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Our Process for 2020-2021
The inquiry process is structured to enable lead teachers from each participating school to meet four times over the year for professional development and to share their observations on the impact of artmaking within the studio for student learning.
This year our meetings took place online due to Covid with presentations by Dr. Sylvia Kind in November and Aaron-Nelson Moody (Splash) in February. Dr. Kind is an artist, scholar and ‘atelierista’ at Capilano University in the Department of Early Childhood Education and Pedagogy. She presented some of her current work and research in cultivating the studio as an ever-evolving space of thinking and co-creation. Sylvia is interested in the spaces where children’s ideas collide and intersect, activating new avenues of thinking and discovering. Splash, whose Squamish name means “Splashing Eagle”, is a Coast Salish carver and teacher who has shared his work, practice and cultural knowledge with students in schools across Vancouver for more than a decade.
Although our inquiry was entirely online this year, data was still gathered and documented by teachers over the course of the residencies through photos, shared observation, teacher and student written reflections and post residency on-line debrief interviews.
Teachers from each school participating in the AIRS program come together four times during the year to share their observations and reflect on the impact of collaborating with a resident artist within a dedicated studio in their school on student learning. Each school develops its own inquiry question specific to their specific school context. For the 2012/20 school year, inquiries were developed under the overarching question: "How does sustained collaboration with a resident artist in an established studio impact student learning in relation to the curriculum, the core competencies and the FirstPeoples’ Principles of Learning?" Findings from the collaborative inquiry are documented and compiled into a year end final report that can be accessed below.
The 2019/20 inquiry was facilitated by Christine Giesbrecht, district mentor support teacher with presentations by Maggie Milne Martens, AIRS director and Indigenous teaching artists Shelley MacDonald and Candice Halls-Howcroft.
While each studio invited a unique experience for students dependent on the vision of the artist and the kinds of material engagements students were offered, there was marked consistency in teacher observations of student learning across all sites. One of the key findings is the way in which the art making process powerfully builds student capacity in all of the core competency areas with particular intensity in the areas of creativity as well as positive personal and cultural identity, personal and social awareness and social responsibility. Risk-taking, independent problem solving, and openness to new ideas were all habits of mind that were observed and fostered in the studio. More importantly, the artmaking process has demonstrable impact on
student’s sense of self, building confidence in their own creative capacities and the value of their ideas. For many students who struggle in the classroom, the studio is a place for them to flourish and for their talents to be recognized and valued.
It is important to note that these learning outcomes were not pre- determined goals but were observed as being intrinsically nurtured through the art making process itself; that in the midst of the messy, chaotic, non-linear, haptic, and sometimes frustrating process of wrestling and transforming raw materials into significant form, that students are themselves transformed.
On February 19, 2020 teachers who have AIRS studios in their schools gathered as a part of the collaborative inquiry process. In this session, the teachers shared how students are engaging in the studio with the artists, and discussed how art making processes might intersect with Indigenous protocols and perspectives. The gathering was facilitated by indigenous artists and art educators, Shelley MacDonald and Candice Halls (pictured below left), who joined the discussion to share their knowledge and invite teachers into a deeper understanding of how to integrate Indigenous ways of knowing and the arts into their classrooms.
Please listen to the abridged audio recording of the session in which Shelly MacDonald and Candice Halls guide the group through a conversation about integrating both the arts and indigenous ways of knowing into the classroom.
Produced by Sadie Couture
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In 2018/2019 teachers came together to discuss the impact of the AIRS studios on their students and their school communities. There were several guest speakers, who brought their expertise to the group to frame the insights that the teachers were experiencing first hand.
We noticed the connection between material practice and the emphasis on process with evidence of social emotional learning in students. Using tools from fingers and hands to knives, pliers and hammers to transform and manipulate materials brought a sense of confidence, accomplishment and self-reliance. Responding to the world through tactile and unfolding processes provides space for students to slow down, look closely and give space to the complexity of ordinary things.
In the studios, students were encouraged to work inclusively and collaboratively, whether through larger projects in which every student contributed to the whole or more individually with a mindset of shared inquiry. This allowed students to take risks through exploration, experimentation, and the exchange of ideas. It also opened students up to the different perspectives, ways of seeing and imaginings of others.
Teachers noticed the way in which art enabled students to find their own voice through art, to share their own stories and make connections to place and community in a deep and powerful way.
Teachers noted the importance of the studio for providing a place of safety and freedom of expression in an environment of non-judgement. The studio space enabled students to expand their horizon of what art and the endless possibilities inspired by the imagination.. The art studio provides a shared space for creating embedded within the whole school which builds a sense of belonging within the school and the wider community.
For our first AIRS collaborative inquiry session of the 2018/19 school year, lead teachers had the privilege of hearing Dr. Jane Garland speak on Social Emotional Learning and the visual arts. Jane is professor emeritus of clinical psychiatry at UBC, and has been working in the field of mental health for over 30 years. She is the founder and director of the mood and anxiety disorder clinic at Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, author of Taming the Worry Dragons and has been influential in bringing Social Emotional Learning awareness into the redesigned BC curriculum.
Social Emotional Learning is a process that can be taught. Jane shared that in order for social emotional learning to occur, one must be in a state of awareness– being present in time and space; beembodied - through an integration of sensory experience; and maintain a state of calmfocus or emotional equilibrium. This enables the processes of social emotional learning to occur; observation– attending to both detail and how it relates to the big picture; reflection– creating an internal picture in one’s mind and assessing this in relation to existing knowledge; andresponding - through purposeful action. It was striking to see how the visual arts naturally invite students to enter into a state of mindful attentiveness and that the processes that train the capacity for social emotional learning are present within the art making process itself.
Jane spoke about how the AIRS program confirmed what years of clinical experience had taught her, that the arts naturally foster and can train the capacities and processes necessary for social emotional learning to occur. The visual arts invite close perception, attention to emotion and the expression of feelings as well as visualization through observation and 3D modelling. The sharing of student work within the school affirms the unique vision of each child within a community of different but equally valuable imaginings, creating a powerful sense of belonging within community. The visual arts are a fundamental language of expression that is inclusive and accessible for all learning and cultural differences.
Christine Giesbrecht, one of our District Mentor Support Teachers with extensive art teaching experience, invited us to consider the relationship between studio habits of mind (Develop craft; Understand Art Worlds; Engage and Persist; Envision; Stretch and Explore; Reflect; Express and Observe) and the development of social emotional learning. A key component is comfort with ambiguity both for students, in taking risks and moving through the place of the unknown, and for teachers, in allowing students to encounter and experience ambiguity through more freedom and choice.
Dr. Sylvia Kind is a scholar in Early Childhood education and studio art research practices as well as the artist in residence at the Children’s centre at Capilano University. Sylvia encouraged us to consider the studio space as one of collaborative co-creation where teachers and students mutually and reflectively inform learning journeys. Sylvia explained that what we attend to whether through words or documentation shows students what we give value to in their learning process. Through more intentional documentation, that makes that learning visible to students, we can create opportunities for students to grow the habits of mind that foster social emotional learning.
These are the words teachers shared to encapsulate what they observed and experienced working with the artist in the studio.
Our inquiry process previously had revealed connections between art making in the studio and competencies associated with social emotional learning (SEL). In the 2017/18 school year lead teachers from each school participated in a district wide collaborative inquiry across all participating AIRS schools to consider the question:
“How does collaborating with a resident artist in an established studio impact student learning within the new curriculum and core competencies.”
Similar observations shared by teachers over the course of the inquiry and across very different sites, communities and art experiences confirmed for us the common benefits of focused, embedded art engagement for all students.
Benefits included:
· increased confidence and risk taking for students
· increased levels of focus and sustained attention
· empowerment for students who struggle within the classroom but flourish within a creative, hands-on context of non-judgement
· building of a greater sense of community
The Artist In Residence Studio program is honoured to be working together on the unceded, unsurrendered and traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm|Musqueam, Sḵwxwú7mesh|Squamish & səlilwətaɬ |Tsleil-Waututh people, where we learn, live and work. We humbly acknowledge that we are unlearning and relearning and with this acknowledgement comes the commitment to engage in ongoing acts of reconciliation.
PHONETIC PRONUNCIATION: xʷməθkʷəy̓əm - Musqueam (pronounced Mus-kwee-um) Sḵwxwú7mesh - Squamish Nation (pronounced Skwa-mish) səlilwətaɬ - Tsleil-Waututh (pronounced Slay-wah-tuth) Please do not capitalize x in xʷməθkʷəy̓əm & s in səlilwətaɬ Do capitalize S in Skwxwú7mesh *The above has been shared by Chas Desjarlais- District Principal of Indigenous Education.
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