Teaching art through creating art : co-developing a Visual Arts pedagogy in partnership with Foundation Phase teachers

Abstract

Visual arts prove to be beneficial for learners on a variety of developmental levels. In the context of the South African educational system, the Foundation Phase teacher, as a generalist class teacher, is responsible for the presentation of visual arts categorised within the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement for life skills curriculum. Essentially, this makes the visual arts praxis and pedagogy of the Foundation Phase teacher important attributes to consider. This qualitative research project explored the collective experiences of a cohort of Foundation Phase teachers, establishing an essential understanding of their praxis and pedagogy within visual arts. Visual arts education is regarded to be participatory in all aspects; therefore, participatory action learning and action research (PALAR) was selected as research method. I embraced PALAR, not only as a research method but also as a paradigm that is underpinned by a participatory and transformative philosophy. Cooperatively, through arts-based strategies such as photovoice, visual journaling and reflective group conversations, the co-researchers and I explored and identified their diverse and authentic needs and challenges when presenting visual arts. The findings highlighted the perceived value the co-researchers ascribed to visual arts education. An array of challenges experienced by the co-researchers in presenting visual arts were discovered. The findings further accentuated the role parents play in supporting visual arts education and the importance of the home environment in contributing to the creative development of learners. In addition, the research focused on collaboratively conceptualising and implementing strategies formulated from the co-researchers’ collective experiences to assist them in the enhancement of their visual arts praxis and pedagogy. The research also attempted to initiate an interest in the noticeable gap in knowledge pertaining to Foundation Phase teachers’ visual arts praxis within the South African educational context.