The Arts as a Catalyst for Change:
Engaging Students with Art
through Words, Play, and
Movement
Ms. Siti Rafidah Binte Rahman
Art Teacher
Temasek Junior College
#inspo – NAEA 2018
The main source of inspiration for my CI
Project came from the National Art Education
Association (NAEA) Convention 2018 in
Seattle, Washington. NAEA was a rich source
of inspiration where various teachers from
different backgrounds shared many strategies
and resources used in and outside of the art
classroom. I was particularly inspired by two
of the breakout sessions I attended.
The first breakout session that encouraged
me to explore using movement and play
in my art classroom was #STAYWOKE -
Teaching Responsible Citizenship to Teens
by Adetty Pérez Miles, Shoshana McIntosh,
Monica Barrera, and Kathleen Hamrick. This
presentation explored multiple strategies for
introducing responsible citizenship in the
visual arts classroom through movement, art
making, media and technology. It also focused
on using counter-public art approaches, the
collective experience, and responsible online
citizenship in order to encourage awareness,
empathy, and action concerning wider social
issues, in order to enact change and allow
students to be “brave upstanders”.
C
Walking in space – Understanding the artist’s body through movement
hange, by definition, is an act or process through which
something becomes different. In many ways, the arts allow
change to happen through, among others, the process of
making, exploring, uncovering the accidental, and questioning.
When I first embarked on my Critical Inquiry Networked Learning Community
(CI NLC) project, I wanted to re-ignite some of my beliefs in what art learning
could offer to my students. I had hoped my students could be uninhibited in
their explorations and be inclined to question the world around them, thus
informing their artmaking journey. The idea for my CI Project stemmed from
the need to encourage this behaviour in students. In a climate where the
product and grades are paramount, arts education can be a good catalyst
for change, and the art educator is a crucial agent for this change to happen.
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The second session that inspired me was
Improv, Art, and Inclusion Workshop by
Chelsea Hogan. In this workshop, participants
learnt how to apply improvisation (improv)
techniques such as active listening, creating
an unscripted performance, flexibility and
play. Improv is an acting skill in which actors
learn to think of scenarios, dialogue, and
context on the spot. Improv strategies are
open-ended and can be used when analysing
art. These strategies encourage and develop
vocabulary, collaboration, collectiveness, and
idea-generation.
CI NLC 2018 Study Trip to Seattle.
An approach to counter-public art:
Counter-public art sticker designs to
champion a cause.
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