of children, South African school authorities have an immense challenge in transforming schools into welcoming, productive and creatively shared spaces incor porating the arts into the curriculum in a meaningful way
Drawing data from a wide range of research undertaken in primary schools in South Africa, Fleisch (2007) identifies the low expectation that teachers have of their learners as a key contributor to poor performance among children in South Africa
Summary
Easy access to a range of meaning-making strategies in the early learning phases of schooling can enhance learning and create an inclusive environment for learners with different learning styles (Bruce, 2004: 107). This suggests that art education should provide rich and generative possibilities for children in our primary schools. Tertiary institutions of education have, as one of their many impossible tasks, that of transforming students into art teachers for the general education and training band. What has emerged through working in the arts with student teachers, is that the learning goes beyond the Perspectives in Education. I consider some of the implications this has for the development of primary level art teachers and the development of generalist primary educators
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