ABSTRACT
Much work over the last three decades on creativity calls into question the marginal role of the arts in schools all over the world (Abbs, 2007; Bowman, 2005; Bresler, 2004, 2007; Bruner, 1990; Csikszentmihalyi, 1997; Robinson, 1982, 2001; Seidel, Tishman, Winner, Hetland, & Palmer, 2009). Creativity and education scholars point to the curtailment of meaning-making opportunities for students and the specics of what is being lost for learners and learning (Custodero, 2005; Eisner, 2005; Greene, 2000; Hostetler, Macintyre Latta, & Sarroub, 2007; Webster, 2002; Wiggins, 2002, 2009). ese scholars argue that the arts have the potential to be mediums, instilling the power of creativity into our lives. ey further argue that human beings are fundamentally creative and we see every reason to respect this inherent gi, working with the tremendous possibilities the arts hold for teaching/learning of all kinds. By valuing personal knowings, interpretations, and expressions, and relying on dialogue and participation as a means to this sense making, artistic experiences are felt and lived through as a whole. In so doing, the act of creating and the relations encountered can never be reduced to rules. Rather, judgments are made on an ongoing basis, always searching for a rightness of t. e act of creating positions students between the content they are addressing, the ideas and concepts they are working with, and the form the search takes. And, it is within this in-between position that at some point the materials, sounds, expressions, and movements become a medium, precipitated through the act of creating. Dewey (1934) calls this “sensitivity to a medium as a medium” at “the very heart of all artistic creation and artistic perception” (p. 199). A movement of thinking ensues; it is a moving force holding a spirit worth attention. e situation and/or materials, sounds, expressions, and movements talk back, and students respond to the “back talk” (Schon, 1983). Such back talk suggests education is interdependent with the primacy of relations. In other words, teachers ought to be promoting interactive, deliberative, caring relationships between students and subject matter. e arts enable this as they oer practices that are inherently relational. Visual artists, musicians, thespians, and dancers
concretely negotiate materials, sounds, expressions, movements, spaces, and time. Philosophers for centuries have turned to the arts as exemplary forms of such ontological reciprocity-the negotiation of self-other relations (see for example Dewey, 1934; Gadamer, 1960/1992; Hegel, 1964/1886; Kant, 1952/1790; Schiller, 1954/1795). Much current work on pedagogy claims that it is within this relational space of self and other that learning takes place (Biesta, 2004; Bingham & Sidorkin, 2004; Macintyre Latta, 2005; Noddings, 2003, 2005). Relational pedagogy positions participants to enter learning as creators, embracing the risks and opportunities.
