Young people should be provided with the opportunity to become critical and active engagers with visual media; to be literate in a contemporary, dynamic world wherein they are often bombarded with implicit and explicit visual messages. In this way, I believe it is my responsibility to support and develop students’ critical inquiry - enabling them to actively interrogate and contribute to their communities and to wider society.

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My approach to teaching places the student at the centre of the educational experience and seeks to maximise their critical-thinking skills and abilities. I believe art education is uniquely positioned to facilitate heuristic and experiential learning, whereby risk-taking and divergent thinking are instrumental aspects of fostering creativity, innovation, and enterprise. Through such practices, students are encouraged to take responsibility for their development in a co- constructed learning environment. In my experience, such a setting supports the student in becoming an active agent in their own education. Therefore, as a teacher, it is my responsibility to coordinate and attend to such an engagement within my art and design classroom.

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As a painter, I work within a process- orientated context, whereby the progression of my work carries equal significance to the final creative output. This transcends to the learning experience that I endeavour to create for my students. Emphasis is placed on their investigation of different concepts, through the employment of a broad range of skills and media. I believe this encourages the learner to gain a more holistic understanding of the cyclical nature of the artistic process - to research, to respond and to create.

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I value art as a way of addressing authentic and real issues in society. In this way, art education should not be separated from life outside of the parameters of a school environment. Rather, I strongly believe that students should be equipped with the fundamental skills to meet the challenges of life beyond the educational setting. I propose that this can be achieved by tackling subject matter which is relevant and important to young people’s lives. Students are enabled to confront real issues through the concept, knowledge, and skills- based domains of artmaking. However, what is also required in fostering such critical awareness is input from the artworld into formal art education. From my recently developed short course, collaboration and intervention from a visiting artist and guest speaker was essential in supporting students’ interpretation and critique of media representations of their local community. Students are exposed to a variety of concepts and professional practices, which can lie some distance from the usual scope of the classroom; thus enhancing and extending the possibilities of their learning.

 

In tandem with the development of their artistic practice, I believe it is important for students to gain an appreciation of the attitudes and values that are inherent to visual artmaking; improving their self- confidence, critical awareness, well-being, imagination, and creativity. Therefore, establishing an open-ended, collaborative learning environment is essential. I strongly advocate for the inclusion of formative assessment in fostering such a setting. It is apparent from my developed schemes of work that peer critiques, group reviews, and class presentations are a significant aspect of my teaching. In my opinion, this not only encourages students to take responsibility of their own learning, but, also to contribute to the improvement and development of others within their peer group.

 

In the future, I aspire to improve my dual-identities as an artist, teacher, and researcher. Through more extensive and prolonged experiences within an educational environment, I wish to develop my pedagogical practices and approaches to teaching. Personal self- appraisal and reflective practice are fundamental components in harbouring such an improvement. My recent research report into the inclusion of visual culture literacies in the second- level art curriculum has provided me with skills in conducting qualitative research. It is my ambition to further improve these skills through classroom- based research. I endeavour to become an active contributor to the field of art education and curriculum design – not simply a passive deliverer of its content.