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Music and art education can often heal students' hearts and help them establish correct values.

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I want to say that there are a lot of movies which reflect the impacts or something about wars. These movies really make us think, about peace, about life

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I want to say that there are a lot of movies which reflect the impacts or something about wars. These movies really make us think, about peace, about life

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BREATHE [2019]

An Immersive Light Installation Controlled by Eco-Systems

Digital Agora, St Andrews, AUSTRALIA, September 2019

Breathe is an immersive art experience by the Melbourne art-technology duo PluginHUMAN. It is inspired by organic structures. This artwork features recycled acrylic tubes, printed with images of microscopic elements from natural environments. Inside the tubes are led lights. The colours and patterns of the lights are controlled by environmental changes that occur in significant international ecosystems. This immersive installation was created by PluginHUMAN in response to their research and field trips in the Amazon, Panama and Australia.

Breathe provides audiences with an organic encounter, one that's mediated by digital technology. This art lighting installation does not replicate nature. It presents hidden elements from natural environments, bringing the micro to macro scale. PluginHUMAN used microscopes, environmental sensing equipment and audio recording equipment (including hydrophones) to uncover aspects of nature that people cannot experience without the use of specialist tools. This installation makes concealed natural elements available to audiences in order for people to gain a new perspective and a deeper connection with our natural world.

BACKGROUND

In 2019 PluginHUMAN took part in the LabVerde: Artist Immersion in the Amazon program. During this program they conducted studies and collected environmental data from deep inside the Brazilian Amazon. The audio and environmental data they collected in the Amazon forms a core part of the Breathe audio and visual installation.

In 2019 PluginHUMAN collaborated with international environmental artists as part of the Digital Naturalism Conference and the Digital Naturalism Artist Laboratory program in Panama. This involved data collection, jungle-based field research, knowledge sharing and collaboration. The data that PluginHUMAN collected in Panama was fed into the audio and visuals of this artwork.

This artwork also involved collaboration with First Nations teams from Melbourne Museum (Australia). One installation of this artwork features both the immersive led light sculptures and a large abstract screen-based artwork that showcases contemporary perspectives on the Museum's First People's collection.

CREDITS

Betty Sargeant ~ Artist (micrographs), technical design, producer, field recordings

Justin Dwyer ~ Artist, technical design, programmer, composer

Thanks to Florian 'Floyd' Mueller and the Exertion Games Lab, Monash University, Australia.

RELATED LED ART AND ECO ARTWORKS

PluginHUMAN have created a series of environmental artworks. Breathe is part of a wider body of work. Betty Sargeant and Justin Dwyer have created five environmental artworks and art lighting sculptures that provide audiences with immersive and interactive experiences. These include the light sculpture and the video artwork .

ABOUT PluginHUMAN

PluginHUMAN is a multi-award-winning art duo led by Dr Betty Sargeant and Justin Dwyer. PluginHUMAN are at the progressive edge of their field, providing audiences with new cultural, environmental and scientific perspectives. Their artworks address the leading questions and concerns of our times.

PluginHUMAN's real time art centres around the art of illumination. They create projection mapping, video artworks, and led immersive multi-sensory environments. They use the medium of light to translate complex data into meaningful audience experiences.

PluginHUMAN has created commissioned artworks for institutions such as the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (Taiwan), the Asia Culture Centre (South Korea), (Australia's National Science and Technology Centre), the Melbourne Museum (White Night Festival, Australia) and Experimenta (Australian triennial touring media art exhibition). They have exhibited in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. PluginHUMAN were awarded the Rupert Bunny Foundation Visual Art Fellowship (2019/20); they're developing new carbon neutral and carbon negative materials and working methods. They have also won Good Design Awards (2020 and 2018), and a Victorian Premier's Design Award (2017).

PluginHUMAN has an acute understanding of the role that technology plays in contemporary society. They reimagine new technologies to produce artistic innovations, creating meaningful large and small scale audience experiences for indoor spaces and outdoor public arenas. They specialise in immersive and interactive art environments.

RELATED PROJECTS

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IMMERSIVE ART EXPERIENCE ~ BREATHE by PluginHUMAN

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Digital Agora , St Andrews, AUSTRALIA, September 2019 Breathe is an immersive art experience by the Melbourne art-technology duo PluginHUMAN . It is inspired by organic structures. This artwork features recycled acrylic tubes, printed with images of microscopic elements from natural environments. Inside the tubes are led lights.

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Dropbear: poet Evelyn Araluen Joins The Glasshouse to interrogate the tropes of an unreconciled nation

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Dropbear: poet Evelyn Araluen Joins The Glasshouse to interrogate the tropes of an unreconciled nation

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"Poet, cultural critic and Bundjalung woman Evelyn Araluen says her parents wanted to raise “politically aware and resilient Aboriginal kids with these textual influences'', such as Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, and Blinky Bill, “that often misrepresented or tokenised the landscape that they knew and loved”. Says Evelyn, “We can love and be interested in and engaged with problematic things, it just requires a lot of work.” And it’s this dichotomy that influenced her debut collection of poetry and prose Dropbear. Evelyn joins Beth AQ to chat about the collection, opening with a reading of one of the poems."

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Poet, cultural critic and Bundjalung woman Evelyn Araluen says her parents wanted to raise "politically aware and resilient Aboriginal kids with these textual influences'', such as Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, and Blinky Bill, "that often misrepresented or tokenised the landscape that they knew and loved". Says Evelyn, "We can love and be interested in and engaged with problematic things, it just requires a lot of work." And it's this dichotomy that influenced her debut collection of poetry and prose Dropbear. Evelyn joins Beth AQ to chat about the collection, opening with a reading of one of the poems.

Listen to Dropbear: poet Evelyn Araluen Joins The Glasshouse to interrogate the tropes of an unreconciled nation This audio is available to RRR subscribers. Sign in or subscribe today.

Listen to Dropbear: poet Evelyn Araluen Joins The Glasshouse to interrogate the tropes of an unreconciled nation

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Archives: Dropbear: poet Evelyn Araluen Joins The Glasshouse to interrogate the tropes of an unreconciled nation - Triple R 102.7FM, Melbourne Independent Radio

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Poet, cultural critic and Bundjalung woman Evelyn Araluen says her parents wanted to raise "politically aware and resilient Aboriginal kids with these textual influences'', such as Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, and Blinky Bill, "that often misrepresented or tokenised the landscape that they knew and loved".

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Memoria Viva: A digital archive of human rights violations by the military dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990)

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Memoria Viva: A digital archive of human rights violations by the military dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990)

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Ecomemoria, en el marco de la conmemoración de los 50 años del golpe cívico militar, tiene el agrado de invitarle a la Ceremonia de Inauguración del bosque de la memoria.

La actividad, abierta al público, se llevará a cabo el día sábado 9 de septiembre, a las 12:00 horas, en Parcela 5 de San Agustín, en el kilómetro 17 ruta Curacautín - Victoria.

Un árbol por cada memoria, cada memoria por una nueva vida, una vida en cada árbol.

S.R.C : ecomemoria50years@gmail.com

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Archivo digital de las Violaciones a los Derechos Humanos por la Dictadura Militar en Chile (1973-1990)

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Ecomemoria, en el marco de la conmemoración de los 50 años del golpe cívico militar, tiene el agrado de invitarle a la Ceremonia de Inauguración del bosque de la memoria. La actividad, abierta al público, se llevará a cabo el día sábado 9 de septiembre, a las 12:00 horas, en Parcela 5 de San Agustín, en el kilómetro 17 ruta Curacautín - Victoria.

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WARNING: Scenes of violence. Not suitable for under 18s.

After reading The Art of Protest in Latin America: A Media Review of Ana Tijoux’s Cacerolazo and Other Protest Art in Latin America’s 2019 Uprisings, I thought it would be useful to listen to the music to which the author, Marquina, referred.

As my Spanish is not so good, I found out that La Moneda in the song is not referring to money or coins, but to La Palacio de La Moneda or the Palace of The Mint. La Moneda is the central seat of government in Chile

The word cacerolazo relates to a cooking pot, but in this context refers to a form of non-aggressive protest where the protestors hit pots and pans to make a cacophonous noise. It reminds me of "rough music" once employed as a noisy protest in the British Isles.

Marquina, A. A. G. (2020). The Art of Protest in Latin America: A Media Review of Ana Tijoux’s Cacerolazo and Other Protest Art in Latin America’s 2019 Uprisings. Comparative Education Review, 64(2), 325–328. ISSN: 00104086

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The myth of Aboriginal stories being myths

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The myth of Aboriginal stories being myths

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The myth of Aboriginal stories being myths | Jacinta Koolmatrie | TEDxAdelaide

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Ablaze: Tiriki Onus and Alec Morgan's film documentary on the civil rights leader Bill Onus

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Ablaze: Tiriki Onus and Alec Morgan's film documentary on the civil rights leader Bill Onus

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Viewer advice: Contains themes of violence and oppression against Indigenous Australians

Further reading: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-13/ablaze-documentary-bill-onus-aboriginal-filmmaker/100337500?utm_campaign=news-article-share-2-desktop-0&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web

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Fig 2. Mr Bill Onus, Melbourne, discusses some prints of his new fabric design with his chief designer, Mrs Paula Kerry. Australian Home Beautiful, Nov. 1955.

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On Bill Onus – Aboriginal Enterprises: negotiating an urban Aboriginality

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On Bill Onus – Aboriginal Enterprises: negotiating an urban Aboriginality

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https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p170581/html/ch07.xhtml?referer=&page=8

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Bringing them home: stories of the stolen generations

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Bringing them home: stories of the stolen generations

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https://bth.humanrights.gov.au/?_ga=2.127779661.1982296514.1629087312-2018783101.1629087312

Stories are accessible via the interactive map as well as a text version. Access to the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families report (1997). There are also links to Australian Curriculum learning resources and professional learning resources.

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Gert Biesta: Digital First or Education First — Why we shouldn't let a virus undermine our educational artistry

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Gert Biesta: Digital First or Education First — Why we shouldn't let a virus undermine our educational artistry

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https://pesaagora.com/columns/digital-first-or-education-first-why-we-shouldnt-let-a-virus-undermine-our-educational-artistry/

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"Improving education is not about improving teaching as a delivery system.

Crucial is the desire of the artist to improve his or her art."

Lawrence Stenhouse (1988[1])

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on education around the world. With schools, colleges and universities being closed for considerable periods of time, and their re-opening still being controversial, much education has moved 'online.' In practice this means first and foremost that the interaction between teachers and students takes place via live video links, although it also involves pre-recorded lectures and presentations for students to watch at a time convenient to them, and the use of e-mail and other systems for written interaction. There are a number of different ways of referring to these approaches, including hybrid learning or hybrid education and blended learning or blended education, all highlighting the combination of different modes of 'delivery' and engagement.

Physical co-presence and the educator's toolkit

This, in itself, is not new. Homework, for example, is a case of a hybrid or blended educational approach, as is the combination of, say, lectures, group work and individual tasks. Education has, in a sense, always been hybrid, though what has changed over time are the modalities of hybridity and the technologies being used, bearing in mind that blackboards and textbooks are as much educational technology as tape-recorders and overhead projectors (Who remembers them?) and, more recently, computers. While for many educators the absence of opportunities for 'physical co-presence' (a slightly more accurate phrase than 'face-to-face') is the biggest change in the current situation, the Australian 'School of the Air'[2] is but one example of long-established practices of education at a distance.[3] So if there's anything new about the recent situation, it's not the hybridity of educational 'delivery,' nor the absence of physical co-presence, but the fact that physical co-presence has, for the moment, been taken out of the educator's toolkit.

Given that physical co-presence has become an immensely prominent aspect of educational practices around the world, and also a much cherished one, it is understandable that many educators feel inconvenienced about the situation - and the same maybe true for students, of course - although it says more about what we have become used to in our everyday educational practices, than that we can simply say that co-presence is good and education at a distance is bad, or at least worse than educational co-presence. After all, for a student used to education by radio, sitting in a classroom under the constant watch of a teacher may feel rather limiting and stifling, just as teaching at a distance and with time-delay may allow for emancipatory educational rhythms[4] that are difficult to achieve when teachers and students are constantly together in one space.

Digital first?

I am making these observations, because I have some concerns about the discourses and ensuing practices that have emerged recently in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. I remain hesitant about mentioning the pandemic, because I do not think that it is the only crisis that we should be concerned about, and by taking it as the main reference point for reflection and critique, there is a risk that we forget about the other urgencies that surround us.[5] Nonetheless, the pandemic has had a specific impact, and it is important to analyse what is going on here as well. The main concern I wish to express here, has to do with a phrase that has been around in educational circles for a while,[6] but which has become quite prominent, not just as a characterisation of education during the pandemic but also as an imperative for how educators should proceed. The phrase is 'digital first.'

To put it bluntly: I understand the phrase, yet at the very same time I do not want to understand it. I do think that the phrase needs to be unpicked and problematised. Let me make three points with reference to this task.

1. There is nothing digital about digital education

One thing I find remarkable in the discussion - and again, this has been going on well before the pandemic - is the use of the phrase 'digital education' as a shorthand for referring to education that makes use of computers and computer-based technology. The fact that most computers nowadays are digital and not analog, which basically means that they use binary number system and binary logic, does say very little if anything at all about what characterises computers and their use in education. There is nothing digital to experience when using a digital computer, and from that angle the term 'digital education' is as uninformative as, say, phrases like 'electric education' (given the fact that computers use electricity), or 'nuclear education' (given the fact that some of that electricity is generated by nuclear power plants), or 'Apple education' or 'Microsoft education' (given the fact that such computers may use software from those companies[7]).

Of course a slightly older phrase - technology-enhanced learning - is not any better in this respect, because one could argue (as I've alluded to above) that education has always used technologies. There is, in other words, always mediation going on in education; the only thing that changes over time are kind of technologies being utilised. The point that is important is that technologies are not neutral - they enable some things and make other things more difficult or even impossible - and in this regard it is of crucial importance to analyse the possibilities and limitations of differing educational technologies. But to suggest that the computer is the only technology that is worthy of the name 'technology' is a mistake.

The real question, therefore, is how the use of computers makes a difference and, first and foremost, how it makes a difference in the experience of teachers and students. To put it in more philosophical terms, the question is what the phenomenological differences are, and here I think that the term 'digital education' is misleading because the 'digital' is the very thing that is impossible to experience. I leave it to the reader to think further about this question. One thing I wish to highlight about 'digital education,' particularly in the form of education conducted via synchronous or asynchronous video-platforms, is that it is a 2-dimensional rather than a 3-dimensional experience. We see 2-D images of our students - and it's also significant that we often see an image of ourselves as well - and both the fact that we see images and that they are 2-D is very different from what we perceive during physical co-presence. The quality of sound and the more general soundscape of the classroom are also very different - and many of us have become quite proficient in self-muting and self-unmuting - as is the absence of smell.

Now, what the educational significance of these difference is, is a question for further discussion, but such a discussion needs to start with appropriate and nuanced descriptions of what we are encountering and experiencing, and the word 'digital' really has nothing to contribute to that task.

2. Questions of tools are secondary to questions of purpose

I have mentioned that the phrase 'digital first' is not just used descriptively but also as an imperative, saying to teachers that 'digital' should be their first port of call, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. As I said before, now that for the foreseeable future physical co-presence has been taken out of the teacher's toolkit, this can no longer be the first option - or perhaps we should say: the first reflex - in thinking about the design and enactment of education. The phrase 'digital first' is the placeholder for indicating that as educators we need to look elsewhere. At the same time the phrase is problematic, because it is a phrase about the means of education and I wish to argue - as I have done before[8] - that any decision about the means of education can only be taken with reference to the ends of education, that is, in relation to the purpose or purposes of our educational endeavours.

Viewed in this light, the imperative 'digital first' sounds as odd as carpenters having to work under the imperative of 'hammer first.' After all, whether we need a hammer, a screwdriver or some improvised ingenuity, depends first and foremost on the situation at hand. It's for a good carpenter to come to a judgement about what the situation requires and, based on that, an initial judgement about the most feasible approach, although even in good carpentry we need an ongoing 'dialogue' between ends and means, rather than work on the assumption that both are fixed.[9]

So this is where the phrase 'digital first' becomes misleading, and I wish to suggest that the simple but in my view profound response to this can only be: education first! And putting education first, means that in all situations the first question we need to ask, is what we are 'after,' to put it in general terms, which is the question of the purpose of our activities. Although we may wish to translate the overarching purpose of our activities into ends and aims for students to achieve, I am reminded of Lawrence Stenhouse's important point that purpose is less about 'having a goal' than about 'having an agenda,' that is, a sense of orientation for one's actions and activities.[10]

Two things are important in the case of education. One is that education can never be orientated towards a single purpose - which is part of the problem with the language of learning and the more general 'learnification' of education[11] - but always needs to take three purposes (or as I prefer: three domains of purpose) into consideration. There is important work to be done with regard to qualification: providing our students with the knowledge, skills and dispositions that equip them for meaningful action in the world. There is, in addition to this, important work to be done with regard to socialisation: providing students with access to the many practices and traditions, ways of doing and ways of being, that have been developed over the centuries, and helping them to find their place within these. And there is the crucial work of subjectification: encouraging and supporting our students to be(come) subjects of their own lives, and not remain or become objects of influences outside of them.

'Education first' means that we always need to start with a consideration of what we seek to achieve with our students in relation to these three domains of purpose. It is then up to us as educators to figure out how we might balance the demands from these three domains, bearing in mind that there is no perfect synergy between the three, which requires that we engage with tensions and consider possible trade-offs between the three domains. And only then do we move to the question of 'how,' that is the question of the means we which to bring into play for giving form to the work with our students. Here we have to bear in mind, that this is never the question of finding the most effective means for bringing about particular ends, because in education the way how we do things also matters for what we seek to achieve. Put bluntly: it may well be effective to pay our students for their efforts or achievements, but doing so may undermine our ambition to encourage them to become an active partner in the educational endeavour instead of a (more or less) willing object.

To suggest that education should always come first, thus means that any decisions we make about the 'how' of our practice always must be made with reference to the 'what for,' and that even when our 'toolkit' is limited, for example because physical co-presence is not possible, we should not immediately plug the gap with another tool, but start from our educational priorities. And the political point here, of course, is that there are very powerful players - Apple, Google and Pearson, to name a few[12] - who are more than happy to plug the gap for us. Which brings me to my third and final point.

3. Teachers don't lack skills, digital or otherwise

The third aspect of what is currently going on is the frequent - and I am inclined to say: constant - repetition of the claim that teachers lack skills and, more specifically, that teachers lack the 'digital skills' that are needed for making a successful transition to online education. Once this is accepted, it not just follows that this particular 'skills gap' needs to be plugged - which explains the huge surge in (mostly online) provision for teachers to upgrade their digital skills. It also opens the door widely for a very particular, skills-based understanding of education which sees the work of educators mainly in technical terms, and 'forgets' about the complexities of educational practice: the educational complexities, the moral complexities, the emotional complexities, the affective complexities, and the political complexities, to name but a few.

One important task in this regard - which lies beyond the scope of this brief essay - is a critical analysis of assumptions about and conceptions of teaching and education in the main documents, frameworks, and resources that are being put in place as a response to the pandemic.[13] My impression is that such documents contribute significantly to the promotion of a learning-based conception of education - think, for example, of the popular but highly problematic idea of 'learning loss' - and thus of teaching as a process of facilitating learning and of the teacher as such a facilitator. Not only do questions about the purpose and content of learning quickly disappear from the radar. Also, to frame the work of teaching entirely in terms of learning and its facilitation, undermines any idea of teaching as a practical, situated art in which the artistry of teachers, that is, their inventive ability to create educationally significant situations and opportunities for their students in always new and unique situations, plays a crucial role.[14]

What I'm not suggesting, of course, is that all teachers are perfectly equipped for all the possible situations that they may encounter. But by resisting the dogma that what teachers lack are digital skills, I am trying to highlight that everything in education begins with the educational artistry of teachers - which requires knowledge and skills, but also a capacity for judgement and for creative educational inventiveness - and that the question whether teachers may be missing anything is itself a situated question, not a blanket observation about the state of the profession as a whole.

In conclusion

In one sense the current situation is unprecedented; in another sense it is not, particularly not when we see that the very art of teaching has to do with engaging with situations which we have not encountered before. While there are similarities between groups of students, and while the organisation of education also entails much repetition from year to year, each group of students is in some respects also entirely new, and to create good education out of this mix of the expected and the unexpected, of precedented and unprecedented elements, is what teaching is about. It cannot be denied that the Covid-19 virus is having an impact on education; it depends on us whether we will allow it to undermine the artistry that is crucial for education to be a meaningful endeavour, both for students and for their teachers, or whether we will be able to resist such an attack.

Notes

[1] Stenhouse, L. (1988), Artistry and teaching: The teacher as focus of research and development. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision 4(1), 43-51. http://www.ascd.org/publications/jcs/fall1988/Artistry-and-Teaching@-The-Teacher-as-Focus-of-Research-and-Development.aspx

[2] See, for example: https://web.archive.org/web/20171223040511/http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/school-of-the-air

[3] See also: Lamb, T.R. (2012). The emergence of educational radio: Schools of the air. TechTrends 56(2), 9-10. DOI:10.1007/s11528-012-0557-5

[4] See Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2018). Time and the rhythms of emancipatory education:
Rethinking the temporal complexity of self and society. Routledge.

[5] See Biesta, G.J.J. (in press/2020). Have we been paying attention? Educational anaesthetics in a time of crises. Educational Philosophy and Theory. [published online 12 July 2020] https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1792612]

[6] A google search for "digital first" + "education" on 19 August 2020 generated 2,150,000 results.

[7] The latter examples are not insignificant, because companies such as Apple and Google are making their way into the education market quite explicitly - see, for example, the so-called 'Apple Teacher' ( https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206841) and 'google education' ( https://edu.google.com/?modal_active=none).

[8] See, for example, Biesta, G.J.J. (2017). 'How does a competent teacher become a good teacher? On judgement, wisdom, and virtuosity in teaching and teacher education'. In M.A. Peters, B. Cowie & I. Menter (Eds), A Companion to Research in Teacher Education (pp. 435-453). Dordrecht: Springer. And also: Biesta, G.J.J. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Boulder, Co: Paradigm Publishers.

[9] This is the means-ends-continuum that plays a central role in Dewey's work. See, for example, Waks, L. (1999). The Means-Ends Continuum and the Reconciliation of Science and Art in the Later Works of John Dewey. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 35(3), 595-611. www.jstor.org/stable/40320781. See also Biesta, G.J.J. & Burbules, N. (2003). Pragmatism and educational research. Rowman and Littlefield.

[10] See: Stenhouse, L. (1988), Artistry and teaching: The teacher as focus of research and development. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision 4(1), 43-51.

[11] See: Biesta, G.J.J. (2009). Good education in an age of measurement: On the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability 21(1), 33-46.

[12] On Pearson see: Sellar, S. & Hogan, A. (2019). Pearson 2025. Transforming teaching and privatising education data. Education International.

[13] I commend the work of Samuel Mendonça and colleagues in Brazil, who are in the process of analysing such documents, for example from the Worldbank, Unesco and the OECD, precisely with a focus on ideas about teaching and education.

[14] The idea of teaching is an art has a long pedigree. Recent views about the artistry of teaching can, for example, be found in the work of Lawrence Stenhouse and Elliot Eisner.

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Digital first or education first? - PESA Agora

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"Improving education is not about improving teaching as a delivery system. Crucial is the desire of the artist to improve his or her art." Lawrence Stenhouse (1988[1]) The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on education around the world. With schools, colleges and universities being closed for considerable periods of time, and their [...]

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https://www.theage.com.au/culture/art-and-design/i-was-on-the-kitchen-floor-crying-too-often-a-year-of-despair-for-performers-20210812-p58i5c.html

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If 2020 was the year of the pivot, for many Australian performers 2021 is the year of despair.

Despite the rescue packages, the campaigns and open letters, this leaden age of spreading, rolling lockdowns, of multiplying cancellations and venue-killing capacity caps, has changed the atmosphere.

There is a loss of hope. The industry is thinning out, top to bottom, as lifelong dreams are crushed and abandoned, with few opportunities left to look forward to on the calendar.

The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald spoke with five performers, with a cross-section of careers no longer just on hold, but under existential threat.

Amanda Harrison

She was Australia's first Elphaba in Wicked, one of the hottest roles in musical theatre, one of its most sought-after talents, a West End regular. Harrison sobs over Zoom from her Melbourne bedroom as she explains why she gave up auditions and retrained as a real estate agent.

"We've got two kids. I've got a teenage daughter. They just eat a lot, you know what I mean?"

Her husband, a head mech on musicals, lost his job on Billy Elliot when COVID hit. Harrison had $30,000 worth of cruises, voice-overs, bits and pieces cancelled. JobSeeker wasn't enough, and their savings evaporated.

"The panic and the fear set in," she says. "And we didn't see that ending." Harrison did a real estate course, worked some contacts, found a great job.

"I actually feel like a bit of a traitor. Last night I saw this video of a theatre opening up in New York and they're all screaming and laughing and crying and I just lost it."

Her husband has a new job on Moulin Rouge but the show hasn't yet opened and she has to keep spruiking housing. "I don't have a choice."

She's not attracted to teaching work. What would she tell performing arts students? "How can you tell them that this is a path for you? So the hope and joy in it, you can't even pass it on anymore."

She watches the other agents, their joy and passion in listing a property, in selling it. She wishes she could share that.

"But this does not feel anything like the major moments I've had in my life. I've sung on the Opera House stage. I've sung at Carnegie Hall. I was f---ing Elphaba in Wicked! And I think, wow, am I ever going to be able to feel that again? And it's very, very sad."

Queenie van de Zandt

The actor, singer, comedian and writer, one of Australia's best-loved leading ladies, took it hard when she heard that Harrison and another of her favourite actors, Michelle Doake, had left their careers for real estate.

"I felt so sick that this industry could lose two of their absolute best women," she says.

"I'm now on anti-depressants. I've never ever been on anti-depressants in my whole life but I couldn't continue. The knocks were just so bad. I was on the kitchen floor crying too often and my partner finally just said 'you've got to do something'.

"I couldn't sleep, my head was going, 'you're not going to survive this time, this is the time you're actually going to lose your house. You've got a young child. Chat chat chat. The medication has allowed me to actually get rid of that chat ... to use my skills."

It looks like she won't be able to use the $10,000 US visa she bought at the start of 2020 for a tour. A production of rock musical Next to Normal set to open at Chapel Off Chapel: gone. She tried to run teaching classes online but "they were horrific so I didn't run them again... I felt like I had nothing to offer anyone".

The knocks were just so bad. I was on the kitchen floor crying too often.
Queenie van de Zandt

"Artists are incredibly resilient people. We are very used to pivoting, we have the ability to come up with ideas from absolutely nothing, and to rise from the ashes. But ... we're exhausted. Exhausted from doing that."

She feels the performing arts have been "put in the too-hard basket": bars can reopen, but not theatre bars; sporting teams can train and play, but actors can't rehearse or perform.

"It just makes you want to explode."

Matt Hetherington

The star performer had been workshopping a new musical called Becoming Nancy in New York. It was to be his Broadway debut. Then COVID-19 hit: there was a rush to get the family home to Melbourne. The apartment in Brooklyn still has their clothes hanging in the wardrobe.

"The big thing for me was potentially losing that lifelong dream after having it pretty much at my fingertips. It is heartbreaking," he says

And now another blow: his role in Victorian Opera's production of Tommy is another lockdown casualty. They're struggling to sublet the Brooklyn place, trying to support two homes across the globe, with limited options to make ends meet.

"There's just a lack of hope," he says. "The one thing that resilient performers have is that they can always say 'you know what if I work really hard, if I just collect my thoughts and take a breath, I can always trust that I've got the work ethic that's going to get me through'."

But there just aren't opportunities to chase.

"I oscillate from going 'well, it's a pandemic you know, it's really bad for everyone. We'll be right.' ... And then I find that other times I'm just lost for answers, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night just so stressed with not knowing what the f--k to do [to] get the money that is needed just to pay the basic bills. To be able to trust that I'll be in a headspace that's even vaguely acceptable for me as an adult to be a good parent, a good friend, a good husband."

Despite losing $100,000 worth of work he didn't qualify for JobKeeper. He found JobSeeker soul-destroying.

"My job application letter was 'Hi my name is Matthew, I'm an actor and a singer. I can't do anything else except act and sing, but I'm really good at it and I'd like to get a job in your business.'"

A JobSeeker algorithm told him to apply for a job as a theatre technician. At a surgical theatre. He laughs bitterly.

"I just imagined myself like Patch Adams, turning up at The Alfred with my white coat on saying 'here I am, I'm here for your surgery!'"

Paul Capsis

The cabaret and musical theatre veteran puts it succinctly, angrily: "I just want respect. R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Find out what it means to me. I'm over it."

He's ok. Not great, but he's ok, thanks to his assertive accountant who nagged him repeatedly to register as a business to qualify for a broader range of supports.

"After panicking and thinking it's all over and I'm gonna end up living in a tent on the street, he got me on it and I was fine. I could exist on it."

But he lost all his work for 2020, which had been shaping up to be his busiest in a decade. This year, again, most things are cancelled (or postponed, which amounts to the same thing when you have to pay the bills).

Another major blow a few weeks ago: an email from his agent. "Because of COVID, because of what happened in 2020, he'd made the decision to leave the industry. He doesn't know what he's doing but he doesn't want to be in the industry any more."

He knows of lighting and sound technicians, set builders doing the same thing. Generations of talent leaving. Queenie adds she's heard of a "very well-known director" who quit to study to be a psychologist.

"I hope it's temporary," Capsis says. "But I don't believe we're going to go back to how things were, really."

Jess Hitchcock

The 30-year-old musician and opera singer, a young Indigenous star at Deborah Cheetham's Short Black Opera, comes across as a bubbling spring of energy and drive. Looks can be deceiving.

"I stopped watching the news because I just am so depressed," she says. "Every day more cases, which means more people are cancelling things or rescheduling. I don't know if I can continue to [work]. I want to. I love singing, I love performing, but it's becoming really difficult to maintain a life."

There are so few opportunities at the moment, she says: producers are gun-shy after so many lockdown cancellations, with no insurance or government guarantees to absorb the financial hit.

Her emotional coping strategies include rearranging the furniture. On her down days "I'm just crying all day, and I just really have to let myself do that and not be productive for two days."

The tour off the back of her first album was cut short by the pandemic. A role in Cheetham's Pecan Summer, gone. Another tour, pencilled into late 2021, looking shaky.

She tried the online pivot but there's not much money in singing to a camera in your bedroom. And anyway, she hates it. "Performing to a computer screen is so soulless. I have realised that a lot of my creativity, a lot of my drive came from performing live with other people.

"When it suddenly turned from being onstage and feeling the energy of 1000 people in front of you, to having no reaction except a couple of little things popping up on my screen... I started saying no to them because I was crushed, this is not good for me.

I love singing, I love performing, but it's becoming really difficult to maintain a life.
Jess Hitchock

"I'm in the process of writing a new album at the moment and it's been really difficult ... I haven't felt motivated, I'm like, 'what, I'm spending all this money on this album that I've been working towards basically my whole life and now what is the point of this?' I'm just going to release this music, [but] not be able to [perform] it?"

After a decade of work she fears her career is disintegrating.

"I might need to go and get a job at a café," she says. "I don't feel equipped to leave the arts industry and go and work somewhere else. I'm looking at these positions going, I don't have any specific set of talents."
Crisis support can be found at In need of some good news? The Greater Good newsletter delivers stories to your inbox to brighten your outlook. Sign up here. Lifeline: (13 11 14 and ), the Suicide Call Back Service (1300 659 467 and suicidecallbackservice.org.au) and beyondblue (1300 22 4636 and beyondblue.org.au)

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'I was on the kitchen floor crying too often': a year of despair for performers

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If 2020 was the year of the pivot, for many Australian performers 2021 is the year of despair. Despite the rescue packages, the campaigns and open letters, this leaden age of spreading, rolling lockdowns, of multiplying cancellations and venue-killing capacity caps, has changed the atmosphere. There is a loss of hope.

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As a small child, I was a refugee and a displaced person. My art was music and dancing as a child to deal with the trauma of being a refugee. The video I'm sharing today is powerful and will help others understand how art has healed and is supporting any refugees to express their stories and their circumstances through various forms of art expression.

Katira Ahmed

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https://issuu.com/uqartmuseum/docs/danie-mellor-learning-resource-2014

This learning resource offers an insight into the motivations of Australian artist Danie Mellor (Mamu/Ngadjon) and his interpretation of post-Colonial culture through a First Nations lens.

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The Importance of Art Education for Well Being | Howard Rose | TEDxARUCAD

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I want to share an article about how art can help the brain. The article makes me feel that art is closely related to brain development. Its line that "looking at a gorgeous painting, sculpture or other work of art can increase blood flow to the brain by as much as 10 per cent -- the same as looking at someone you love" struck me even more, which I had never thought of before.

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UAGC | University of Arizona Global Campus

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Art can take us on a journey to faraway lands or into the distant past. It can conjure strong emotions and deep thoughts, or simply dazzle us with its visual brilliance. Everyone's reaction to art may be different, but its ability to impact us is unquestioned.

This impact is because of the strong effect art can have on the human brain. Viewing, analyzing, and creating art stimulates the brain in substantial and long-lasting ways. For anyone interested in ongoing growth through a lifetime of learning, the cultural and intellectual benefits of art can serve as a powerful tool that you can leverage on your journey to personal fulfillment. Find out how both viewing and making art can make positive impacts on your brain.

Art & Your Brain

A painting of a person is not a person. And yet, our brains are able to immediately recognize paint on a canvas, made up with meticulous lines and shading, as representing a human being. In fact, our brains try to recognize faces in almost everything we see. Take a look at an ordinary wall outlet, for instance. If you glance at it for just a moment, you'll see a surprised facial expression. But why? It turns out that the brain is remarkably adept at discerning familiarity and meaning from patterns, abstract forms, and incomplete information. Each time you look at a piece of art, your brain is working to make sense of the visual information it's receiving. From highly lifelike portraits to abstract collections of rectangles, looking at art stimulates the brain and puts our innate knack for organizing patterns and making sense of shapes to use.

Beyond the brain's skill at making sense of what we're seeing, the brain actually goes through changes when we look at a beautiful art piece. In fact, according to The Telegraph, looking at a gorgeous painting, sculpture, or other artwork increases blood flow to the brain by as much as 10% -- the equivalent of looking at someone you love.

Still, viewing art isn't just about making sense of the shapes. Rather than just thinking art is beautiful, we want to place ourselves into the artwork. This placement occurs through a process known as embodied cognition, in which mirror neurons in the brain turn things like action, movement, and energy you see in art into actual emotions you can feel. Embodied cognition starts when you look at a piece of art. The more you analyze the piece, the more you place yourself within the scene and can actually feel the quality of the works. For instance, viewers of a drip painting by Jackson Pollock can often feel like they are the ones flinging the paint onto the canvas. Other art, such as a piece depicting a desert landscape, can make you feel the effects of the hot sun, the sand beneath your feet, and the sound of a soft breeze. When you feel embodied cognition, you're able to appreciate the artwork even more.

Effectively Viewing Art

Your brain's reaction to the visual stimuli of a piece of artwork is only the first part of a multi-step process. Understanding how to look at art lets you make the most out of the experience by keeping your brain active and involved. There are a few things you can do to analyze a piece and effectively put your brain to use:

Describe what you're seeing, and what you aren't.

Think about the piece, what it may represent, and what it says about the artist.

Discuss the work with others, and compare it to other works as well as your own life experiences.

The more time you spend analyzing a piece of art, the more you are able to stimulate both unconscious and conscious brain functions. Doing so can increase your analytical and problem-solving skills in everyday life. If you aren't sure where you can go to practice looking at art with an analytical eye, check out these places that may be near you:

Local museums. Learn about the museums in your area. Some may even offer evening events that you can attend with your friends.

Craft and artisan fairs. See what your community is creating! Local artwork is a great place to get started on appreciating art.

Galleries. Oftentimes, galleries will open their doors to the public to show off new exhibits. See if there are any galleries near you that open their doors weekly or monthly.

Buy an art book. Head over to your favorite book store and buy an art book. Look at one piece a day with the intent of analyzing and learning as much as you can about each piece.

Find a documentary. Queue up your favorite streaming app and search for a documentary about art. You may be surprised at what you learn!

Creating Art

Making art invigorates the brain in ways that are distinct from merely viewing art. Studies have credited the production of visual art with increases in functional connectivity in the brain along with enhanced activation of the visual cortex. Researchers liken creating art with exercise for the brain, and even suggest that similar to how physical exercise aids the body, creating art may help to keep the mind sharp and lucid well into old age.

Beyond that, creating art can actually help you cope with stressful and difficult situations you face in everyday life. You don't need to be a tried and true artist to make art. Rather, you can get started on destressing, having fun, and creating art by trying:

Group painting classes. A growing trend, group art classes at local studios and even bars allow you to socialize with friends while creating a beautiful piece of art! Research local group painting classes in your area to find the next event near you.

Adult coloring books. These help you relax and take away the tension of a stressful day. You can find options with varying levels of difficulty to help you wind down.

Glass blowing classes. These events are a fun way to learn a new skill! Find a local class to practice making glass roses, bowls, vases, and more.

Photography. Pick up your camera and snap a few varying angled shots of your home, friends, family, and places you spend your time. Challenge yourself to take a dedicated number of photos per day, or to bring your camera to an unexpected event. You may discover a new perspective!

Sketch something at your house. Try sitting down for 10 minutes and sketching something you see in your home. Next time, try a 2 minute sketch, then a 30 minute sketch. Changing the rules will challenge your brain and keep the creativity flowing.

Figure drawing classes. Often found for free in local community centers and art museums, classic figure drawing classes enable you to view the human body from a different perspective.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but the relationship between art and brainpower is in the eye of hard science. As another item in the toolkit of lifelong learning, an interest in art is a great way to flex your brain while improving your quality life. When you're ready for your "workout" head over to your local museum or do some online research on artists and their masterpieces.

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Written by University Staff

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How Looking at Art Can Help Your Brain | UAGC | University of Arizona Global Campus

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Art can take us on a journey to faraway lands or into the distant past. It can conjure strong emotions and deep thoughts, or simply dazzle us with its visual brilliance. Everyone's reaction to art may be different, but its ability to impact us is unquestioned.

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David Elliott On Issues in Music Education Today

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While this talk is less in depth than the resources provided for Module 3, I thought it was interesting just how quickly (and accurately) we can judge our own taste in music.

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How Music Influences our Emotions, Feelings, and Behaviors | Dr. Amy Belfi | TEDxMissouriS&T

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Uncle Jack discusses intergenerational trauma 

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Uncle Jack discusses intergenerational trauma 

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My stolen childhood, and a life to rebuild | Sheila Humphries | TEDxPerth

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Literary Festival 2016: Art and Wellbeing: the growing impact of arts on health

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Literary Festival 2016: Art and Wellbeing: the growing impact of arts on health

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Literary Festival 2016: Art and Wellbeing: the growing impact of arts on health

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In 2016, we interviewed Sir Ken Robinson for a video series on educational thought leaders and change-makers around the world. We asked him questions like: w...

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TarraWarra Museum of Art has commissioned a new series of artistic inquiries that will explore the role of art in a global pandemic. The series, titled Art as essential activity: an inquiry, is conceived and curated by Melbourne-based independent curator Biljana Ciric.

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Infographic: Effectiveness of remote learning during COVID

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Infographic: Effectiveness of remote learning during COVID

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Source: https://www.teachermagazine.com/au_en/articles/infographic-effectiveness-of-remote-learning-during-covid

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WHAT HAPPENS AT THE INTERSECTION OF CONCEPTUAL ART AND TEACHING?.

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WHAT HAPPENS AT THE INTERSECTION OF CONCEPTUAL ART AND TEACHING?.

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ON AUGUST 15, 2020 CONCEPTUAL ART & TEACHING ORGANIZED AND HOSTED AN INTERNATIONAL MARATHON ZOOMPOSIUM CALLED WHAT HAPPENS AT THE INTERSECTION OF CONCEPTUAL ART AND TEACHING?. THE ZOOMPOSIUM WAS ENACTED BY 39 ARTISTS, TEACHERS, AND SCHOLARS FROM POLAND, CANADA, KOREA, MEXICO, SWEDEN AND FOUR

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I feel like not a day goes by without some budget cuts directed at the arts here in the UK.

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The Turner prize-winning artist Helen Cammock has condemned the government's decision to halve higher education funding for some arts subjects, calling it a move that will "walk us back 60 years" and make the arts a pursuit for the rich.

Cammock said the funding cuts, which were signed off last week and will slash the high-cost funding subsidy for creative and arts subjects by 50% from September, were a cynical move designed to stifle criticism from artists.

"Established artists are using their voices to challenge what's happening politically in this country, and I think [the cuts] are a cynical move to quell that," she said.

"As far as I can see they're trying to eradicate the subjects that encourage people to think, and the parts of culture that really loudly challenge the system that's in place."

Cammock - who unveiled artworks across the London Underground network on Wednesday - was a late starter in the art world and retrained at 35 after a career as a social worker.

She said the cuts would disincentivise schools from encouraging pupils from following the path she took by studying the arts because higher education courses would be harder to access. "I imagine what might happen is schools will be joining together with parents to try to encourage less privileged children to study subjects that will actually get them a career," she said.

She added that the effect of the cuts would be that "we're going to walk back 60 years", with the arts becoming the preserve of the wealthy.

The decision to make the cuts came after a consultation by the Office for Students (OfS) and the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, which suggested halving the amount spent on "high cost" higher education arts subjects in England that were not considered "strategic priorities".

Helen Cammock has unveiled artworks across the London Underground network centred on empathy and Black Lives Matter. Photograph: Thierry Bal

Ministers were accused of "one of the biggest attacks on arts and entertainment in English universities in living memory" by approving the cuts, which will affect music, dance, performing arts, art and design and media studies courses.

The Public Campaign for the Arts warned the cuts could lead to possible course closures, and damage the pipeline of talent that moves from higher education into the creative industries in England.

Cammock's latest work is a series of posters on the London Underground which are a response to the Covid-19 pandemic and touch on the Black Lives Matter movement.

The artist, whose work has been installed in Aldgate East, Charing Cross, Earl's Court, Holland Park, South Kensington, St James's Park and White City stations, created phrases such as "sit alongside and feel me breathe", which are meant to provoke passengers to think about empathy.

"It's something that I talked about in my work all the time: the worth and value of certain lives above and over others, and the subjugation of certain voices," she said.

"For me it was about the idea of breath in crisis," she added. "It was about the Black Lives Matter protests and George Floyd's murder. It was about the breath of the planet that was being extinguished."

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Cuts to art subjects funding 'walk us back 60 years', says artist Helen Cammock

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The Turner prize-winning artist Helen Cammock has condemned the government's decision to halve higher education funding for some arts subjects, calling it a move that will "walk us back 60 years" and make the arts a pursuit for the rich.

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Asking outrageous, uncomfortable and shocking questions to uncover the truth behind some of the most marginalised and misunderstood Australians.

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I found this article about one of the articles, the podcast embedded is especially interesting.

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Every year, hundreds of thousands of people from around the world visit sites of natural beauty and significance to Aboriginal people: Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park, Kakadu, the Bungle Bungles in the Kimberley, Cape Yorke.

What gets lost on many travellers is that each of these sites belongs to traditional owners with their own cultures, protocols and histories.

A new book, Welcome to Country by prominent public figure Marcia Langton, could be the first travel guide to Indigenous Australia - a handy reference for how tourists might best travel through different cultures and sacred lands.

It could be the travel guide Australia didn't realise it needed.

"I've got the opportunity here to talk about language rules and the protocols of when to take photographs, when to ask questions and when not to," Professor Langton said.

The book is full of information on Indigenous languages and customs, history, native title, art and dance, storytelling, and cultural awareness and etiquette for visitors.

Professor Langton says over the past four decades she has noticed a growing curiosity among non-Indigenous Australians towards the country's pre-European past and its Aboriginal heritage.

But, she says, that past is full of trauma for many Indigenous people.

Professor Langton says there is a clear need for tourists to have a greater understanding of this history.

"Whether you're Australian or whether you're from another country, if you turn up in an Aboriginal area and start asking questions without an understanding of the history that's gone before it, it could be very embarrassing not just for the visitor, but for the traditional owners," she said.

"It causes great pain to people to have to answer questions from people who have no understanding of that history.

"That's why I felt it was essential to explain some of that history - so that people can have a regard for the feelings of their hosts."

A Taiwanese tourist had to be airlifted off Uluru after being trapped in a crevasse for more than 24 hours in 2015.

A tradition of Aboriginal 'classics'

Welcome to Country is a landmark guide, but it is also is part of a tradition of information books, cultural guides, language books and apps from all corners of the country.

They may only cover a small area, or one specific language group, but each tries to convey a sense of place and the stories of local Indigenous people.

Rachel Bin Salleh, publisher at Magabala Books in Western Australia, says Professor Langton's book follows on from "classics" like the Little Red Yellow Black Book by Bruce Pascoe, a pocket-sized introduction to Aboriginal history and culture.

But she says Welcome to Country could introduce many more people to Australia's history and culture, because of its broad appeal to the travel market.

"There is always a need for more books authored by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors," she said.

"This resource, so beautifully packaged, will encourage the start of two-way learning as well as the consideration of Indigenous enterprise as a first priority.

"For some, Welcome to Country will be the first step in their learning journey about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia."

Celebrating Aboriginal enterprise

From the first chapter, Professor Langton, who describes herself as "a descendant of the fighting Yiman of Queensland", does not pull any punches about the continuing legacy for Aboriginal people of the arrival of Europeans.

"I don't think that many Australians are aware of that part of our history, and that's very unfortunate," she said.

"That's why I raise these issues in the book."

A tourist's first view of the Bungle Bungles in Western Australia's Kimberley region.

But so much of Welcome to Country is about looking to the present, and celebrating Aboriginal businesses and enterprises that many travellers miss or take for granted.

She says this side of the book aims to show the range of experiences available to those who seek it.

Most importantly, it opens up the prospect of jobs for Indigenous people on their own land, a theme Professor Langton has pursued for decades.

"There are wonderful Indigenous-owned businesses all over the country where people can have a firsthand encounter with Aboriginal culture or food or environmental management," she said.

"One of the great advantages for viable tourism businesses for Aboriginal landowners is they get to stay on their own country and get to raise their families on their own country and teach their children about their culture in-situ.

"That's all that people have ever wanted, really."

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This could be the travel guide Australia didn't know it needed

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Every year, hundreds of thousands of people from around the world visit sites of natural beauty and significance to Aboriginal people: Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park, Kakadu, the Bungle Bungles in the Kimberley, Cape Yorke. What gets lost on many travellers is that each of these sites belongs to traditional owners with their own cultures, protocols and histories.

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Music and its impact on the mind, brain and behaviour is a mystery that music psychologists and neuroscientists are still trying to decode today. Its wide range of effects are as diverse and multifaceted as its numerous genres and styles.

We love making and listening to music. And with the same sentiments as ABBA, what we do know for sure is that we can't live (meaningfully) without it.

There is no single, distinct area of the brain that is responsible for processing music like there is for abilities like speech and language (i.e. Broca and Wernicke's areas). In fact, it's the complete opposite; if you were to look at the brain's response to music with an imaging technique like fMRI, you would see areas and neural networks all over the brain light up.

This may be the reason why music adds so much enrichment to our lives - There is no other phenomenon or event that activates our brains quite like this.

It comes as no surprise that musical taste is very personal, whether you're a musician, composer or avid Spotify playlist creator. And it has much to do with the fact that it is strongly intertwined with memory and emotion.

And whether you are actively or subconsciously aware of it, we often use music as a tool to regulate our emotions.
Music maketh the mood Image by Alphacolor13 via Unsplash
That makes a lot of sense, right?

When the sun is shining and your day is going great, you might listen to some catchy pop music to further enhance your good mood and positivity.

If you've had a long day at work or are nervous before an exam, you might listen to some calming, peaceful music to de-stress and relax.

When you go to the gym many people listen to fast, upbeat music to get themselves pumped and motivated to exercise.

Emotional regulation means changing your current mood or feelings for those that are more desirable to you. And we usually use music as a way to improve or elevate our mood.

Again, usually.

Why is it that we are attracted to music that makes us feel sad? Sadness is not a desirable emotion at all (to most people), so why do we often seek it out? And what kind of strange, sorrowful pleasure do we derive from it?

This is the Sadness Paradox.

Logically, you would think that if you feel sad, listening to happy, upbeat music would make you feel better. But I can personally attest that this isn't always the case. One study has evidence to support that music choice is less about desired mood, and more about songs that reflect or mirror the current emotional state.

I recently had a conversation with a friend who finds immense solace in sad music, with about 80% of their saved songs on Spotify being in this category. They seemed to be selecting sad music on purpose, but it wasn't always because they wanted to experience further sadness.

This only piqued my curiosity further as to why this turned out to be commonly the case for so many people.
Sad isn't always Bad
Several studies conducted by music psychologists suggest that people who are high in empathy are more likely to enjoy sad music. This might be because they better understand or are more easily moved by the perceived emotions it conveys (i.e. sensitive to emotional contagion). They are also more likely to consider sad music to be more aesthetically beautiful and high-quality than other types - So it's not always necessarily about emotion, but also cognition and perception.

Interestingly, similar results were also uncovered in a survey about the reasons behind enjoyment of sad films.

In another study by researchers at the University of Limerick, 65 adults were surveyed about instances where they chose to listen to sad music, in response to a negative situation/experience. In analysing the participants' descriptions, what they found were several recurring reasons and motivations for doing so, including:

Strategies for selecting songs

A memory trigger - help with retrieving memories to experience nostalgia

Connection to the story or message communicated by both lyrics and musical elements.

Functions the music served for them

Re-experiencing affect - to help process their emotions and move on

'Cognitive' complex thought - putting things into perspective e.g. sadness is a common, shared aspect of humanity, feelings of empathy and not being alone etc.

Distraction - sad music allowed participants to escape silence, which would normally be filled by overwhelming or negative thoughts.

A Powerful effect on our affect
It surprised me that the findings of these studies nearly all rang true for the friend I mentioned before. And while I had initially suggested that their preference for sad music was only continuing a vicious cycle, now I understand that its more complex than that; perhaps an important method they use to cope with and process their emotions.

However, only listening to sad music all the time is not always good, and neither is relying entirely on music to make you feel better; this is especially true for people battling depression or other mood disorders. There are cases where people listen to music for rumination i.e. the music causes them to experience negative emotions and thoughts, but they can't stop listening and are stuck in a loop.

Whatever the reasons and motivations are behind listening to (or making) particular types of music, it's crystal clear that music choice has a powerful effect on our affect.

Additional reading:

Speech/language perception:
https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/7848/fpsyg-01-00241-r1/image_m/fpsyg-01-00241-g003.jpg

Areas of the brain involved in listening to music:
http://portlandchamberorchestra.org/what-happens-when-the-brain-listens-to-music/

What happens when playing a musical instrument:
http://portlandchamberorchestra.org/what-happens-when-the-brain-plays-a-musical-instrument

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The Sadness Paradox - Why do we enjoy listening to music that makes us sad?

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Music and its impact on the mind, brain and behaviour is a mystery that music psychologists and neuroscientists are still trying to decode today. Its wide range of effects are as diverse and multifaceted as its numerous genres and styles. We love making and listening to music.

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The importance of art in the time of Coronavirus

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The importance of art in the time of Coronavirus

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People are dying, critical resources are stretched, the very essence of our freedom is shrinking - and yet we are moved inward, to the vast inner space of our thoughts and imagination, a place we have perhaps neglected. Of all the necessities we now feel so keenly aware of, the arts and their contribution to our wellbeing is evident and, in some ways, central to coronavirus confinement for those of us locked in at home. For some, there are more pressing needs. But momentary joys, even in dire circumstances, often come through the arts and collective expression.

As a lecturer in illustration, I am constantly encouraging students to find an artistic voice and identify, in this crowded world of images, some touchstones to develop their own aesthetic. Art critic and theorist John Berger identified, in the act of drawing, something that is inherently autobiographical - a continual process of refining vision which moves us towards new understandings about ourselves and the world around us.

In this time of crisis and isolation, the role of art becomes more central to our lives, whether we realise it or not. We can easily take for granted the grand buffet of media that is available to us - and I can be guilty of a lack patience when students find it difficult discerning quality amid a sea of memes and amateur artistic indulgence which, to the unsuspecting, can appear to be worthy. The lack of curation on the internet frustrates people like me who value culture and its contribution and equally, are quickly becoming grumpy old men and women.

Whether we like it or not our consumption habits - including media - form who we are, our values, our inclinations. They are a patchwork of beliefs that are also tested in these difficult times.

Art can set you free

I was a high school teacher in Sleepy Hollow, New York, 20 miles away from ground zero when the 9/11 attacks happened. It was a time like now that tested our collective ability to make sense of a new normal and to mourn for the time before that would never come back. A schism in the collective consciousness that everyone struggled to frame, even artists.

Art Speigelman's graphic novel In The Shadow of No Towers was less of a coherent narrative about 9/11 than an attempt to reassemble his own psyche through the comfort of his own creations and the medium of the comic itself.

People on social media are sharing favourite Netflix playlists, songs, videos and even artwork to reach out beyond isolation and share what they love. It is naive to think that such lists are mere casual swaps of entertainment enjoyed and recommended. They are an externalisation of the personality of the list maker: the romance enthusiast, the lover of comedies, the thrill seeker, the horror fan, and the aficionado of obscure documentaries.

Read more: Coronavirus: five musicals chosen by a musicologist to keep you going during lockdown

In this time of restriction, TV, film, books and video games offer us a chance to be mobile. To move around freely in a fictional world in a way that is now impossible in reality. Art connects us to the foreign, the exotic and the impossible - but in our current context, it also connects us to a world where anything is possible. A world out of our grasp for now.

The world we wake up in is a counterfeit reality. Things look the same. Unlike those now familiar films, the descent of humanity is not apparent in the slow shuffle of moaning, glassy-eyed zombies. The threat we face feels like those clever horror movies like The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity and more recent films like The Quiet Place where we rarely see the source of horror. The current moment is best understood as a kind of low hum of anxiety, like the buzzing of a pylon in a field.

The world that was, the world that is

In my travels to Kenya in 2019 and more specifically Nairobi, I drew regularly. I was working on the Tupumue research project, measuring the lung capacity of 2,600 children aged between five and 18 from two areas in Nairobi: the informal settlement Mukuru and the adjacent affluent area Buruburu.

The research team was collaborating with local artists, teachers and community members to develop participatory creative methods to engage with the two communities in the study. The drawings capture my impressions of the vibrant streets of Nairobi and specifically of Mukuru, a large informal settlement, is a visceral flood to the senses.

During an event in which we moved through Mukuru in procession, testing our creative methods for sensitisation which included puppetry, art making (including graffiti), song and dance, a colleague, surveying the crowds of children and people in the narrow, dusty roads, said: "I wouldn't want to see what a virus would do to this population."

We are now seeing this unfold and I worry for all of those people living in such close proximity. Self-isolation and the sharing of Netflix lists is an absurd luxury to the people here who live confined in small, steel shacks. Life was hard before COVID-19. After, it could be unbearable.

A life in isolation is nothing new, communities like this have been isolated and invisible to the vast majority of the world for a long time. It is capitalism's dustbin. When capitalism coughs, these communities perish.

Read more: Why Africa's journalists aren't doing a good job on COVID-19

So what of the arts in isolation? It might be too early to write that book and paint that picture that captures the buzz of anxiety we all feel. We probably need more time and artists need more sunrises and sunsets to rise and fall on the full, nervous houses. They need more time to listen to the sounds of life interrupted and to mourn for the "world that was", watching it drift further into the shadows.

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The importance of art in the time of coronavirus

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People are dying, critical resources are stretched, the very essence of our freedom is shrinking - and yet we are moved inward, to the vast inner space of our thoughts and imagination, a place we have perhaps neglected.

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What the arts teach and how it shows (in the time of COVID-19)

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What the arts teach and how it shows (in the time of COVID-19)

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Australian Education Union (AEU) Victorian Branch

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What the Arts Teach and How It Shows (in the time of COVID-19)

Mark Selkrig, Kathryn Coleman & Abbey MacDonald

The place and role of the arts within school curriculum (and more broadly in society) has always been and remains fragile and contested (Selkrig & Bottrell, 2018). As we have re-positioned ourselves, readied our classrooms and laptops for a return to another term in stage 3 lockdown, we can again feel the weight on the arts to provide the play, wellbeing and creative space to support the anxieties and fears of students and their families across our schools. Our fragility is clearly manifested in this time of COVID-19 where, while living in a state that prides itself as the arts and cultural centre of the nation, the arts sector in Victoria closed rapidly, had a short stint at opening up and again has had to close the doors. The arts in 2020 have found themselves in dire straits, with artists and arts workers across industries continuing to wonder what the future of the arts could be like post-covid. While we have seen small glimpses of a new normal for the arts between stage 3 first round and stage 3 second round, it is still the arts that buoy us with care and empathy as we head back into lockdown in metropolitan Melbourne. There is ample evidence from various parts of the world (including Australia) that highlight the value and benefits of the arts and arts rich learning environments for young people before and during COVID-19. Despite this, the arts can become diminished in school settings due to competing demands on time and space.

During this health crisis, there appears to be a heightened awareness and appreciation of the arts. In this article, we return to a key thinker in the field of arts education, Elliot Eisner (2002) and a seminal work authored by him. We use his work to reflect on and consider what the arts have taught and shown us in guiding us through times of uncertainty, while keeping us hopeful and reinforcing why there is the necessity for the arts within the school curriculum. Throughout the article we have linked and connected to various examples of how arts learning experiences are being offered by our communities. These hyperlinks serve as resources for you to explore how the arts, arts education and artists are supporting each other such as this Art Education Australia link: collaborative digital learning and teaching space.

The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.

It seems that art teachers have been resourceful in the ways to encourage young people to think about their home environment and the materials with which they can continue to 'make' and explore while in lockdown. In some instances 'art packs' were sent home or households were encouraged to experiment with the materials they have about them, for example exploring the back yard to locate sticks, twigs and leaves as the materials to make a collage or sculptures. In the arts, rules and 'correct answers' are not definitive, and by encouraging parents and carers to ask questions of these 'at home young artists' about their work such as: 'why did you choose those particular sticks or leaves?' and 'what sort of feeling did you want to create with the sculpture or collage?', it has been possible to hear about the judgements and arguments young people have constructed and considered rather than the 'rules' they followed in making the work. A disposition we would hope to foster at a time of uncertainty.

The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution.

This resonates for art teachers just as powerfully as it does for their students! Art teachers in Victorian schools model tremendous agility in their own practice, which students experienced last term and will again this term. From the development of resources and strategy sharing to help peers make pedagogic leaps, art teachers offered a masterclass in how to troubleshoot problems as opportunities to innovate. Artists and teachers are well accustomed to navigating the uncertainty of marginalisation; be it in curriculum agendas or meaningful recognition of the industry through investment (see Visual Communication Victoria). Through their sharing of strategies and resources developed, art teachers have shown us the many ways in which they stepped up to the COVID-19 problem.

The arts can celebrate multiple perspectives.

Teachers incorporate ways of knowing and doing integral to art as part of a holistic curriculum enactment repertoire. Bodkin-Andrews and Carlson (2016) remind us how, as "a multicultural country the future of Indigenous students is tied to the future of all Australians and their acceptance of the importance of Indigenous cultures" (p. 788). Art - as complexly connected in conversation with, and distinct to culture - plays a significant role as teachers must keep working to create safe spaces for truth telling, deep listening and reconciling distorted and incomplete histories. Teachers' engagement with, recognition and inclusion of multiple perspectives continues to transform how young people take part in, obtain and benefit from Arts education. Ewing (2020) reminds us of the abundant evidence related to the critical role arts experiences play in engendering a multiplicity of distinctive skills and understandings that young people need to successfully navigate the fluidity of twenty-first century living. Drawing from their experience in and familiarity with practice, artists and arts workers in Victoria were clearly already (and continue to show us just how) well accustomed they are to adopting processes of making meaning, decisions, and communication. Hashtags such as #ACMWithYou, #spreadartnotviruses and #NGVEveryDay have offered a connection to celebrate the multiple perspectives and practices of the arts across Victoria in our classrooms. Inherently, these propensities saw teachers and students put multiple perspectives to work in mapping and mobilising multiple solutions for the challenges COVID-19 created for teaching, learning, and making art.

The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem-solving purposes are seldom fixed but change with circumstance and opportunity.

A range of amazing, exciting, and necessary ways in which arts teachers work with young people continues to unfold alongside the expansion and contraction of COVID-19. We know how "creative and critical practice can bring experiential learning experiences to these challenges: immersing... learners in a space of play, making, iteration and reflection, that can scaffold the process of change" (MacDonald, Wise, Riggall & Brown, 2019, p. 79). The need for art teachers to practice and teach complex forms of problem solving that Eisner (2002) describes remains pertinent. Opportunities change as COVID-19 continues in the ebb and flow of lockdowns, alongside proposed changes for higher education funding models and support packages for the Arts industry in Victoria. Shifting circumstances and priorities are inevitably felt on the ground by teachers, where less funding for resources and opportunities can manifest in teachers feeling compelled to work doubly hard to demonstrate their worth to a resistant audience (MacDonald, Barton & Baguley, 2016). Art teachers in Victoria are navigating the tension of changing circumstances in distinctive, interconnected, and expansive ways.

The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know.

The arts have well and truly stepped up in these precarious times. We have seen art as a vehicle to promote young people's sense making of the current situation. We have seen a plethora of opportunities emerge for young people to engage in music making, drawing, painting, animation, sculpture, movie making to capture their reflections on what matters most to them, what they have learned or hopes for the future. During the first lockdown and remote schooling we saw projects such as Together we are making history appear to support the creative and critical thinking of young people, while capturing and archiving this moment in time. Our galleries such as Heide, through Heide at Home #HEIDEATHOME initiated similar support for young artists encouraging them to make and create through lego, drawing and clay challenges.

The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects.

We can all remember our experiences in creating that wonderful colourful painting where we just added a little too much black to our palette and everything turns to muck, or that magical moment by adding a flick of white to a colour on our paper and instantly the object becomes alive creating a glittering illusion. Similarly we all know that small difference when we are drawing and we press too hard with the pencil and we either tear the paper or make a mark that is far more pronounced than we had intended and will then impact on the whole composition. Our teaching and learning in the arts make these small differences that have lasting literacies and knowledges that are used every day. Eisner (2002) argued that a curriculum that included music, dance and art was essential in developing critical thinking skills in children to make-meaning and sense-make ideas about the world.

The arts teach students to think through and within a material.

Because the arts curriculum in Victoria is designed to teach students through a practitioner lens; allowing learning, teaching, and assessment to be authentic; remote, hybrid and studio-based learning was able to shift according to the site of practice. During remote teaching and learning at home, the practice focus of the curriculum was supported by young people making and responding to art with a range of non-traditional materials in their own homes. Chalk on the streets, rainbows in windows and bears in home entrances were signs of placemaking and installations by young people across Melbourne who were thinking through material, and with materials.

The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said.

Within this COVID-19 precarity, the Victorian arts curriculum design has offered opportunities for students and teachers to show and think through their fears and anxieties, and for some the joys of being home during remote learning. The Laburnum PS Online Learn at Home Gallery indicates how arts learning at home was critical to the wellbeing, creativity and personal expression of students as they wondered what was happening and tried to make-sense and sense-make away from school, friends and the routine of term time. Over the last six months arts teachers and students have taken risks and challenged themselves to use a variety of digital spaces they had not used before to share their feelings about the world right now. Just this year, art has been a scope to channel our emotions about bushfires, climate change, the pandemic, and fears for an unknown future. Our arts students have been making, creating, presenting, and submitting work in a range of places, platforms, and new modalities. Within initial teacher education, our arts educators too were making what could only be shared via art making. The following images are the work of preservice teachers at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education who alongside their weekly online seminars and workshops, co-authored a series of pandemic zines that were sent by mail from home to home across the semester. Anticipating the zine arriving in the mail each week was joyful, and a personal connection through art that captured their thinking and feeling about learning to be an art and design teacher from home.
Image 1: M.Teach Secondary Art & Design, MGSE Pandemic Zine by Ella Konrad-East, images by Stephanie Dimofski. Image 2: M.Teach Secondary Art & Design, MGSE Ella Konrad-East's Pandemic Zine note to the next author, Stephanie Dimofski. Image 3: M.Teach Secondary Art & Design, MGSE Stephanie Dimofski's Pandemic Zine note to the next author, Ellen Collins. Image 4: M.Teach. Secondary Art and Design, MGSE Pandemic Zine by Felicity Young, images by Stephanie Dimofksi and Joanne Low.
The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

This term is going to be a difficult one for many of us, but we know from experience that through making and responding we can wonder and wander, to be curious and imaginative supported by our arts organisations, and to ask, what if. What we have learned in 2020 is that we are resilient. When the going gets tough artists, and the arts community work together to create new opportunities through possibility thinking. Our galleries and museums, theatres and performance venues have all challenged us to think differently about the role that we play in community, and to consider why the Arts are important and why the arts matter in schools.

The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolises to the young what adults believe is important.

The arts curriculum in Victoria explicitly locates the role of the artist and audience; together we learn through the practices, disciplines and traditions that have shaped cultures. We have art teachers who work with their students to develop ways of knowing through the different histories and cultures of Victoria, Australia, and the wider global community. At this current time and Post-COVID it is important that the art and education sectors (curriculum writers, professional learning providers, school principals, teachers and students of diverse race, ethnicity and cultural voice) actively engage in dialogue about the visioning, shaping and positioning and crucial role of art in the curriculum. Our current circumstance seems to have heightened a belief that change, resilience and hope are needed in schools. We know that learning in and through the arts enables students to develop creative dispositions and expressive skills by learning about practices, materials, traditions, and cultures (Selkrig, 2018). This needs to be nurtured, supported, and reflected in curriculum so that our students can make and respond to their worlds, exploring their beliefs, values, and feelings toward global events like we find ourselves in today.

In returning to Eisner's (2002) work that champions the ways the arts benefit students, teachers, and schools to frame this article, his suite of key ideas about the importance of the arts seem to remain central, enduring and may have even more meaning now. For us, Eisner offered a pivot; a place to stop and reflect on what the arts have taught us and how the arts in the time of COVID-19 support our teaching practices and pedagogies. This year continues to unfold unlike any other we have experienced, and that you as teachers will feel the weight of providing play, wellbeing, and creative spaces to support the anxieties and fears of students and their families across our schools. Eisner maintained that the arts are not only crucial to the development of critical and creative thinking skills but they are also rigorous and sophisticated spaces of learning about the self and world. His views seem even more important now as a way of connecting our present circumstances in art education to our past, as well as our uncertain but hopeful futures.

References

Bodkin-Andrews, G., & Carlson, B. (2016). The legacy of racism and Indigenous Australian identity within education. Race Ethnicity and Education, 19(4), 784-807.

Eisner, E. (2002). What the Arts Teach and How It Shows. In The Arts and the Creation of Mind (pp. 70-92). London: Yale University Press.

Ewing, R. (2020). The Australian Curriculum: The Arts. A critical opportunity. Curriculum Perspectives, 40 (1), 75-81.

MacDonald, A., Barton, G., Baguley, M., & Hartwig, K. (2016). Teachers' Curriculum Stories: Perceptions and preparedness to enact change. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 48 (13), 1336-1351.

MacDonald, A., Wise, K., Riggall, J., & Brown, N. (2019). Converging discipline perspectives to inform the design and delivery of STEAM teacher professional learning. Australian Art Education, 40 (1), 67.

Selkrig, M., & Bottrell, C. (2018). Exploring particular creativities in the arts through the voices of Australian visual arts educators. In L. d. Bruin, S. Davis, & P. Burnard (Eds.), Creativities in Arts Education, Research and Practice: International Perspectives for the future of learning and teaching (pp. 15 - 32). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill I Sense.

Selkrig, M. (2018). Connections teachers make about creativity and arts learning. Educational Research, 60 (4), 478 - 493.

Mark Selkrig is an Associate Professor in Education at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne. His research interests include the changing nature of educators' work and the ways in which the arts and creativity can influence change, capacity building and agency of individuals and communities. He is always keen to work, talk and collaborate with others who have an interest in these areas. Mark is on Twitter @markselkrig

Kathryn Coleman is an artist, arts-based researcher, and Senior Lecturer in Visual Arts & Design at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. She is interested in the intersection of art, digital spaces, practice, and culture, and teaches this through art and design. Kate's research into practice includes teacher practices, creative practices, practices of identity, knowledge as practice and digital practices. Kate is on twitter @kateycoleman

Abbey MacDonald is an arts-based researcher, teacher, and Senior Lecturer in Arts Education at the University of Tasmania. She brings an interest in art making, Arts advocacy, teacher professional learning and community engagement to all aspects of her work. She enjoys working with Arts industry and philanthropic organisations in collaboration with education transformation stakeholders and has been recognised for her approaches to practice in online Arts teacher education contexts. Abbey is on Twitter @AbbeyJMacD

This article appears in Professional Voice 13.2 Learning in the shadow of the pandemic.

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The place and role of the arts within school curriculum (and more broadly in society) has always been and remains fragile and contested (Selkrig & Bottrell, 2018).

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The Darwin Aboriginal Arts Fair has gone online this year due to Covid-19. It has been extended to tomorrow. 

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The Darwin Aboriginal Arts Fair has gone online this year due to Covid-19. It has been extended to tomorrow. 

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The website has some awesome videos of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts practices. I recommend checking it out - hopefully they will keep up an online component going forward, but you can also see all the different art groups and follow them independently.

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PISA Creative thinking framework and test

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PISA Creative thinking framework and test

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Louisa Penfold is one of my play-based education and arts heroes! Here, she writes about why it is important to offer children a wide range of materials to explore in both play and creative thinking. What do we give children to work with over and over again, and why do we choose those things over more unconventional materials?

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We bring all Australians together by telling stories to help us recognise where we've come from, where we are today and where we go from here

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Indigenous Australia, Culture, People & Resources | Australians Together

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Explore the rich diversity of Australian culture and First Nations history at Australians Together. Learn about Indigenous culture, migration, and more. Discover resources and information for educators, students, and all Australians.

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a short editorial that also highlights that Creative Education is also treated very differently in the Private and Public sector.

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ou can't see it, smell it, hear it. People disagree on how, precisely, to define it, or where, exactly, it comes from. It isn't a school subject or an academic discipline, but it can be learned. It is a quality that is required by artists. But it is also present in the lives of scientists and entrepreneurs. All of us benefit from it: we thrive mentally and spiritually when we are able to harness it. It is a delicate thing, easily stamped out; in fact, it flourishes most fully when people are playful and childlike. At the same time, it works best in tandem with deep knowledge and expertise.

This mysterious - but teachable - quality is creativity, the subject of a report published this week by Durham Commission on Creativity and Education, a body chaired by Sir Nicholas Serota, the chair of Arts Council England, with input from figures including film director Beeban Kidron, architect Sir David Adjaye and choreographer Akram Khan. The report, put together in collaboration with academics from Durham University, concludes that creativity is not something that should inhabit the school curriculum only as it relates to drama, music, art and other obviously creative subjects, but that creative thinking ought to run through all of school life, infusing the way human and natural sciences are learned.

The authors, who focus on education in England, offer a number of sensible recommendations, some of which are an attempt to alleviate the Gradgrindish turn in education policy of recent years. When children are regarded as pitchers to be filled with facts, creativity does not prosper; nor does it when teachers' sole objective is, perforce, coaching children towards exams. One suggestion from the commission is a network of teacher-led "creativity collaboratives", along the lines of existing maths hubs, with the aim of supporting teaching for creativity through the school curriculum.

Nevertheless, it is arts subjects through which creativity can most obviously be fostered. The value placed on them by the independent education sector is clear. One only has to look at the remarkable arts facilities at Britain's top public schools to comprehend this. But in the state sector the EBacc's focus on English, maths and science threatens to crush arts subjects; meantime, reduced school budgets mean dwindling extracurricular activities. There has been a 28.1% decline in uptake of creative subjects at GCSE since 2014, though happily, art and design have seen a recent uptick.

This disparity between state and private is a matter of social justice. It is simply wrong and unfair that most children have a fraction of the access to choirs, orchestras, art studios and drama that their most privileged peers enjoy. As lives are affected by any number of looming challenges - climate crisis, automation in the workplace - humans are going to need creative thinking more than ever. For all of our sakes, creativity in education, and for all, must become a priority.

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The Guardian view on creativity in schools: a missing ingredient | Editorial

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ou can't see it, smell it, hear it. People disagree on how, precisely, to define it, or where, exactly, it comes from. It isn't a school subject or an academic discipline, but it can be learned. It is a quality that is required by artists.

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Keynote – What does success in Indigenous higher education look like?

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In this keynote address, Dr Nikki Moodie opens the Indigenous Settler Relations Collaboration second Critical Public Conversations series by questioning what success really means in Indigenous higher education. After a decade of failure, the new Closing the Gap targets suggest that 70% of young Indigenous people will have a tertiary qualification in a decade. How will the sector respond to the rapid structural changes necessary to enrol and retain Indigenous young people in Australian universities, at least doubling current rates? In this address, Dr Moodie suggests that what we mean when we say 'Indigenous education' must be urgently clarified if young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their communities are to be better served by the sector. As calls for universities to decolonize their curriculum and built environment increase, how can we imagine more culturally relevant ways of understanding our relationships between settler and Indigenous systems and knowledges to achieve Indigenous aspirations in higher education?
Recording transcript
Presenter

Dr Nikki Moodie, co-director Indigenous Settler Relations Collaboration and Senior Lecturer in Indigenous Studies and Sociology in the Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne.

Host

Associate Professor Sana Nakata Associate Dean (Indigenous), Senior Lecturer in Political Science and co-founder of the Indigenous Settler Relations Collaboration, the University of Melbourne.

The presenter has granted permission for this recording to be used for personal viewing and educational purposes. Please contact I-SRC@unimelb.edu.au before sharing for any other reason.

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Keynote - What does success in Indigenous higher education look like?

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In this keynote address, Dr Nikki Moodie opens the Indigenous Settler Relations Collaboration second Critical Public Conversations series by questioning what success really means in Indigenous higher education. After a decade of failure, the new Closing the Gap targets suggest that 70% of young Indigenous people will have a tertiary qualification in a decade.

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Aboriginal Perspectives Program: An overview and the partnership and role of key stakeholders in educationDate: Monday 31 August, 3:45 pm–4:45 pm

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Aboriginal Perspectives Program: An overview and the partnership and role of key stakeholders in educationDate: Monday 31 August, 3:45 pm–4:45 pm

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The VCAA is hosting a series of webinars as part of its ongoing professional learning to support the Victorian Curriculum.

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Activity: Explore activities about Indigenous knowledge systems and cultural bias

Cultural bias - the Koori IQ test

Take the Koori IQ test and consider the idea of knowledge in context.

Koori IQ test: http://www.johnwiley.net.au/highered/cyberPsych03/interactives/culturalBias/09int1.html

Knowledge systems

...it is possible that you have managed to live without having to operate outside of knowledge systems that are familiar to you, or to shift the paradigm through which you view the world in order to make sense of things.

In groups, brainstorm together your understandings of knowledge systems. You may like to consider and discuss the following questions:

Which knowledge system do you most relate to?

Name other knowledge systems and list any differences.

What do you know about Indigenous knowledge systems?

Use the following resource provided for the International Baccalaureate to research Indigenous knowledge systems
http://www.theoryofknowledge.net/areas-of-knowledge/indigenous-knowledge-systems/knowledge-framework-indigenous-knowledge-systems/

Marie Battiste talks about knowledge as the key site for decolonisation:

Is knowledge value-neutral ?

Whose knowledge is valued in education systems?

To what extent would the knowledge system one identifies with affect one's education?

To what extent do you think your understandings of knowledge systems as a beginning teacher will affect the education of your students?

Related content

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Activity: Explore activities about Indigenous knowledge systems and cultural bias Take the Koori IQ test and consider the idea of knowledge in context. Koori IQ test: http://www.johnwiley.net.au/highered/cyberPsych03/interactives/culturalBias/09int1.html ...it is possible that you have managed to live without having to operate outside of knowledge systems that are familiar to you, or to shift the paradigm through which you view the world in order to make sense of things.

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What do you think will be humanity’s greatest challenges in 2050?Please rank the top three challenges.

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What do you think will be humanity’s greatest challenges in 2050?Please rank the top three challenges.

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Become a part of this global initiative! UNESCO has launched a global debate on the futures of education - and a conversation how knowledge and learning can shape the future of humanity and the planet.

Your answers will help UNESCO and the International Commission on the Futures of Education identify priorities and help people create the futures they want.

Please note that this survey is available in several other languages in addition to English, click here to take the survey in another language.

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Vote on the top challenges and purposes of education | Unesco Futures of Education

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Become a part of this global initiative! UNESCO has launched a global debate on the futures of education - and a conversation how knowledge and learning can shape the future of humanity and the planet. Your answers will help UNESCO and the International Commission on the Futures of Education identify priorities and help people create the futures they want.

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Natural disasters and pandemics: Supporting student and teacher wellbeing after a crisis

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Natural disasters and pandemics: Supporting student and teacher wellbeing after a crisis

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Executive summary

Teachers and schools often contribute as first responders in emergencies, and are adept at providing immediate care, despite themselves also being significantly affected by such emergencies. However, teachers often feel unsure about how best to provide psycho-educative support in the immediate aftermath and via longer- term recovery efforts.

This report presents an overview of research outlining effective approaches to the promotion of student and staff wellbeing during periods of emergency and recovery.

Exposure to emergencies such as bushfires and pandemics can be traumatic and cause major disruptions to families and to their livelihoods. Rates of family violence, sexual violence and mental health problems typically increase during and in the post emergency periods. During emergencies, women, girls and those already experiencing disadvantage are at much greater risk of violence and victimisation, and of the likelihood of developing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Emergencies disproportionately affect those already experiencing social or economic disadvantage, with poverty a major risk factor for increased risk of social, material and psychological harm. While most children and young people are resilient and recover well post emergency, some experience long-lasting mental health distress, including PTSD, anxiety disorders and depression. Common reactions that children and young people have include heightened anxiety even after the threat has gone, difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating on learning, problems with regulating behaviour and expressing emotions, challenges in managing frustration and conflict, anxiety about the effects on their own and their family's future, and difficulties in getting along with others.

Earlier models of research investigating the wellbeing of those affected by emergencies focused on understanding the effects of direct exposure to the traumatic events. However, more recent research shows that distress can also be caused and intensified by high exposure to media recounting traumatic events, material deprivation, exposure to high levels of parental distress, and family violence. These stressors may be sustained once the immediate emergency has passed, with continued negative impact on children's wellbeing and learning.

Research demonstrates that schools can make a major contribution to the prevention of mental health problems and to the promotion of resilience post emergency. Participation in sustained school-based social and emotional learning programs can help to mitigate the mental health effects of exposure to traumatic events, and lead to reduced rates of depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder. They also help students to develop the key life skills needed to deal with the stressors and challenges of everyday life. These programs can also help schools fulfil their curriculum requirements in developing students' personal and social capabilities, and benefit all students, regardless of their exposure to trauma.

A number of evidence-informed programs are available to guide teachers in adopting best practices both during the immediate aftermath of emergencies and in longer-term recovery. Schools can benefit from being made aware of existing teaching and wellbeing resources and services, and of the routine good practices they can continue to use effectively in the post emergency period.

Schools benefit from clear guidance about effective response strategies to adopt post emergency. The following advice is derived from a summary of the available international research investigating effective approaches to promoting student wellbeing post exposure to a range of emergencies, including natural disasters, armed conflict and epidemics.

Download this resource in the Infographic section

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Report #3 - Natural disasters and pandemics

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Teachers and schools often contribute as first responders in emergencies, and are adept at providing immediate care, despite themselves also being significantly affected by such emergencies. However, teachers often feel unsure about how best to provide psycho-educative support in the immediate aftermath and via longer- term recovery efforts.

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The influence of black American music on Indigenous Australians

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The influence of black American music on Indigenous Australians

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When Indigenous jazz and blues singer Georgia Lee approached the microphone to sing Strange Fruit at the Sydney Town Hall in 1948, she was uncharacteristically nervous.

The song, about the lynchings of black men in the American Deep South, was first performed in public by Billie Holiday in New York's Greenwich Village nine years earlier.

Lee's rendition may be the first public performance in Australia of Strange Fruit - which is regarded as a classic protest song of the American civil rights movement even though it was composed by Jewish American poet Abel Meeropol, under the pseudonym Lewis Allan.

The veiled metaphor in the title becomes utterly clear by the third line:

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze...

It was a worldwide hit - but in Sydney in 1948 the song was deeply controversial.

Three weeks after Lee's performance, radio station 2GB withdrew the song from a scheduled broadcast. The station's general manager said the decision was made "purely as a matter of good taste".

According to a story published in The Sun newspaper, Lee crossed her fingers as she hissed the lines of the song in her deep blues voice.

"I sang Strange Fruit because it conveys the terrible suffering of coloured people in America. I feel everybody should realise the horrors of lynching," she told a reporter after the concert.

If a song can be said to have a life, then Strange Fruit has an impressive biography.

But the 'life' of Ngarra Burra Ferra, heard on the soundtrack to the film The Sapphires, is in some ways even more compelling.

'Brethren from a far distant tribe'

According to Gabriel Solis, a professor of music and African American studies at the University of Illinois, the story goes at least as far back as 1887.

In that year the Fisk Jubilee Singers, an African American university choir, travelled to the Maloga mission on the Murray River near Moama on the NSW-Victoria border.

"The Fisk Jubilee Singers were a choir from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee - one of the newly formed black colleges and universities established to educate freed slaves," Professor Solis says.

"They got their start in the 1870s, so shortly after Emancipation in 1864."

He says the group toured the United States and then Europe to raise funds for the university, and went on a world tour in the 1880s.

"They ended up in Australia and spent six years based here," Professor Solis says.

"While they were here, they were mostly based in Sydney, but they travelled all around.

"You can find records of them performing. They were huge."

Professor Solis says it's unclear exactly how the visit to Maloga came about, but it is possible that they were invited to the mission by a resident, Aboriginal rights activist William Cooper, and the mission's teacher Thomas Shadrach James.

"They got to Maloga and they sang and they enjoyed a day with the folks on the mission. They seemed to have connected substantially," Professor Solis says.

"They performed mostly spirituals ... that was really when spirituals became a very popular entertainment."

Frederick J. Loudin was the group's choirmaster at the time - and their first African American manager.

"He wrote extensively [about] the importance of having a black-led, black-managed, black business," Professor Solis says.

By the end of the century the Fisk Jubilee Singers were world-famous - and had been presented to Queen Victoria - so it's not surprising their visit to Maloga was reported in the newspapers.

In the Mount Alexander Mail, Loudin is quoted as saying:

"I shall never forget the effect of our singing there. The Aborigines were at first very shy of us, but when they heard us sing, they went into a state I can only describe as one of almost ecstatic delight.

"The music of the plantations stirred their souls as no other music could have done, and they seemed to recognise us as brethren from a far distant tribe.

"They followed our carriages for miles along the road, and waved adieus from fences, trees, and rising grounds in a way which showed that were we ever able to return there we would be welcomed with a welcome white men seldom receive."

Before they left Maloga, the singers did something which seems slight but which had long-term impact on the musical tradition of the Yorta Yorta people who were living at Maloga in the late 19th century.

They left a bundle of songbooks, with the lyrics and sheet music of their spirituals - songs like Swing Low Sweet Chariot and the lesser-known Turn Back Pharaoh's Army, which describes the biblical story of the exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

According the Book of Exodus, it was during their flight from Egypt that God parted the seas so his chosen people could escape.

The pharaoh's armies drowned.

A song about deliverance and hope

This song originated during slavery, a time when it would have had profound meaning.

Based on the Song of Moses and Miriam in Exodus 15, Turn Back Pharaoh's Army is a song about deliverance and hope.

According to Tony Briggs, the actor and playwright who wrote The Sapphires, it was his great-grandmother Nannie Theresa Clements who translated the English version of Turn Back Pharaoh's Army into the Yorta Yorta language.

So between 1887, when the songbooks were given to the faithful at Maloga, and 1937, when the song was performed in Yorta Yorta at the centenary of Melbourne, Turn Back Pharaoh's Army becomes Ngarra Burra Ferra - or Burra Ferra for short.

When Briggs wrote the musical that inspired the film, he included a note to that the song was offered as a tribute to "its keeper" - his grandmother Geraldine Briggs, a senior Yorta Yorta elder.

In English and in Yorta Yorta, the song had a political context.

Just before the visit of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the residents of Maloga petitioned the NSW Governor Lord Carrington, who was visiting Moama.

They presented their case that a grant of land to be made to every family from the mission.

Many of the families, including those of William Cooper and Thomas Shadrach James, eventually moved to nearby Cummeragunja, where it was hoped they might enjoy greater freedom and more independence from the authorities, who exercised minute control over their lives.

What grew at Cummeragunja was a musical tradition that includes The Sapphires, Jimmy Little and his niece soprano Deborah Cheetham, as well as singer-songwriters Lou Bennett and Benny Walker and hip hop artist Briggs.

The meaning of Ngarra Burra Ferra deepened in 1939, when the residents of Cummeragunja walked off the station over poor living conditions and mistreatment at the hands of the manager and the Aborigines' Protection Board.

It was the first mass strike by Aboriginal people, and is memorialised in the opera Pecan Summer, written and composed by Deborah Cheetham, whose family walked off Cummeragunja in 1939.

One of the youngest members of the family was two-year-old James, who went on to become the singer Jimmy Little.

Hip-hop, reggae prevalent across the country

It's possible to track the cultural effect of one song, but the story of the wider impact of black American music is harder to delineate.

According to musicologist Dr Clint Bracknell from Sydney's Conservatorium of Music, the uptake of reggae and hip hop exemplifies this cross-cultural trend in Aboriginal music-making.

"That influence [of hip hop on Aboriginal performers] is far more prevalent now that it ever was and stretches across the whole country," he said.

"Before hip hop, the first-hand influence of African American music seems to have mainly been an east coast phenomenon."

He says it's not just black music from America that resonates here.

"Reggae is a whole other story too - I would argue that Bob Marley has had just as much influence on Aboriginal performers as any African American artist."

Regardless, it's a compelling field of inquiry for Professor Solis, who encountered a much deeper story than he anticipated when he set out to record the oral histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander musicians.

"It surprised me but also it doesn't surprise me," he said.

"I think if you look at the story of the crucible of race in America, music is always central to it. It is always a key part of that story."

He says he expected the story to be about the "circulation of commodities" - recordings, sheet music and books - but it wasn't.

Professor Solis says at the heart of it, it's about the power of song.

"This is a story about people, and it's about people moving around the world," he said.

"Music a token for us to interact with each other.

"Singing together and dancing together is powerful."

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One song's 130-year impact on Australian Indigenous musicians

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When Indigenous jazz and blues singer Georgia Lee approached the microphone to sing Strange Fruit at the Sydney Town Hall in 1948, she was uncharacteristically nervous. The song, about the lynchings of black men in the American Deep South, was first performed in public by Billie Holiday in New York's Greenwich Village nine years earlier.

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ISME Thought Leader Session: Deborah Cheetham in conversation with Margaret Barrett & Susan O'Neill

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ISME Thought Leader Session: Deborah Cheetham in conversation with Margaret Barrett & Susan O'Neill

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International Society for Music Education

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ISME Thought Leader Session: Deborah Cheetham in conversation with Margaret Barrett & Susan O'Neill

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Artist educators return to the earthquake ravaged city for a second workshop, this time introducing dance.

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Actor/educators used drama to work with children affected by the Christchurch quake.

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Teaching for reconciliation in your classroom

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Teaching for reconciliation in your classroom

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Teaching for reconciliation in your classroom

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Alternative pathways into the Bachelor of Education (Honours)

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This reminds me of when I spent a month in Mongolia over Luna New Year, and noticed that the, what I perceived as often, sad mournful music, full of minor intonations and diminished chords, was perceived as happy and upbeat music by the locals.

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Music is culturally - and not racially - ingrained. Reuters/Andrew Winning

One frequently hears questions such as: Why do different races generally listen to specific genres of music? Why do music genres have a huge racial divide?

In societies obsessed with and manipulated by the notion of race, these questions are understandable. But it is also understandable that, for many forward-thinking people, they are highly troubling.

It says a lot about our state of mind that we have become used to linking matters to race even if they don't have a racial basis. Our preferences for specific musical genres do not have a basis in our genetic makeup, if one regards race as a genetically determined phenomenon. We should take delight because in respect of music, there is only one race: the human race.

It has to come as a tremendously liberating realisation that music is one of the attributes that makes humans human. By engaging in music, humans articulate their humanness and - even more so - their humanity. They have done so since the dawn of humankind in Africa.

If that is so, how are we to understand the undeniable existence of different musical genres? As humans dispersed out of Africa and across the world, they took their culture with them. As they dispersed, they lost contact with their respective cultures. And since the new environments they encountered differed vastly from one another, a great diversity of cultures developed in response - and continue to develop all the time.

So, the existence of different genres has to be regarded as a manifestation of our cultural diversity and not of our racial makeup. Even if it so happens that cultural diversity is, or has been, coincidental with the various human "races" as they evolved, musical diversity has to be seen as culture-specific, not race-specific.

What makes a music genre

In music, as in other arts, the word "genre" is not used consistently. In literature, the term can be used to distinguish between poetry, a novel or a play. In painting, between a landscape and a portrait, or between oil and water colour. For that reason, medium, style and form are additional terms that can help us to distinguish between different kinds of art.

Jazz, rock or classical are terms frequently used to distinguish between different "genres" of music. But they could also be described as different "styles". In that sense, "style" would denote the more general and "genre" the more specific characteristics of the music concerned. Be that as it may, it is helpful to regard "genre" as a description of the social function of music.

For example, a hit song may be in the same style as a musical, but the two have different functions. Similarly, a symphony fulfils a different function than an opera.

It is also important to understand that when one likes a piece of music, when it becomes meaningful to a particular person, some of the meaning of that song will inhere in the style or genre in which it is composed or performed. If I am into jazz and loathe heavy metal then that preference will make me reject a particular song in the genre of heavy metal regardless of whether it is a good song or not.

So, a good deal of the meaning that comes across when I listen to music lies in its style or genre. It is like the saying: The medium is the message.

The flipside is that there are kinds of music where I don't understand the stylistic conventions or the "vocabulary". Therefore, music in that style will be meaningless to me, even if an individual number in that style is highly popular among its followers.

It is like being able or unable to understand a particular language. If I don't know French I will be unable to distinguish between a joke and an insult directed at me in that language.

Where divides in music taste come from

Music is a less neutral form of communication than language. Consequently, different kinds of music seem to represent different kinds of value.

Rock music may represent the values of youth rebellion against what is perceived as the narrow-minded and materialistic value system of an older generation, while traditional folk music may be representative of an uncorrupted rural idyll. Such value systems are not fixed but can be rooted in the mind of the perceiver. For some classical music expresses the most profound sentiments of which humans are capable. For others it is elitist, imperialist, boring or simply uncool.

Comprehensibility and value, then, are the reasons why there are cultural - not racial - divides between adherents of different kinds of music.

Where do these divides come from? They are the result of any number of contributing factors, including upbringing in the parent culture, education, peer-group interaction, expression of a person's individual identity, even a marker of territory.

For example, religious groups tend to articulate their identity and mark their territory with very specific kinds of music, even if their aim is to give expression to their religious aspirations. And in many cases the music that people listen to is determined by their mood. In this case they will even be prepared to switch between different genres, as long as the music is felt to act as a stimulant or to soothe the nerves.

In societies plagued by strong cultural divisions, music can be a very significant vehicle for reconciliation. Music is not a universal language, but it holds a special significance and meaning for all of us. We all articulate our humanity by means of music.

By learning to respect the significance and meaning that a particular kind of music has for my fellow human beings, even if I don't subscribe to its value system, I will be able to recognise their human dignity in their music. This is regardless of whether that person is a vagrant singing his evening song, a child singing a nursery rhyme, a worshipper praising in song or a sports fan supporting his favourite team.

It would be even better if we could start talking to each other about what makes a particular kind of music meaningful and special to the other person. Who knows, we might even begin to practise musical multilingualism.

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Why culture, not race, determines tastes in music

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One frequently hears questions such as: Why do different races generally listen to specific genres of music? Why do music genres have a huge racial divide? In societies obsessed with and manipulated by the notion of race, these questions are understandable. But it is also understandable that, for many forward-thinking people, they are highly troubling.

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Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

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Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

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How playing an instrument benefits your brain

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How playing an instrument benefits your brain

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How playing an instrument benefits your brain - Anita Collins

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Neuroscience and embodied learning in drama

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Neuroscience and embodied learning in drama

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Art Therapy and Neuroscience: A Model forWellness

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Art Therapy and Neuroscience: A Model forWellness

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Art Therapy and Neuroscience: A Model for Wellness | Semantic Scholar

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This research aimed to illuminate the connections between art therapy and neuroscience by using qualitative research methods. Two art therapists and a psychologist with neuroscience backgrounds were interviewed. Analyzing artwork made by the researcher and results of the interviews allowed for themes to emerge: connection, perspective, desire for understanding and being trapped in time.

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The benefits of music education - Anita Collins

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The benefits of music education - Anita Collins

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Anita argues for music education in school curricula on the basis of neuroscience

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In this talk, musician and educator Anita Collins makes a passionate case for music education as an indispensable part of school curricula, describing how learning to play music is the neurological equivalent of a full-body workout.

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This is the wrong time to cut arts education

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This is the wrong time to cut arts education

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Schools should not be focused just on tested subjects

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IN TIMES of great financial strain and uncertainty, arts education is often the first thing cut from the school curriculum. Indeed, several school districts across the Commonwealth have already laid off teachers and arts educators in the face of expected budget cuts and an unpredictable fall. Some districts may be anticipating a stricter focus on tested subjects when schools reopen to get students up to speed, but this is exactly the wrong time to be cutting arts programs.

With an ongoing global pandemic and heightened attention on racial injustice, students need arts education more than ever. The arts help students creatively engage with their classmates and communities, help combat isolation, and allow students to process their feelings and express themselves in ways that help them make sense of what's happening in the world.

Arts education promotes positive development across the academic, social, and emotional realms. It is an essential part of a well-rounded education, not just enrichment or elective. Students involved in the arts are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement. Students who are highly engaged in the arts are twice as likely to graduate college as their peers with no arts education. And yet, despite the impressive benefits of arts education, not every student has access to these quality learning experiences.

When schools closed in March, Boston Public School students were able to continue their arts education for the remainder of the school year. Arts educators, led by Anthony Beatrice, executive director for the arts for the Boston Public Schools, utilized students' inherent creativity to demonstrate the arts ability to unite and heal. Students from dozens of BPS schools contributed works of art to share with frontline workers in the Boston hospital community, as well as senior citizens in the City's Age Strong Commission. BPS communities moved their art galleries to virtual spaces, or reworked their planned stage productions into rousing online events.

In addition, arts teachers across the district began taking part in online professional learning communities to share best practices and participate in weekly virtual meetings with the district's arts department. They received professional development in building virtual ensembles, differentiating instruction, and on online tools such as FlipGrid, Google Classroom, and Soundtrap.

Over the years, the district has built up this strong support system and community of arts teachers due to BPS Arts Expansion, a public-private partnership that involves a large and coordinated network of partners, including schools, arts organizations, local and national foundations, colleges and universities, and the mayor's office, among others. The capacity building of the Boston Public Schools to support quality arts education gave them the infrastructure and resources to quickly implement remote learning and could serve as a model for other school districts nationwide.

Arts education can be done - and done well - with some collaboration and innovation among educators. In the Boston Public Schools, the arts department created a new virtual learning section on the website where it posted many examples of what has been accomplished remotely. For example, students were able to express themselves in lessons ranging from comic book making and music composition to shadow puppetry and pandemic-themed tissue paper art.

During this time, districts and schools should be moving mountains to expand access to quality arts education instead of focusing - myopically - on tested subjects. Before students can get out from behind their screens and go back to an actual classroom, schools will need to ramp up and adapt the way they support their students' social-emotional needs. Arts education is a powerful and effective tool in helping students process complex emotions in this challenging time. Creative expression in a safe environment, be it on or offline, can have healing effects for all.

COVID-19 forced schools to rapidly change the basic way they educate students and may change the shape of our classrooms for years to come. Moving forward, arts education will continue to be crucial in helping students connect with each other, express themselves, process the world around them, and stay engaged in learning.
Brenda Cassellius is the superintendent of the Boston Public Schools and Marinell Rousmaniere is president and CEO of Edvestors, a nonprofit school improvement organization in Boston.

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This is the wrong time to cut arts education - CommonWealth Magazine

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IN TIMES of great financial strain and uncertainty, arts education is often the first thing cut from the school curriculum. Indeed, several school districts across the Commonwealth have already laid off teachers and arts educators in the face of expected budget cuts and an unpredictable fall.

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The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Curricula Project 

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The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Curricula Project 

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The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Curricula Project aims to empower all teachers to integrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives into their classroom practice. This conceptual framework is intended to provide a starting point to assist teachers to implement the Austr…

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Digital Literacy app - Your Online Journey

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Digital Literacy app - Your Online Journey

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The Your Online Journey app has been created to share the benefit of using the internet to all areas of Australia, particularly its remote communities. It is targeted at adults in Indigenous communities who are not engaging online, even when internet access is available. The app takes the mystery out of getting online and guides the user in how to stay safe on the internet.

The app has been designed to progressively teach skills to users. It is able to be downloaded and users can learn at their own pace. The app is suitable for individuals or small training groups. It is a public resource available for download by anyone.

The Your Online Journey app takes the user through a series of self-paced modules. Each module focuses on a specific topic including websites, creating email accounts, social media sites, internet providers and search engines. The app will teach users about data allowances and how to best use their available data. It will show users how the internet can be used for study and to apply for jobs. The app has information about how to avoid scams, deal with online bullying, share devices safely and manage a digital footprint.

Your Online Journey modules teach users everything from how to get online, use different devices, access services such as banking and how to use MyGov. The user can skip ahead at any time or go back and review previous content.

The app's content was developed in response to feedback from communities where the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet provide telecommunications activities. Consultation was undertaken to develop the app in the communities of Hay, Yalata and Koonibba. If you have feedback on the app's content, please contact us.

Accessing Your Online Journey

The Your Online Journey app is for use on mobile or tablet devices. To download ' Your Online Journey ':

Connect to community or public wifi to download the app because it is a large file.

For iPhones search AppStore.

For Android search Google Play Store - esafety Your Learning Journey.

Download on Android devices - If you are using an Android device remember to click on 'download' when prompted to download all the modules.

Acknowledgements

The Your Online Journey app was developed as a joint project between the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Office of the eSafety Commissioner. Funding was provided from the Indigenous Advancement Strategy - Remote Australia Strategies Programme.

The Australian Government wishes to thank the communities of Hay, Yalata and Koonibba for providing valuable input, guidance and feedback to shape the resource.

We would also like to acknowledge and thank the Project team from eWorks, Global Vison Media, and in particular, Cultural advisors from the Indigenous Education Centre and Bendigo Kangan Institute.

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Digital Literacy app - Your Online Journey

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The Your Online Journey app has been created to share the benefit of using the internet to all areas of Australia, particularly its remote communities. It is targeted at adults in Indigenous communities who are not engaging online, even when internet access is available.

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InSEA webinars give voice to art educators to discuss meaningful topics locally and globally.  As an ongoing experience, look for frequent additions from the six InSEA regions (Africa & Middle East, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, Southeast Asia & Pacific) where topics reveal circumstances and situations both near and far. The Research and Praxis Board actively seeks webinars from our membership.

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InSEA webinars give voice to art educators to discuss meaningful topics locally and globally.  As an ongoing experience, look for frequent additions from the six InSEA regions (Africa & Middle East, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, Southeast Asia & Pacific) where topics reveal circumstances and situations both near and far. The Research and Praxis Board actively seeks webinars from our membership.

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InSEA Research & Praxis Webinar

North American World Councillors with Dr. Joni Boyd Acuff for a conversation about critical race theory and anti-racism in education.

InSEA Members have access to our entire archive of webinars in the MEMBERS SPACE login or join here

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North American World Councillors with Dr. Joni Boyd Acuff for a conversation about critical race theory and anti-racism in education. InSEA Members have access to our entire archive of webinars in the MEMBERS SPACE login or join here

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As an open access journal, we seek to promote praxis in artistic and creative education, to provide an evidence-based bridge between arts and artistic practice, creative practices in educational contexts, and learning research and theory in all these areas.

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We live and work in times of disequilibrium in the arts, arts education and the broader artistic and creative education ecologies. Many of our communities are struggling during the global pandemic, affected by economic and socio-cultural shifts from extended periods of lockdown and potential health risks for participatory and socially engaged projects.

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We believe that:

All learners, regardless of age, nationality or background, should have entitlement and access to visual art education.

Education through art inspires knowledge, appreciation and creation of culture.

Culture is a basic human right. Culture promotes social justice and participation in contemporary societies. A strong democracy is an inclusive society. And, an inclusive society is a strong democracy.

All learners are entitled to an art education that deeply connects them to their world, to their cultural history. It creates openings and horizons for them to new ways of seeing, thinking, doing and being.

Educational programmes and curriculum models should prepare citizens with confident flexible intelligences, and creative verbal and non-verbal communication skills.

Visual art education opens possibilities and opportunities for learners to discover themselves, their creativity, values, ethics, societies and cultures.

Visual art education develops an understanding of creative practice through knowledge, understanding and production of art in contexts.

Visual art education develops the abilities to think critically and imaginatively, it fosters/aims at intercultural understanding, and an empathic commitment to cultural diversity.

Visual art education should be systematic and be provided over a number of years, as it is a developmental process. Learners should engage with 'making' alongside learning about art.

Visual art education develops a range of literacies and aesthetic dispositions, with a major focus on visual literacy and aesthetic assessment.

Visual literacy is an essential skill in today’s world. It encourages appreciation and understanding of visual communication and the ability to critically analyse and make meaningful images.

Art encourages the development of many transferable skills which enhance learning in other curriculum areas.

Visual arts in schools help students to understand themselves, building confidence and self-esteem, and contribute significantly to their own well-being.

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Learning through Art: International Perspectives

Edited by Glen Coutts and Teresa Torres de Eça

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Acknowledgement of Country Art Lovers Australia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to them and their cultures, to the Elders past, present, and emerging.

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InSEA ART Education VISUAL Journal  IMAG  intends to provide a visual platform, which, in line with the constitution of InSEA, will help foster international cooperation and understanding, and promote creative activity in art through sharing experiences, improving practices, and strengthening the position of art in all educational settings. IMAG is an international, online, Open Access and peer-reviewed e-publication for the identification, publication and dissemination of art education theories and practices through visual methods and media.

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Mission

InSEA ART Education VISUAL Journal IMAG provides a visual platform, which, in line with the constitution of InSEA, helps foster international cooperation and understanding, and promotes creative activity in art through sharing experience and practice of art in all educational situations. IMAG is an international, online, open access, peer-reviewed e-publication (pdf). IMAG aims to disseminate art education theory and practice principally using visual methods and media.

Editorial information

2021-2023
Principal Editors: Gabriella PATAKY, Maho SATO, Jonathan SILVERMAN

Graphic Designer: Viola REKVÉNYI
REVIEWERS TEAM 2021-2023
Rachel Mason,Kevin Hsieh, Steve Willis, Li-Yan Wang, Graham Nash, Susan Coles, Allan Richards, Glen Coutts, Samia Elsheikh, Sandrine Han, Martina Paatela-Nieminen, Jo Chiung Hua Chen, Merna Meyer, Teresa Eça, Amanda Alexander, Judit Skaliczki, Peter Vietgen, Laura Worsley

2018-2020 Principal Editors: Teresa Eça, Angela Saldanha; Bernardette Thomas

2014-2017 Principal Editors: Teresa Eça; Angela Saldanha; Ana Barbero; Glen Coutts

Editorial Board (2014-2020) (Reviewers): Martina Paatela- Niemenen (Faculty of Educational Sciences; University of Helsinki Finland); Rachel Mason (Roehampton University; UK) ; Li-Yan Yang (National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan); Kevin Hsieh (Georgia State University, USA); Fernando Miranda (Faculty of Fine Arts, Montevideo Uruguay); Jo Chiung Hua Chen (Normal University of Taiwan): Allan Richards (University of Kentucky, USA); Rita Irwin (University of British Columbia, Canada), SamIa Elsheik (Helwan University, Egypt); Mousumi De (Indiana University, USA); Steve Willis (Missouri State University); Manisha Sharma ( University of Arizona, USA); Sandrine Han (University of British Columbia, Canada); Mohammed Al-Amri (College of Education, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman); Maho Sato (Faculty of Education, Chiba University, Japan); Gabriella Pataky (Elte University, Hungary); Susan Coles ( NSEAD, UK); Graham Nash (Australia); Christiana Afrikaner (Senior Education Officer with the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture, Namibia); Merna Meyer (North-West University, South Africa); Teresa Eça (CIAC, Portugal); Angela Saldanha (CIAC, Portugal).
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InSEA ART Education VISUAL Journal IMAG provides a visual platform, which, in line with the constitution of InSEA, helps foster international cooperation and understanding, and promotes creative activity in art through sharing experience and practice of art in all educational situations. IMAG is an international, online, open access, peer-reviewed e-publication (pdf).

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Open Letter to the Greek Government: Arts Education in Peril

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Open Letter to the Greek Government: Arts Education in Peril

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The World Alliance for Arts Education WAAE – IDEA, InSEA, ISME, WDA - and all their member-associations and partners in the world, demand transformative action for arts education as being integral to sustaining communities and meeting the needs of all people in the face of critical global challenges.

180 experts from 47 countries found in this International Conference, Oct. 2019, with reports from all countries: The realization of UNESCO’s “Seoul Agenda” needs urgent comprehensive activities!

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Despite recognising Pemulwuy as "a brave and independent character", Governor King offered a reward for his death or capture and issued a government order than any Aboriginal people seen near Parramatta should be shot on site. Pemulwuy was shot dead in 1802, and his head was removed and sent to Sir Joseph Banks in England for his collection, however its current whereabouts are unknown.

Musquito

Musquito was born on the northern shore of Port Jackson and by 1805 had begun raiding settlements in the Hawkesbury region. A warrant was then issued for his arrest and he was captured and gaoled in Parramatta. He was later exiled to Norfolk Island where he remained for eight years before being sent to Launceston, Tasmania.

By 1817 he was working as a tracker, hunting down bushrangers including Michael Howe; however he eventually became known as a bushranger himself. After Indigenous people were increasingly pushed out of the main settlements he retreated to the bush and formed a gang. The group of 20-30 conducted raids on farms, killing several stockkeepers on the East Coast between 1823 and 1824. Musquito was wounded and captured in 1824 and later charged with aiding and abetting the murder of a stockkeeper. He was hanged with another Aboriginal man, Black Jack, at Old Hobart Gaol in 1825.

Windradyne

Windradyne, a Wiradjuri warrior, was a key resistance figure in the Bathurst War in 1824. When Governor Brisbane came to power the pace of settlement greatly increased west of the Blue Mountains, placing competition on traditional food sources. Windradyne began leading attacks on small farming outposts using guerrilla warfare techniques. In December 1823 he was blamed for the death of two stockmen. Soldiers were dispatched to capture him and it reportedly took six men to subdue him.

After he was released, the hostilities continued to escalate with Aboriginal women and children being killed and seven stockmen attacked in the Wyagdon Ranges. The town of Bathurst was finally placed under martial law in 1924 and a reward issued for Windradyne's capture. However he avoided arrest and was later pardoned by the Governor when he appeared at the annual feast in Parramatta.

Yagan

Born around 1795 Yagan was the son of Midgigoroo, an influential Noongar elder in the area south of Perth. After a young boy was shot near the homestead owned by Archibald Butler, the Noongar man retaliated by spearing one of his servants, labourer William Gaze. Yagan was captured and sentenced for Gaze's murder in 1832, spending six weeks detained on Carnac Island before escaping. Despite having no knowledge of boats, Yagan and two others managed to steal one and steer it the 13km back to shore.

After his return he eluded capture for another year and became a well-known figure in the Perth colony. Robert Lyon, a minister who studied the local Indigenous people and pleaded to save Yagan from the death penalty, described him as "the Wallace of the age" in the Perth Gazette. Yagan was killed in an ambush by brothers William and James Keates in 1833 and his head was taken to England where it was kept in the Liverpool Museum. His remains were finally repatriated and buried in 1997. A new development in Perth is being named Yagan Square to honour him.

Jandamarra

A Bunuba man, Jandamarra was born about 1870 in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. As a youth he spent time living on a remote station and became a good horseman but he later returned and became an initiated man of the Bunuba people. Though he was captured for killing sheep the charges were later dropped when he agreed to care for the horses at the police station. He later became a stockman and joined the police as a tracker, charged with capturing his own people who had been spearing stock.

He was given an ultimatum by the Bunuba and so he subsequently shot his police partner Constable Richardson while he slept and freed the detained Aboriginal people at the station. For the next three years Jandamarra lead his people in resistance to the settlers. Fifty painted warriors fought against the settlers in the ' Battle of Windjina Gorge', which left Jandamarra with severe wounds. He later raided his former police station twice before being shot dead by another Aboriginal tracker in 1897.

Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner

Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner, along with 14 other Tasmanian Aboriginal people, were brought to Melbourne in 1839 by the 'protector of Aborigines', George Robinson. Two years later the two men, along with three women, stole two guns and waged a six-week guerilla-style campaign in the Dandenongs and on the Mornington Peninsula, burning stations and killing two sealers.

They were eventually caught and while the three women were acquitted Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner were found guilty of murder and were sentenced to hang. Their bodies are buried under what is now the Queen Victoria Market.

Tarenorerer (aka Walyer)

Born in Tasmania around 1800, it is believed that Tarenorer was sold to white sealers on the Bass Strait Islands in her teens after being abducted by Aboriginal people of the Port Sorell region. She quickly learnt to speak English fluently, and also learnt how to firearms during her time with the sealers.

In 1828 she escaped from the sealers and returned to her country, where she gathered men and women from different groups to initiate warfare against the invaders. She personally trained her warriors in the use of firearms and in effective battle tactics against the slow to load guns of her enemies, and introduced guerrilla warfare strategies of killing livestock. She believed to have said 'she liked a luta tawin (white man) as she did a black snake'.

After conflicts with other Aboriginal groups she escaped to Port Sorrell with two of her brothers and two sisters, but was again abducted by sealers and taken to Bird Island. She hid her identity and was known to the sealers only as 'Mary Anne'. In 1830 she was taken to Swan Island after it was believed she was plotting to murder one of the sealers, and her true identity was soon revealed. 'Protector of the Aborigines' George Robinson was elated at her capture and believed it a 'most fortunate thing that this woman is apprehended and stopped in her murderous career'. She was kept in isolation for fear that she would incite a revolt on the island, and she became ill and died of influenza on 5 June 1831.

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8 war heroes you didn't learn about in school

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Despite recognising Pemulwuy as "a brave and independent character", Governor King offered a reward for his death or capture and issued a government order than any Aboriginal people seen near Parramatta should be shot on site. Pemulwuy was shot dead in 1802, and his head was removed and sent to Sir Joseph Banks in England for his collection, however its current whereabouts are unknown.

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Pakirehua: Teacher Inquiry with a Māori world view

Educators in New Zealand are now more aware of 'Teaching as Inquiry' and all teachers are dedicated to addressing ways for Māori to achieve success as Māori. Sometimes there can be a disconnect between these two world-views and an opportunity missed - that could have made all the difference to Māori achievement.
What is pakirehua?
"From a Māori perspective Inquiry/Pakirehua has always been and is what we've always done, it's part of our DNA. Ancestors, tipuna show the way for us; their stories, experiences and knowledge are a natural part of understanding how we (as Māori) inquire, are curious and solve problems." Tammy Gardiner and Marama Reweti-Martin http://www.tetoitupu.org/teaching-inquiry-using-m%C4%81ori-world-view
Introducing pakirehua
In this webinar, Tammy Gardiner and Marama Reweti-Martin ( Te Toi Tupu Consortium, Assessment, Management and Tumuaki projects) share a Māori perspective of Inquiry or Pakirehua, where kura have been actively engaged in cycles of inquiry, which has resulted in deliberate acts of facilitation and teaching to improve student achievement. Some of the successful shifts have happened over a very short period of time.
Image taken from http://www.tetoitupu.org/teaching-inquiry-using-m%C4%81ori-world-view
What happened, that dramatically changed the results for both kaiako (teachers) and akonga (learners)? Come and join us in a live webinar, this Wednesday, 3.45pm to find out more. REGISTER HERE >>>

Also see: Connecting pakirehua to your whakapapa

Check out Enabling e-Learning for the following school stories:

Additional support:

Replies

Tessa Gray(View all users posts) 20 Aug 2015 11:05am ()

Yesterday we had the privilege of hosting Tammy Gardiner and Marama Reweti-Martin ( Te Toi Tupu) in a webinar about Pakirehua. You can watch the full webinar recording here >>>

Tammy and Marama gave us some food for thought around the whakapapa of Pakirehua, they enlightened us with some understandings about the research that sits behind a Māori world view of inquiry and shared stories of success - where kaiako have adopted knowledge building processes in their own learning contexts to help accelerate achievement for Māori students. You can see the full presentation here >>>

If you attended this webinar, we'd love to hear your thoughts and wonderings. Please feel free to add your comments below.

Join this group to contribute to discussions.

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Pakirehua: Teacher Inquiry with a Māori world view Educators in New Zealand are now more aware of 'Teaching as Inquiry' and all teachers are dedicated to addressing ways for Māori to achieve success as Māori. Sometimes there can be a disconnect between these two world-views and an opportunity missed - that could have made all the difference to Māori achievement.

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Dialogues of diversity: examining the role of educational drama techniques in affirming diversity and supporting inclusive educational practices in primary schools

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Dialogues of diversity: examining the role of educational drama techniques in affirming diversity and supporting inclusive educational practices in primary schools

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Equity and Diversity Guidelines for Drama Education

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Equity and Diversity Guidelines for Drama Education

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IDEA Webinar on the Seoul Agenda in Arts Education

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IDEA Webinar on the Seoul Agenda in Arts Education

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IDEA International Drama/Theatre and Education Association - IDEA Webinar 1 May 30 2020

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Here is an edited version or the Webinar - the introduction from Sanja Krsmanovic Tasic and the statement from Ke Leng UNESCO have been added. The presentation has also been tightened in places.

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TEACHING SHAKESPEARE IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS USING DRAMA

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TEACHING SHAKESPEARE IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS USING DRAMA

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Teaching First Nations Content & Concepts in Drama in Victoria

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Teaching First Nations Content & Concepts in Drama in Victoria

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Struggle for materials and meaning as coronavirus affects remote NT artists

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Struggle for materials and meaning as coronavirus affects remote NT artists

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Updated April 22, 2020 07:39:51

Michelle Woody paints with natural ochres that she herself sources on the Tiwi Islands.

But getting out and collecting her materials and accessing her local art centre to create work is now a frustrating battle due to coronavirus restrictions.

"We usually go out on country to collect materials, especially with old ladies when they want to go out and collect bush dye," she said. "We take them out, we harvest bark.

"At the moment we haven't been going out because we have the police road blocks and we have to stay in our own communities, so we can't go out to the ochre."

Some of the country's most brilliant and vibrant art is created every day in remote parts of Australia.

But the money that usually flows to artists there from across the world has dried up due to Indigenous communities being fenced off to prevent a potentially catastrophic spread of COVID-19.

Woody, who on top of her own creative output works in numerous roles, from cataloguing pieces to packing artworks, at Jilamara Arts in the Tiwi community of Milikapiti, said she was seeing her work slowing down fast.

"At the moment I'm painting less," she said.

"That's what I've been doing and the other artists as well. Galleries and exhibitions are closed at the moment.

"I'm really worried about the other artists, that they won't be getting any artists' payments during COVID-19.

"I explain to them that I'm in the same situation as them too."

The profit generated by remote artists is often spread around communities and helps look after vulnerable residents and elders, who Woody says are struggling with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

"We have to explain it to especially to the elders, this new sickness that has come into this world today ... they're really disappointed with all this, and it's harder now artist payments have slowed down," she said.

Woody said staff and artists at Jilamara Arts were anxious to work, but with physical-distancing measures in place, normal collaboration between artists had been stifled.

Woody, like many others in her community who suffer disproportionate levels of endemic health conditions that are risk factors for coronavirus, has a lung condition, and must remain vigilant during the pandemic.

"For me, it's affecting the time of my life really, because at [Jilamara] it's mixed up with other artists and we all come together, we share ideas with the artwork, the stories, the painting," she said.

"But at the moment we don't have artists that come to the art centre now. We can't be crowded.

"We're keeping as few numbers as we can."

For Woody, fewer sales means losing an irreplaceable source of income, while less demand and a diminished opportunity to paint represents a loss of purpose.

"It's an income but it keeps me occupied too," she said.

"The reason why I love painting is art and culture is really important today in everyday life for all Tiwi people. It makes me think about my ancestors, and I also paint about my country.

"It keeps me busy in everyday life. I don't like to get bored. I call it boring when we don't have anything much to do."

In Arnhem Land, closures will cost millions

At the now-closed Buku Larrnggay Mulka art centre in Yirrkala, home to one of country's most active and celebrated communities of artists, sales are expected to take a hit worth millions of dollars.

"It's really tough, but our priority has always been to safeguard the health and safety of the community," art coordinator David Wickens said.

"We live in a really vulnerable community of people and it would take just one slip for it to be devastating for an entire culture and all the knowledge that is held.

"Is it worth the economy for that? Absolutely not."

The centre employs 30 mostly Yolngu staff, from printmakers to conservators and material harvesters.

"I've got my staff saying, 'when can we come back? when can we come back?'," Mr Wickens said.

"People want to come here to work, but hands-on work is required and that has to be done in the centre."

Mr Wickens said Indigenous artists and remote art centre workers would have to be some of Australia's most resilient in the coming months.

"I think artists are probably the worst-hit people throughout the whole country, and if you're an Indigenous artist it's an even bigger hit," he said.

"Very rarely does one find an artist looking after themselves.

"These artists are often using their art to support a larger group of people - the work spreads beyond."

Topics: visual-art, diseases-and-disorders, covid-19, community-and-society, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, indigenous-culture, darwin-0800, nt, yirrkala-0880

First posted April 22, 2020 07:26:52

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'No-one will be harder hit': How art centres are grappling with a pandemic

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Updated April 22, 2020 07:39:51 Michelle Woody paints with natural ochres that she herself sources on the Tiwi Islands. But getting out and collecting her materials and accessing her local art centre to create work is now a frustrating battle due to coronavirus restrictions.

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Embrace Indigenous culture with your kids

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Embrace Indigenous culture with your kids

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No matter how young or old, all Australians should be encouraged to learn and embrace Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture.

Each year, Australians of all ages are encouraged to take part in NAIDOC week, a celebration of the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We look at how we can continue to respect and celebrate this culture year round.

When it comes to children, it's important to make their learning as interactive and entertaining as possible. After all, children learn most through play. Exposing them to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and history by creating unique and interesting learning opportunities is a wonderful way to teach them.

While NAIDOC week falls once a year, acknowledging and respecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture is something we should encourage kids to do all year. So, how can you celebrate Indigenous culture?

1. Read stories together

There are loads of books available that can teach children about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. From How the Birds got their Colours based on a story by Mary Albert of the Bardi people to Same but Little Bit Diff'rent which talks about two different children, one living in the Top End and one in a city, as they navigate their different, but same, lives.

2. Learn about Indigenous art

Indigenous art is truly remarkable, as are the stories behind the art. While for many people, the first instinct would be to do a dot painting together, remember, these are sacred and it can be disrespectful to appropriate the techniques used by Indigenous artists. Rather, do a bit of research online or find some books that show traditional artwork and talk about the techniques used, including how each artwork is telling a story by the artist. You can also head outside to collect sticks, bark and smooth rocks and then talk to your child about how Indigenous artists often use natural materials to paint.

3. Listen to Indigenous music

As the government website explains, Indigenous cultures use music and dance to pass stories down from one generation to the next, reinforcing the deep cultural connection with the world we live in. For the younger kids, there are some great apps and websites you can use to expose them to Indigenous music. The Baby Karaoke app by Raising Children has some wonderful animated songs about Indigenous culture and there are even words to sing along. There are extra songs on their website. The ABC Kids Listen app includes a Welcome to Country everyday at midday and also features a Little Yarns podcast which takes children on a journey through the different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations.

4. Talk about the Indigenous sites around Australia

So much of our country is sacred to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. Of course, the most famous sacred site is Uluru which has hosted Aboriginal ceremonies for more than 10,000 years. Just nearby is Kata Tjuta, often referred to as The Olgas. There are even sacred sites within the bustling big cities of Australia, including Birrarung Marr on the banks of the Yarra River in Melbourne and rock carvings scattered throughout the country including at least 1500 in Sydney's Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. Find out what sites are near you and go on an excursion. If there's nothing nearby, pick up some books from the library or go online so the kids can learn all about the history of the land.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture is crucial to Australia's history and present, and it's important to celebrate it. Teaching children from a young age is key to acknowledging just how much the Indigenous people have given, and continue to give, to our country.

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NAIDOC Week - Embrace Indigenous Culture with Your Kids

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No matter how young or old, all Australians should be encouraged to learn and embrace Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. Each year, Australians of all ages are encouraged to take part in NAIDOC week, a celebration of the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

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Digital art guide to beat coronavirus closures

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Digital art guide to beat coronavirus closures

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Digital art guide to beat coronavirus closures

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From virtual exhibitions, livestreaming of concerts to online art auctions, this is our guide to how art is going digital in the age of COVID-19.

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Why we all need more art and creativity in our lives

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Why we all need more art and creativity in our lives

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Over the last couple of weeks, I've had the pleasure of travelling around the country talking to people living with disability as part of a nation-wide consultation on disability and the arts.

Some of these people have been professional artists, some not.

The discussion has been wideranging: How easy is it to access the arts if you have a hearing impairment or autism? What are the various organisations out there supporting people with disability to make art? And is the NDIS helpful or not when it comes to disability and creative expression?

In one session, we asked people to consider the following question: "Why do we participate in the arts?"

Everyone broke into small groups to spend a few minutes discussing this enthusiastically, writing their thoughts on paper.

In the report-back session, I turned to the first group: Why did they participate in the arts?

An emerging visual artist living with both physical and intellectual disability responded: "Because I love it. Because it brings me joy."

There you have it. Nothing more to add. Because it seems to me that people living with disability are compelled to justify why they do what they do with their time based on a kind of "medical" or "therapeutic" framework.

"I dance because it's a good form of physical therapy."

"I do painting classes because it gets me out of the house."

"I do music classes because it assists with some of the problems I am having with maths and reading."

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All of this is true of course. Research here and overseas has shown how early introduction to music, for example, can assist all people, living with disability or not, with cognitive development.

(If you're not convinced, listen to music educator Dr Anita Collins talk about how learning music can exercise and rewire the mind to make people smarter.)

Tapping out a beat may help children learn difficult fraction concepts.

Numerous studies have found that dancing can improve balance, cognitive and fine motor performance in older people, as well as improving mental health.

Other research shows that art therapy can help people with autism express emotions and open doors to communication.

But justifying engagement with the arts only if it can be proven to make you a better student or a more productive worker seems too narrow. And it ignores the main reason why we create and express ourselves through art. Namely, as novelist Kurt Vonnegut wrote, the arts "are a very human way of making life more bearable".

'Creativity is a human right'

A few years ago, Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat Pray Love fame, wrote a book on the human urge to be creative, Big Magic.

There is a mystical aspect to her book (ideas float around in the ether and then whoosh down and plant themselves in the brains of people, much like the tormented spirits in a Ghostbusters film). You can take or leave that aspect of the book.

But Gilbert argues compellingly that regardless of whether we are professional artists or not, we should all be encouraged to live our most creative lives and make time to be creative every day as a way to open up a world of wonder and joy. She is saying in her own way what Vonnegut argues. That creativity is a human right.

If art is a way of making life more bearable, then for some of us - like people living with disability - the need to make art may in fact be more urgent.

If you rarely see the stories you can relate to on our TV and cinema screens, or performed on our main stages or exhibited in our major galleries, then the need to make art that reflects your thinking and your reality becomes very important.

Reflecting at the day-to-day life of my children at childcare and primary school, I've noticed how time spent doing art - music, dancing, painting and theatre - makes up the bulk of their day and a lot of their weekend.

Then as they progress through formal schooling, this artistic experience either gets dropped in lieu of academic pursuits, or is "formalised", pushed into structured classes and exams. Only the most determined or talented continue past the teen years. After that there seems little time to be involved making art.

But I've noticed in research with older Australians - 60-plus - how they are returning or even starting to make art for the first time. A just-retired man begins harmonica lessons. A grandmother returning to ballet for the first time in 40 years. And it's almost become a cliche that women my age dream of starting a ceramics or pottery class some time in the near future (that scene from Ghost really did a number on us).

Art for art's sake. No matter what age, gender or ability. Just for the love of it.
Overheard in Australia is a regular ABC Everyday column where social researcher and author Rebecca Huntley goes a little deeper on the things we're talking and thinking about.
You might also like to read:

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'Creativity is a human right': Why we all need more art in our lives - ABC Everyday

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Over the last couple of weeks, I've had the pleasure of travelling around the country talking to people living with disability as part of a nation-wide consultation on disability and the arts. Some of these people have been professional artists, some not.

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Theatre Works will hold a fundraising event Abundance for its artists this Saturday 12 September. Image: www.theatreworks.org.au

I've just returned from the British Council Showcase as part of Edinburgh Fringe. The two things that artists seemed to know most about Australian politics was our disgraceful treatment of asylum seekers and the recent cuts to the Australia Council. While the details around the cuts weren't understood, I was surprised to realise just how many international artists and arts workers knew of the severity of the changes to Australia's arts funding landscape. A number of artists mentioned to me that their collaborations with Australian arts organisations had been cancelled because of the change in funding models and cancellation of Australia Council rounds.

I am the Creative Producer and CEO of Theatre Works, St Kilda. Our primary focus is to support independent artists to develop their practices and create new work. To say that it has been a rough year so far would be an understatement, and I know that small to medium arts organisations, and artists across Australia will be in agreeance.

We started the year with hope: the Australia Council had launched its new strategic plan in 2014 and a there was the promise of new and interesting opportunities. The funding program had been refined with a new model that, at its core, asked the question, "What do you want to do?" and that felt, to me, very artist-focused; like the quality of an idea or project would matter more than how it fit within a category of funding.

There were going to be four funding rounds per year to enable artists and organisations to remain responsive and there was also the opportunity for organisations to apply for six-year organisational funding. Through this process visionary ideas were generated, business plans refined and developed, and big ideas were thrown onto the table. Organisations were able to reflect on their achievements over the last three years and dream about what might be in the next six years. There genuinely seemed to be great energy moving forward about the possibilities of the Australian arts landscape.

The impact of George Brandis's reallocation of funding from the Australia Council to the newly established NPEA has had a huge impact on our whole sector already. Board members, staff, artists, participants and audiences throughout Australia have been affected in a variety of ways: capacity to deliver programs as planned, staffing structures, partnerships, shortfalls in budgets, realisation of artistic projects; and for our audiences and community participants, the opportunity to attend or participate in potentially life-changing artistic experiences.

I'm worried about the effect all of this has on the lives and well being of the thousands of people who work in, or with, the affected small to medium arts organisations.

We are a resilient and optimistic industry full of passionate people with big hearts and great minds. We are having to let go of dreams and ideas and face even more job insecurity than perhaps ever before. I'm worried about what stories won't be told, what workshops won't be run, what books won't be written and what artwork won't be painted. I'm worried that those in most need of subsidy to make art will have even less access to funds. I'm worried that more artists will end up subsidising more of their art and therefore only art from a small demographic will be made. I'm worried that I have to ask artists to commit to projects without any security of payment. I'm worried that the diversity of experiences reflected on our stages will be reduced. I'm worried that visionary artists might just decide to give up. I worry that those who speak out about this will get even less funding.

But when I'm not worrying about all this, I'm plotting and planning and thinking and scheming and focussing on what I can do, in my position, to get us through this next period of time with the least collateral damage. I was recently asked if I thought this whole process might make an otherwise fairly collegiate industry become competitive. I really don't think so, and certainly haven't noticed this so far.

I think we need to be working together, thinking outside the square, supporting each other, thinking of ways that we can share resources to enable projects to be realised. I think those of us employed on a full-time basis need to look at ways we can support freelance artists, through fundraising and lobbying.

When the final impact of the grant rounds and organisation funding is known at the start of next year we need to be ready to act quickly, openly and bravely. We need to make sure that crowd funding campaigns are not just artists supporting other artists' work. We need to keep talking to and connecting to people from all walks of life; we need them to understand the value of the arts. We need the current government to realise once and for all the importance of diverse artistic practice on society. Or we make sure that we elect a party that does. We need to get together and fully understand how we can access the funding available from the NPEA. And, as organisations we need to make sure we get that money into the hands of the artists making work who are ineligible to apply.

I've just returned from seeing incredible work in Edinburgh. Mind-blowing theatre that was political, diverse, urgent and about things that really mattered. If that's what living under a conservative government can do to the art that a place can make then I look forward to seeing how we respond to the situation we find ourselves in.

I don't know a lot of things, but I do know that artists won't stop making work. We are artists because that's what we are - funding or no funding. We are compelled to create work, tell stories, and try to understand the complexity of this world we inhabit. Our imaginations, our voices and our passion cannot be touched by Mr Brandis. These are ours and we will find a way through this.
Theatre Works will hold a fundraising event for its artists this Saturday 12 September. For more information on Abundance, hosted by Die Roten Punkte and featuring acts including Maude Davey visit here.

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Theatre Works will hold a fundraising event Abundance for its artists this Saturday 12 September. Image: www.theatreworks.org.au I've just returned from the British Council Showcase as part of Edinburgh Fringe. The two things that artists seemed to know most about Australian politics was our disgraceful treatment of asylum seekers and the recent cuts to the Australia Council.

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In times of crisis, we still need to turn to the arts

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In times of crisis, we still need to turn to the arts

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T here is a quicksand quality to our present moment. The coronavirus pandemic, a resultant wave of cancellations and closures, and the continuing rise in cases and deaths, has loosened the ground from under us.

Most of us have been coping with varying levels of dread these past few weeks. The solidity of our routines, including the ways we work, socialise and move around, has been shaken, and daily life feels a little shapeless. It's easy to feed this anxiety with non-stop news alerts, panicked predictions and pictures of empty supermarkets that sink us deeper into a kind of paralysis.

How can we begin to navigate this knowing that lives will be lost? They say when you are stuck in quicksand, it is best to stay still. Maybe now, more than ever, we should turn to the arts - visual art, literature, music and performance - to help see us through.

Taking heed of a little social-distancing advice over the weekend, I found myself browsing old art books that I hadn't opened in a while. These were filled with delicate drawings, photographs from faraway places, odd sculptures and illustrations. I kept going - looking through my smartphone's photo gallery to revisit works from past exhibitions, including those by Vija Celmins, Elena Damiani and Amar Kanwar. I flipped through the poetry of Sandra Cisneros and Ocean Vuong, and discovered music online, old and new.

In times of uncertainty, art can be a steadying force. When we marvel at something, whether it is a painting, a turn of phrase or a piece of music, we're reminded of the human capacity to create and endure.

Think of the viral videos of people singing from balconies in Italy or the rise of live-streaming concerts, including The Metropolitan Opera's nightly streams of its previous shows. Even pandemic film and fiction, such as Steven Soderbergh's and Albert Camus's are having a resurgence on online booksellers' lists. Time and again, we turn to the arts to connect to each other, to find self-expression or to glean insights during trying times.

Sure, it's difficult to pry ourselves away from the pull of the 24/7 news cycle or the lure of social media. When it comes to the news, we chase slivers of new information to reassure ourselves that we know what's going on. These actions mimic the frenzy of our days - constantly checking appointments, deadlines and bills. Our modern lives aren't built for stillness. Taking a moment to appreciate a form of art, whatever kind you might be drawn to, compels us to slow down and reconsider what we think we already know.

When we engage in art, it is not always about escapism. It is also a practice in patience, such as figuring out the meaning of a poem or a novel, and an exercise in appreciating beauty. There's a passage in Durga Chew-Bose's book, Too Much and Not the Mood, where she describes being "caught off guard" by "a lathery shade of peach on the bottom corner of a painting ... as if being reminded that I haven't seen all the colours, and how there's more to see, and how one's colour newness can invalidate all of my sureness". We owe it to ourselves to find that shade of peach that re-energis es us.

The economic impacts of Covid-19 are yet to fully unfold. The arts and culture sectors, which are already vulnerable, will inevitably suffer over the coming months, not only in the UAE, but around the world. If you find solace in the arts now, don't forget to return to them once this pandemic ends. A rt will sustain our spirit as we make sense of what's happened and try to find our footing again.

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In times of crisis, we still need to turn to the arts

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T here is a quicksand quality to our present moment. The coronavirus pandemic, a resultant wave of cancellations and closures, and the continuing rise in cases and deaths, has loosened the ground from under us. Most of us have been coping with varying levels of dread these past few weeks.

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Literature and the Arts in Times of Crisis

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Literature and the Arts in Times of Crisis

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Literature and the arts have always had a prominent place in defining who we are as human beings and in making life worth living. This is all the more apparent in times of crisis, such as the one we have been living in. Join prominent Berkeley faculty members from Music, Art History, and English as they share their insights into what makes literature and the arts so critically important to us now. The panelists:

Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, UC Berkeley's Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Arts and Humanities, specializes in 18th- through early 20th-century French and American art and visual and material culture, particularly in relation to the politics of race and colonialism. Grigsby writes on painting, sculpture, photography and engineering as well as the relationships among reproductive media and new technologies from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. Her essay on Antoine-Jean Gros's painting Bonaparte Visiting the Plague-Stricken of Jaffa which she discusses in this conversation, was published in Representations 51.

Mark Danner is a writer and reporter who for three decades has written on politics and foreign affairs, focusing on war and conflict. He has covered, among many other stories, wars and political conflict in Central America, Haiti, the Balkans, Iraq and the Middle East, and, most recently, the story of torture during the War on Terror. Danner holds the Class of 1961 Endowed Chair in Journalism and English at UC Berkeley and was for many years James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and the Humanities at Bard College.

Nicholas Mathew, a professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Music, has focused on music and politics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the place of music in political institutions, the role of music in public life, and the ways in which music produces social attachments and collective identity - as well as issues of political appropriation, subversion, musical trashiness, and political kitsch. Mathew is a member of the Representations editorial board. With Mary Ann Smart, he co-edited the special forum Quirk Historicism ( Representations 132), for which the two wrote Elephants in the Music Room: The Future of Quirk Historicism.

Moderator Anthony J. Cascardi is the Dean of Arts and Humanities at UC Berkeley.
The discussion is part of a live, online video series, Berkeley Conversations: COVID-19, featuring Berkeley scholars from a range of disciplines.

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Literature and the Arts in Times of Crisis

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Literature and the arts have always had a prominent place in defining who we are as human beings and in making life worth living. This is all the more apparent in times of crisis, such as the one we have been living in.

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Music tells the story of our shared connection

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Music tells the story of our shared connection

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Why arts education is crucial in times of crisis

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Seemingly overnight, our lives and the lives of our children have been turned upside down because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. We have seen before - in times of great financial strain and uncertainty - how arts education is often of the first things left by the wayside.

Yet we have countless examples throughout history where music is what kept us together - no matter what was happening. That is why art organizations across the nation are moving mountains to offer online instruction because we know this may be the time when our students need us the most.

I look online today and am awestruck by how communities are responding to this crisis by making music. From the #SongsofComfort movement encouraging musicians across the world ( championed by cellist Yo-Yo Ma) to post homemade videos of performances meant to provide us all with a sense of solace, to viral videos of neighborhoods in Italy stepping out onto their balconies and filling their now empty streets with melody and harmony - these are some of the most expressive things I have ever known. Indeed, some of the best things we can do in a crisis are stay engaged, productive and connected.

Here at home, I am watching Settlement's faculty members go above and beyond to adapt their teaching to overcome some of the challenges distance learning poses for music education. Voice instructors are sending their students pre-recorded audio files of themselves playing the piano to adjust for the lag in video conference that prevents them from playing together; our choir and string ensemble directors are exploring how to equip their students with play-along videos so they can continue to practice; and early childhood music instructors, now without access to all of Settlement's percussion instruments, are planning to host digital classes where our youngest learners explore the sounds in their homes, showing us that music exists all around us, no matter where we may be.

It has not been easy. Connecting all of our students and finding ways for Settlement's varied programs to excel online will take further bounds of creativity, but artists and musicians are always up for challenges. With the help of invaluable input and continued support from our students, families and neighbors, as well as our fellow arts educators, we know we can continue to inspire through the power of the arts.

We are already hearing from parents about what it means to continue their child's musical instruction online.

"It is extremely important for children to maintain normalcy and have a sense of reassurance that this is a temporary change in our ways of life," one parent said.

Another parent added, "It brought a big smile to my daughter's face today to see Ms. Andreia and to be able to keep going with her violin."

We should be sure not to take these smiles for granted during these concerning times.

We must all prioritize the health and safety of ourselves and our loved ones, and as we practice social distancing and take all necessary measures to stay well and weather this storm, we must also remember our humanity. We must continue to sing and dance, and we must continue to play, for every chord from our pianos and every note from our strings tells the story of our shared connection.

I urge you to turn to music and art during these difficult times. I urge you to continue to hone these otherworldly powers of expression online and continue to support our creative economy, so that as a community we will emerge from this crisis ready to take back the stage.

Helen S. Eaton has been CEO of Settlement Music School since 2010 and is vice chair of the Board of the National Guild for Community Arts Education. Visit settlementmusic.org for information on virtual music programming for babies, children, and adults, including soon-to-be-released free digital classes for communities everywhere.

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Music tells the story of our 'shared connection': Why arts education is crucial in times of crisis

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Seemingly overnight, our lives and the lives of our children have been turned upside down because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. We have seen before - in times of great financial strain and uncertainty - how arts education is often of the first things left by the wayside.

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Literature and the arts in times of crisis

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Literature and the arts in times of crisis

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Literature and the arts have always held a prominent place in helping to define who we are as human beings and in enriching our lives. This is all the more apparent during moments of crisis, like the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Four UC Berkeley professors - scholars of music, art and letters - discussed Wednesday during a live Berkeley Conversations video event what arts and culture can offer worried, lonely souls fearful of an invisible virus.

The group examined music by Ludwig von Beethoven, art by Antoine-Jean Gros and Theodore von Gericault and works of literature by Daniel Defoe, to find moments that might help us better comprehend feelings we're struggling with today.

Pointing to works by Beethoven that telegraph inner turmoil and triumphant beauty, Anthony Cascardi, dean of arts and humanities, noted that the composer "combines the crisis and the joyous breakthrough moment, the glorious resolution."

"In fact," Cascardi added, "if we don't have a sense of what that hope is like, we really don't understand what a crisis is. They really have to be understood together. I think that is a very important point to keep in mind as we struggle through a crisis with a very uncertain and unknown end."

Mark Danner, a professor of English and journalism, reminded the live video audience, which numbered in the hundreds on Facebook and YouTube, to not forget to notice the important moments of connection while sheltered in place, moments that may last beyond the recovery.

During a crisis, "the normal structures of our life which we take to be determined, and necessities, suddenly fall away," he said. "You find you can live life artistically, you can create a different way to live, you can create yourself. Your life is not path-dependent, the way you thought it was."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, "we see there are other ways to live," he added. "We understand that communality is a necessity. We can hope that this ability to reshape life will be something that is taken away from this crisis. ... We will see new ways of relating to one another that won't be determined by the crisis, but will be a result of the creativity we can see that is possible in our (new) ways of living."

Berkeley Conversations: COVID-19 is a live, online series featuring faculty experts from across the Berkeley campus who are sharing what they know, and what they are learning, about the pandemic. All conversations are recorded and available for viewing at any time on the Berkeley Conversations website.

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Literature and the arts in times of crisis

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Literature and the arts have always held a prominent place in helping to define who we are as human beings and in enriching our lives. This is all the more apparent during moments of crisis, like the current COVID-19 pandemic.

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In times of crisis, we turn to the arts. Now the arts is in crisis – and Scott Morrison is silent Benjamin Law

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In times of crisis, we turn to the arts. Now the arts is in crisis – and Scott Morrison is silent Benjamin Law

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cross Australian cities and towns, street lamp banners advertise exhibitions no one can attend and film festivals that will never happen. It has only taken days for the coronavirus to obliterate programs that took years to produce. Now in our increasingly empty streets, it's as if these banners herald events scheduled to take place in some parallel universe.

In that parallel universe, Torch the Place - the play I wrote for the Melbourne Theatre Company - would've wrapped up its sold-out season this week. We'd be celebrating closing night. Instead our actors are taking curtain calls on Instagram and we're asking ticket holders who missed out to consider donating their ticket to cover costs and keep the theatre alive.

Our production is one of the lucky ones. On Wednesday, Melbourne Theatre Company cancelled its next six productions. Melbourne international comedy festival has closed its curtains. Sydney's Vivid festival has switched off its lights. Programmers, directors and producers haven't made the right decision. They've made theonly decision.

What we're left with - at last count - is at least 255,000 events now cancelled across Australia, with an estimated combined income loss of $280m. With coronavirus cases only anticipated to climb - now projected to peak in August 2020 - the only thing guaranteed is that those eye-watering losses to the arts will deepen.

One person who's felt that loss personally is my friend and colleague Patrick Howard, a Sydney-based freelance theatre artist. On the day Australia banned "non-essential" gatherings of over 100 people, Patrick had two hours of phone calls, emails and Zoom video conferences in which his remaining wages for 2020 disappeared.

What hurt more was that 2020 was to be the first year Patrick finally pulled off working full-time as an artist. When I ask if he's tallied up his lost earnings yet, he laughs grimly and says he'd been avoiding it. But he's done the sums for me now. All up, he lost $32,000 in those two hours alone.

It doesn't matter what sector we work in and where we live: no human being will be left untouched by Covid-19 by the time it finishes boiling its way through our communities. In the meantime, we're in survival mode. After taking stock of whether we have enough toilet paper, groceries and medical supplies, our next instinct is to seek comfort - anything to settle our heart rate and combat the stultifying dread and silence of self-isolation.

In our most dire hours, art keeps us sane, lights the dark and ensures we stay human

And we always find that comfort in the arts.

Video games? The arts.

Comfort novels? The arts.

Streaming TV? The arts.

Podcasts? The arts.

Chillout music? The arts.

In our most dire hours, art keeps us sane, lights the dark and ensures we stay human. Even now, artists are stepping up to help us and their colleagues by entertaining us for free. At l ast weekend's Isolaid festival, 76 Australian musicians played free 20-minute sets to raise money not for themselves, but for industry non-profit Support Act; globally, Moses Sumney and Robbie Williams have been doing live karaoke, classical music organisations are streaming online concerts, and Madonna is doing spoken word from her bath.

We rely on the arts, but in Australia, conservative governments have had a consistent allergy to funding it robustly, often happily cutting funds and resources with the implication the arts are some luxurious indulgence. Only last December, the Morrison government folded the arts department entirely and absorbed it into a portfolio that didn't even bear its name: the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications. That department also oversees road and rail.

All world governments now are in a state of desperate triage, but some have immediately stepped up for the arts. New Zealand quickly announced multimillion-dollar help for artists. When Germany neared 1,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, the culture minister immediately promised financial assistance. Canada budgeted to pay musicians $1,000 grants to livestream gigs.

Australia is following suit, to a modest extent. Some state and territory governments have announced new initiatives to support artists and organisations, but the federal government is still missing in action.

Meanwhile, Australian airlines are scheduled to receive a $715m bailout. And while it's never fair to directly compare sectors, it's worth noting Australian airlines contribute an estimated $18.42bn to the Australian economy every year. According to the government's own figures, Australian arts and culture contributes $111.7bn over the same period.

How we can best support artists and the arts will become clearer in the weeks and months ahead. Already it's likely your local independent bookshop offers free delivery within certain postcodes, with staff delivering books by bicycle. We should pay musicians directly for their music instead of streaming it. Bandcamp recently waived fees for 24 hours to ensure artists got all the money directly.

In the meantime, Patrick Howard is administering paperwork for Centrelink and preparing to move from Sydney to his parents' place in the country. His recommendation? Check in on your friends who work in the arts. "Make sure they're OK," he says. "We're quite sensitive people, always on the brink of disaster. And now it's really hit."

In times of crisis, humans turn to art for help. It's vital we help the arts through - and on the other side of - this. For those of us fortunate enough to come out of this physically unharmed, it's likely our mental health will be shattered. The arts will help.

Staying indoors and washing our hands will help us survive. Protecting the arts will help us live.

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In times of crisis, we turn to the arts. Now the arts is in crisis - and Scott Morrison is silent | Benjamin Law

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cross Australian cities and towns, street lamp banners advertise exhibitions no one can attend and film festivals that will never happen. It has only taken days for the coronavirus to obliterate programs that took years to produce. Now in our increasingly empty streets, it's as if these banners herald events scheduled to take place in some parallel universe.

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Katie Carey | June 9, 2020

Ryan Katz created Everything Will Be Okay in partnership with The Lytle House Art Initiative and Jason Kofke. Designed by: Jason Kofke | Muralist: Ryan Tova Katz. Image permission, Ryan Katz

Art allows us to examine what it means to be human, to voice and express, and to bring people and ideas together.

As we rise to the challenge of our new normal of life in a global pandemic, we are seeing more clearly what needs to change in our pre-COVID-19 society.

We are still experiencing a global pandemic. We are engaging with racial injustice made more visible with George Floyd's death and the recent protests across the globe. In times of crisis, we need humanity, expression, and the community that the arts create.

In the United States and around the world, COVID-19 has shed light on our economic, social, and political systems. We are seeing how systemic racial inequality is putting people of color at a higher risk during the pandemic. We are realizing the economic implications of relying on minimum wage "essential" jobs. We are seeing disease become politicized. And, we are seeing a growing mental health crisis as a response to COVID-19. ​

What we put our energy and efforts into now will affect what our future looks like. In campaigning for arts support, the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts stated, "The values we support today will determine what we have when this is over."

This is a time to value the arts. Whether big or small, sidewalk chalk art or community murals, art makes a difference in how we live our lives.

The arts create wellness in our day-to-day lives by helping us process our lives individually and allowing us to come together collectively. Art allows us to communicate from afar, generating positivity, appreciation and hope during COVID-19. In times of social injustice and unrest, art amplifies important voices and messages.
In a tumultuous world, art matters. Here's why.
Art is an expression of what it means to be human

Art-making and viewing art allows us to process our experiences. Art helps us to express and to understand the world around us.

We are unique in our human drive to create and engage with the arts. Historically, humans have been visually expressive beings. The cave of the hands, Cueva de las Manos, in Argentina is an example of early visual expression. The artwork in the cave carbon-dates to an estimated 7300 BC. These cave walls host a hybrid of hunting scenes and relief handprints, probably made by blowing paint materials through hollowed-out bones, or reeds. This sea of overlapping hands and illustration provides a lens into a past life and builds a present-day connection with our stone-age ancestors.

Ancient humans not only recorded their lives through art, but they also used art to express themselves. We do this today, too-the arts create community by depicting shared events and to express our individual perspectives.

We define our human experience by the cultures we create and participate in. Culture, made up of customs, social interactions, and activities, is fueled by the arts. Be it music, food, or visual arts, culture and the arts are inseparable.

We are seeing an increased turn to the arts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Globally, we have turned to art engagement as a source of comfort and strength. Participating in and viewing art makes us connect to a more universal human experience. Be it art-making at home, public murals, watching and listening to plays and music, or new-found interests in culinary arts, art is an expression of what it means to be human.

Art fosters understanding between communities

As we globally grapple with inequalities that have always existed but are more visible and striking in the past weeks, we are seeing art being used as a tool to create stronger communities. Art can allow us to not just understand ourselves, but to understand each other on a deeper level.

We can engage with online arts in a way to connect more deeply with current issues and events. There are a multitude of ways to experience the arts virtually during COVID-19. Museums are moving exhibits online. Virtual galleries are hosting online show openings and artist talks.

Museums today are also working to be more community-informed, but they are working within the heavy frameworks of their past. Historically, museums have reinforced inequality in their structure and tradition of exclusivity, in objectifying other cultures, and with unjustly collected artworks. However, there are many museums that are working to overcome this past. Many institutions are working to repatriate, create self-aware programming, and to re-interpret and re-contextualize their collections.

With the internet at our fingertips, gaining access to art made by historically unrepresented voices and thoughtful museums is easier and more important than ever.
Here are just a few examples:
The Smithsonian created a National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Visitors to the NMAAHC travel through time to understand the Black American. The NMAAHC has a digital resource guide and access to online exhibits and video archives.

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is an interpretive museum and research center in Birmingham, Alabama exploring the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. The institute is actively exploring the effects of COVID-19 on Black communities. The BCRI has an online oral history archive.

The Whitney Plantation is the only plantation museum in Louisiana that exclusively focuses on the lives of enslaved people. While visitors learn through guided tours, online viewers can connect through a virtual book club and by reading about and viewing photos and videos on t he site.

The Equal Justice Initiative created The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration in Montgomery, Alabama. Web visitors are able to learn about slavery in America through videos, photos, and online resources.

The Studio Museum in Harlem focuses on exhibiting works by both emerging and established artists of African descent and has a residency program that continues to have artists establish themselves in high powered careers. Thelma Golden, an art-world celebrity and current director, is an outspoken art-world leader changing the way curators think about art and presentation with her commitment to opening minds and highlighting new voices.

Art is good for our health

While you are enjoying art viewing and engaging with different perspectives from home, revel in the knowledge that you are being healthy!

Art is a proven tool for stress reduction and well being. There are countless studies into the physical and mental benefits of making art, and the benefits of even looking at an artwork. Making and looking at art has long-term effects like boosting our brain function and our immune systems as well as contributing positively to our mental and emotional health. Art helps us process trauma, express difficult feelings, and work through experiences.

Art has promoted health within our homes during COVID-19 as families have been getting creative at home. As we are spending more time with ourselves and during this pandemic, art and craft-making have rocketed.

Public art allows us to see ourselves and our identities within a larger society and to feel comfortable in our surroundings. It's no surprise that statues of oppressive historical figures are being removed as a part of the current social justice movement. When our environments represent and reflect our experiences and communities, we are healthier and happier.

Art can be a public health tool during COVID-19

Art helps to quickly communicate ideas through memorable visuals.

Public art can be used as a directive tool in a crisis to benefit our general wellbeing. When artists create public art featuring masks to reflect our current experiences, they send a powerful message to the public.

Art guides and signals how people should interact and behave within a space. Visual cues help us understand how we fit into space and make statements about what a community values.

People are taking artistic interventions into their own hands and placing masks on statues all over the world to spread messages of public safety and social distancing. Masked statues are a friendly reminder to wear masks and forge an environment of solidarity.

Now that we are wearing masks to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 globally, masks are getting more innovative. A range of creative masks are allowing us to continue to express ourselves and encourage us to wear masks in the first place. Mask designs, whether fun or functional, may increase usage and promote public health.

Not only does art help us to stay healthy through our viewership and participation, but some arts organizations are also actively fundraising to provide healthcare support during COVID-19. NOAH, the National Organization for Arts in Health, started an Arts for Resilience in Clinicians campaign. This campaign is raising money to help health care workers avoid burnout and to address anxiety through the COVID-19 pandemic.

A winged health care worker and construction worker don boxing gloves and masks in Austin Zucchini-Fowler's Front Line Fighter and Construction Hero in Denver, Colorado. Image Credit, Austin Zucchini-Fowler.

Art helps us express gratitude during difficult times

While we are not able to congregate with friends and families as we usually would as we live through this pandemic, art allows us to create a message of gratitude from a distance.

In the past few weeks, artists of all types and from all over the world have been creating artworks that thank essential workers and healthcare workers.

For example, New York City is releasing digital artistically rendered public service announcements and messages of hope and solidarity through a city-wide art campaign. Artists are creating works to replace advertisements across the city.

In Denver, artist Austin Zucchini-Fowler started a series of murals that depict healthcare professionals as angels- masked, with wings, and donning boxing gloves. Zucchini-Fowler has expanded the series to include other professionals- a teacher with wings appeared during Teacher Appreciation Week in early May and a winged chef recently emerged on a downtown wall.

Artwork Archive user, Osian Gwent painted a 17.5ft x 8ft public mural in the Welsh town of Llanidloes. He's calling the work The Big Thank You Mural. The work features well-known landmarks and various individuals local to the Llanidloes area, paying tribute to essential workers within the community.

Art makes close-to-home spaces more meaningful

As more people are taking walks around their neighborhoods as a way to get out of their homes while still following social distancing guidelines, art helps us tune in to the spaces and people around us.

In neighborhoods across the US, families are creating chalk art murals and messages. "Chalking the walk" allows creators and walkers to experience places in a more personal way.

Similarly, people are decorating their windows and laws with signs and Christmas lights to create visual cheer. Hearts made of Christmas lights are popping up across the United States as a way to spread positivity and create a visual connection with neighbors.

Messages of community and support during the COVID-19.

Artists are rising to the occasion with art projects centered on themes of coronavirus and quarantine. Banksy playfully interpreted his stay at home life with a topsy turvy work-from-home scene in his bathroom. Banksy typically creates large scale public artworks. His work-from-home scene shows rats wreaking havoc in his real-life apartment complete with his mirror askew and rats treadmilling on toilet paper rolls and swinging from hand towel rings.

In her Everything Will Be Okay Mural, Ryan Katz shares a message of comfort with her community in partnership with The Lytle House Art Initiative. Katz is starting a new arts initiative to donate murals around the city to promote positivity and beauty during COVID-19. Her first mural as part of the initiative will be a four-story-high mural to help celebrate the graduating 2020 class of Northwestern University.

Art Allows us to Document & Process Events

World events are often remembered through what comes to be iconic artwork.

My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love is one of the best-known artworks on the Berlin Wall. Dmitri Vrubel 's painted scene in 1990 of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker embracing in a socialist brotherly kiss stands today still as a way people understand the period before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Nearby to Vrubel's painting on the Berlin Wall is a new work that is quickly becoming iconic in representing the early weeks and stressors of COVID-19.

Artist Eme Freethinker's toilet paper hoarding Gollum from Lord of the Rings is now a hallmark in the Mauerpark public park in Berlin. Gollum is depicted with wild eyes and his frog-like body holding a single roll of toilet paper and saying, "Mien Shatz." My precious.

Gollum and Ice Age's Scrat covet toilet paper in Eme Freethinker's Gollum and Scrat, Berlin, Germany 2020 image courtesy of EME Street Art.

As protestors walk throughout the United States to demand justice for George Floyd and the countless others, protest art is appearing as well. Eme Freethinker returned to the same wall where he painted Gollum to Greta McLain, Xena Goldman and Cadex Herrera mural George Floyd. painted a mural at the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue South, on the wall of Cup Foods-with the blessing from the store owner- where George Floyd was arrested and killed.

Muralists Thomas "Detour" Evans, Richard Brasil, and Giovannie "JUST" Dixon aka Justin Spire are creating murals in memory of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The three artists are pairing their large-scale portraits of victims of racial violence with the call for memorializing and remembering with the sentiment #spraytheirname.

More and more, art is appearing around the United States and the world to document COVID-19 and experiences of racial injustice. Art helps to make social justice visible and documents movements - it is able to rally support and create a sense of community in times of crisis.

We need the arts in difficult times.

Art gives us immeasurable personal and social benefits. We rely on the arts to help us through difficult times.

Art reminds us that we are not alone and that we share a universal human experience. Through art, we feel deep emotions together and are able to process experiences, find connections, and create impact.

Art helps us to record and process more than just individual experiences. Marking art documents the world around us and allows us to work through how we are a part of it. Art making is half of it-we also need to photograph, share, and record these creations so that they will live on throughout history. Documenting your artwork is easier than ever with online inventorying and management platforms like Artwork Archive. Together, we can expand the art world "archive" with more representative voices and experiences and contribute to our historical narrative through the arts.

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How art helps us to be human, healthy, and stay connected.

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Art education during the COVID-19 lockdown

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Art education during the COVID-19 lockdown

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Brown bag art packs developed for home learning by Michelle Coombes, a visual arts teacher in New South Wales. Image supplied.

In the first of two articles, teacher educators Kate Coleman and Abbey MacDonald share practical examples of how visual arts teachers transformed the ways they connected and communicated with students, and each other, during the height of the COVID-19 lockdown to ensure a continuity of learning.
Prior to COVID-19 restrictions, art teachers were already well accustomed to working with multi-modalities across the spectrum of visual art media. These ways of working are informed by teachers' own deep engagements with art, be it through their own art making, or their responding and making meaning from artworks encountered in their classrooms and the community.

The places and means through which these practical meaning-making encounters occur in 2020 remains in flux, and visual arts teachers across Australia are navigating this uncertainty in distinctive, interconnected and expansive ways.

We can learn a lot about what happened in art education during the peak of the COVID-19 lockdown through exploring artists' and teachers' pedagogical and practical responses to the crisis. Interesting developments, strategies and connections have been enacted across the breadth of visual arts in industry, school and teacher education contexts. It is interesting to consider how teachers' and artists' approaches to navigating the COVID-19 crisis resonate with some of the curriculum concepts that underpin the work we do with school students in visual art contexts.

Through our contributions to visual arts teacher education, teacher professional learning and art practice, we are embedded within the field in ways that enable us to connect and contribute to both the visual arts and education communities. In these roles we have the great privilege of supporting our schools, teachers, pre-service teachers and learners in visual arts across an Australian Curriculum that has a focus on developing an 'understanding of world culture and their responsibilities as global citizens', and supporting students to 'view the world through various lenses and contexts,' (ACARA, 2016). The curriculum creates space to cultivate complex problem posing and thinking skills to foster 'perceptual and conceptual understanding, critical reasoning and practical skills through exploring and expanding their understanding of their world and other worlds.'

Through our roles, we work alongside pre-service teachers to establish the skills, experiences and knowledges they will need for a future in education. Of course, this future is slightly different from the one we now find ourselves in, however, the attributes of agility, resilience, practicality, empathy, creativity and versatility fostered through engagement in visual arts education and practice mean that teachers will continue to be well placed to negotiate shifting transitions between teaching and learning contexts.

Examples of innovation in practice

During March and April in Australia, artists and visual arts educators have been visionary in transforming their ways of connecting and communicating with their students and each other.

A scroll through the social and news feeds of artists and educators provides a compelling picture of artists and educators across the country innovating to share practice with their colleagues. Australian arts educators responded quickly to meet the need for creative, collaborative and critical engagement opportunities for students' visual art learning at home; catering for online, offline and off device needs. Provided appropriate measures were put in place to enable equitable access to digital technology, there were plenty of examples of practitioners who demonstrated an aptitude for teaching in creative ways to accommodate individual student needs and circumstances. Michelle Coombes' art@home packs and YouTube videos (out of Central West New South Wales), and Michelle Walker's @artteacher_alchemy on Instagram and YouTube (out of Smithton, Tasmania), provide compelling evidence of the ways Australian teachers exercised their agency to adapt and contextualise their offerings.
[A still from Tasmanian artist and art teacher Michelle Walker's 'Found and foraged tool making' demonstrative video from her @artteacher_alchemy Instagram and YouTube teaching channel[Pre-service teacher Gemma Saunders wearing body art developed in 'COVID-19 CREATIVITY 3D Forms at home and sculpture for the body' online class, developed by Amie Anderson (Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne Visual Art and Design Teacher candidates)]. ].
Initial teacher education courses had their own shifts to navigate online, and with that shift came a rethink in the learning and teaching as an authentic experience for building the needs of the future classroom. Reified were digital and blended pedagogies, materiality, artful thinking and focused concept teaching through modalities such as video, interactive PDFs and Google lessons. The above image of Gemma demonstrates one of the products she created in Amie's 30-minute 3D forms Year 8 Visual Arts lesson delivered in a digital newsletter format. These pre-service teachers all developed 30-minute digital learning experiences for remote and home learning delivered online for self-paced inquiry-based learning. A focus on making and responding through being an artist and audience outside of the art room enabled space to focus on a skills gap in digital technologies; empowering the teacher candidates to re-think and re-imagine how ways of being online can facilitate transformative learning experiences through blended and flipped learning in the future.

These three examples of teacher practice are not in any way exhaustive, but rather are indicative of a rich breadth of artist and teaching practitioners negotiating precarious circumstances created by COVID-19 restrictions to differentiate and cater for diverse student needs, preferences and aspirations. We have been curious to explore how circumstances, practices and proclivities of art teachers contribute to the ways they revision practice and purpose during a crisis. What connections can be drawn between their response, contextual circumstances and aspirational endeavor underpinning student learning and teacher pedagogy?

In looking deeper into the rationale from the Visual Arts strand of the Australian Curriculum, we find non-prescriptive and generative descriptions of flexible approaches to creative practice. We can extend articulations of how 'Visual Arts engages students in a journey of discovery, experimentation and problem-solving relevant to visual perception and visual language,' (ACARA, 2016) to describe the initiatives, ingenuity and accomplishments of artists and teachers during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Stay tuned: In part two, Kate Coleman and Abbey MacDonald explore some of the resources to eventuate from the creative pressure cooker circumstances of the COVID-19 lockdown, and how they can be used to maximise studio time and learning into the future. References
Similar to how 'Students undertake this journey by using visual techniques, technologies, practices and processes,' artists and teachers have also been looking and leaning into practice to guide their transformations of embodied and participatory practices in line with social, cultural and educational changes (Coleman & Selkrig, 2020). 'Learning in the Visual Arts, students become increasingly confident and proficient in achieving their personal visual aesthetic, and appreciate and value that of others,' (ACARA, 2016). The expansive and dynamic qualities of such a rationale creates space for students and teachers alike to embrace uncertainty.

In attending to how uncertainty can be explored through intersections of curriculum, pedagogy, practice, circumstance and context, artists, teachers and students are reimagining how they make and respond (Coleman & MacDonald, 2020). This is where art teachers have been able to cultivate and adopt empathetic, curious and inquiry-oriented mindsets that enable personally distinctive approaches to practice in response to the COVID-19 restrictions.

Australian Curriculum Reporting and Assessment Authority (ACARA) (2016). The Australian Curriculum: The Arts, Visual Arts (Version 8.3). https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/the-arts/visual-arts/rationale/

Coleman, K., & MacDonald, A. (2020, May 15). Becoming co-conspiratorial, Tiny coronavirus stories. Artists and Climate Change. https://artistsandclimatechange.com/2020/05/15/tiny-coronavirus-stories-this-misery-loves-isolation/

Coleman, K. & Selkrig, M. (2020, May 11). When the going gets tough, artists and arts educators get going, EduResearch Matters Blog. Australian Association and Research in Education. https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=5463

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Art education during the COVID-19 lockdown

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In the first of two articles, teacher educators Kate Coleman and Abbey MacDonald share practical examples of how visual arts teachers transformed the ways they connected and communicated with students, and each other, during the height of the COVID-19 lockdown to ensure a continuity of learning.

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An Open Letter from the World Alliance for Arts Education WAAE representing InternationalArts Education Professional Associations t

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An Open Letter from the World Alliance for Arts Education WAAE representing InternationalArts Education Professional Associations t

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As 2020 lurches through multiple uncertainties the Australian arts community, already feeling the effects from budget cuts and a stripped back Australia Council funding round, discovered many members do not have access to the Government's stimulus measures. Australian artists and arts workers united early in April for a day of action under the hashtag #CreateAustraliasFuture to remind us all how much the arts matter in our lives, especially during a time of social isolation.

There is no doubt the arts community is in a tough place at the moment. But despite the gloomy outlook, we are seeing artists and arts educators, survive, adapt and some ways even thrive in this time of change. Arts educators in universities and schools are working in different ways with students, rethinking practice, and redesigning how the studio works in an online COVID-19 world.
How the arts community is helping us as we isolate
In this time of social distancing and self-isolation, the arts are helping us connect. For example the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and other performing artists are working online to #KeepTheMusicGoing, the Australian Ballet launched the ' At home with ballet tv' and numerous Australian musicians raised money for a non-profit organisation by playing free in the I sol-aid online festival. Visual Arts organisations such as the National Gallery of Victoria has launched online drawing classes so you can get quaran-crafty. UNESCO organizations such as the International Society for Education Through Art ( InSEA) have initiated ways to keep us connected when we are forced apart physically through drawing via #inseadrawcloser.

These are just some of the ways the arts community in Australia are still connecting with us.
The benefits of arts education in schools
We probably don't need to remind you of the abundance of evidence that exists about the impact and benefits (both instrumental and intrinsic) of the arts and arts-rich learning environments both inside school sites and more broadly in and amongst broader communities.

In schools the benefits of the arts include increasing young people's self-esteem and engagement in learning at school, improving learning outcomes in other areas of the curriculum, and through assisting young people with social behaviour and their connectionwith others. In the broader community the arts have been harnessed to enhance notions of wellbeing including personal health, personal development, social support, social inclusion, social capital, urban renewal or neighbourhood regeneration, tolerance, as well cross cultural connections, creativity and economic development.

With greater emphasis placed on the instrumental benefits of the arts, others have argued that vital components and two essential aspects related to the intrinsic worth of the arts are being overlooked. First, individuals participate in the arts for pleasure, stimulation, and meaning, not necessarily for the purpose of better test scores or to stimulate the economy; intrinsic benefits are the starting point for all other types of benefit. Second, intrinsic benefits are not strictly private and can contribute to the public domain.

In creating these successful rich learning 'in', 'with' and 'through' the arts experiences in many instances artists or arts educators take on key roles to enable these public and private benefits to occur. Arts educators in higher education settings are applying the dynamic skills and dispositions they have developed over time to innovatively respond, step up and lead in a range of ways.
Stepping up to lead
Our educator colleagues are leading change in a number of social media spaces such as on Facebook pages, with Twitter handles and creating Instagram posts These sites are being used to share a range of collaborative resources for arts educators across the country and globe.

Many members of the Australian Association for Research In Education Arts special interest group, the AARE Art Education Research Practice (AEPR) SIG, are engaged in leading, supporting and shaping the communities in which they are involved.
Some examples of the work we are doing
Margaret Baguley from the University of Southern Queensland, Kathryn Coleman from the University of Melbourne, and Abbey McDonald from the University of Tasmania have developed a digital learning and teaching space to support collaboration and help with resourcing schools and Visual Arts educators across the country. This evolving Google doc has over 40 curated resources and growing.

Also Narelle Lemon from Swinburne University has used her arts educator background to develop the series of podcasts, Welcome to 'Teachers supporting teachers', which provide insights into being and becoming a teacher at this current strange time. Sue Davis from Central Queensland University, has also stepped up and produced a living digital resource Arts Education Challenges for schools to use.

The work of Helen Cahill, from the University of Melbourne, and colleagues from the Youth Research Centre earlier this year developed Research-informed approaches to supporting student wellbeing post-disaster, a valuable resource for educators, when the focus was on bushfire recovery. This generous resource includes a range of arts -based strategies that are also germane to the COVID-19 world we are living in.
Our multi-modal response
We know from this small sample of digital work and leadership in arts education and from our connections, that sophisticated and conceptual teaching and learning is abundant in Australian arts education.

Over the years our AARE Special Interest Group colleagues have shared their leadership, innovation and entrepreneurial strategies for advocating and activating arts education in their institutions. Many have been online in some way for a decade or so.

What we have witnessed during this time of social isolation is that the attributes and capabilities we know underpin arts education, our arts educators hold and lead with in their sites of learning. We have witnessed this over the few months through bushfire recovery and now with the online teaching that is happening - the ability to be open minded, empathetic, innovative, problem solve and articulate complex reasoning skills in multi-modal sites and spaces are the cross cutting, transferable capabilities of the arts. The online space is just another site to conquer - an attitude that Lexi Lasczik and Peter Cook, from Southern Cross University, have shared over the years.

In this post we wanted to showcase how, when the going gets tough, arts educators get going. We know that the generative and collaborative spirit of arts educators sharing their resources will continue. We hope you see this as a call to action to share your own shifts in practice and to lead in times of change

Please visit our AEPR SIG Facebook page to check out other resources we are sharing.

Kathryn Coleman is a senior lecturer in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. She is an artist, researcher and former teacher. She is the Australasian representative on the Board of Directors of Association of Authentic, Experiential and Evidence Based Learning (AAEEBL) and World Council Representative for the South-East Asia Pacific Region for the International Society for Education though Art (InSEA). Kathryn is on Twitter @kateycoleman

Mark Selkrig is an Associate Professor in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. He works in the fields of teacher education and creativities and the arts. His research and scholarly work focus on the changing nature of educators' work, their identities, lived experiences and how they navigate the ecologies of their respective learning environments. Mark is on Twitter @markselkrig

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When the going gets tough artists & arts educators get going with innovative ways of connecting and learning

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As 2020 lurches through multiple uncertainties the Australian arts community, already feeling the effects from budget cuts and a stripped back Australia Council funding round, discovered many members do not have access to the Government's stimulus measures.

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The surge in sales of Indigenous books is heartening but education takes many forms

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The surge in sales of Indigenous books is heartening but education takes many forms

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Aboriginal people have been inundated with questions about how to be a better ally. It gives us hope but it's absolutely exhausting.

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The surge in sales of Indigenous books is heartening but education takes many forms

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n the wake of the Black Lives Matter and Aboriginal Lives Matter movements, many of my friends and colleagues have been inundated with requests - how to be a better ally, where to donate, what to read, who to listen to ... the requests stop short of asking us, "what should I think?"

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How Indigenous thinking can save the world

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Tyson Yunkaporta discusses Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World

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Is mental wellbeing linked to arts engagement?

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Is mental wellbeing linked to arts engagement?

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Is mental wellbeing linked to arts engagement?

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Dr Christina Davies discusses the findings from her recent paper The Art of being Mentally Healthy.

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Over recent years, there has been a growing understanding of the impact that taking part in the arts can have on health and wellbeing. By supplementing medicine and care, the arts can improve the health of people who experience mental or physical health problems. Engaging in the arts can promote prevention of disease and build wellbeing. The arts can improve healthcare environments and benefit staff retention and professional development.

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The research project 'Art School Educated: Curriculum Change in UK Art Schools 1960-2010' investigated the impact of art education on artistic production in Britain. A comprehensive history of UK art schools and their impact on the history of modern British art had not been undertaken, despite the schools' distinguished contributions to cultural life. This project therefore aimed to build towards such an account by identifying the decisive reforms in the curriculum of the major London art schools from the 1960s to the present day, exploring how these new curricula related to the output of the artists represented in Tate's collection and seeking to shed light onto the interrelated histories of fine art teaching and artists' relationships with society.

Funded by the Leverhulme Trust, the study, which began in 2009 and concluded in 2014, looked at a fifty-year period in British art, starting with the publication in 1960 of the first report of the Coldstream Council, which had supposedly had a transformative effect on the structures of art teaching at higher education level. The project quickly focused on the London art schools, but some comparative work was conducted with schools outside of the capital, especially with Leeds, Leicester, Coventry, Cardiff and Newcastle. The team also built valuable international contacts, especially with Scandinavia, that might support and encourage future work on the theme.

Based at Tate, the project sought to exploit the art museum's role as a mediator between teaching institutions, the community of artists and the public. Art schools can be immensely competitive, with institutional and individual artistic reputations constantly being contested and their histories retold. It is a sphere, however, in which Tate has few conflicts of interest and the project team sought to position themselves as neutral observers as they studied the key moments and issues in this history.

The project also aimed to understand better the circumstances and conditions that were likely to have determined the artistic training and intellectual formation of the generations of artists whose work has been collected by Tate. The team's conclusions centred on the perceived consequences of two sets of radical changes to UK art school education since 1960. First was the abandonment of the Life Room, the drawing classes at the core of academic fine art education since its invention in the early modern period. Second was the institutional restructuring of the sector during the 1990s and since to bring fine art fully into the university sector and at the same time accommodate the changing image of the artist and new artistic practices (including, for example, the use of time-based and digital media, conceptual practice, installations and performance). With the formal rejection of the Life Room, art education lost a unique signifier whereby pedagogic practice was based on a manual/vocational and intellectual skill comprehended across the academy and recognised as specific to the visual arts.

There are, even now, few substantial secondary sources relating to the history of UK art schools and the work of the team was therefore overwhelmingly concerned with primary material taken from interviews and found in institutional and personal archives in the form of taught course documentation and ephemera. Each member of the research team was trained in oral history techniques at the British Library. It was always recognised that interviews with practitioners and students would be both important but also problematic since such material is richly evocative and has the potential to inform but is also deeply subjective and cannot be used with full confidence unless its claims are checked against other evidence. To help gain this broader perspective the team also conducted research in a great number of archives, including the Tate Archive, the National Arts Education at Bretton Hall, the National Library of Scotland, the archives at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, the National Archives, Kew and individual art school archives.

The project concluded with a conference at Tate Britain called 'Art School Educated' in September 2014, in which team members shared their reflections with other panellists and a broader public in four sessions ('Art School Education and the Image of the Artist', 'Drawing and the Life Room', 'The Changing Curriculum' and 'Structural Dilemmas: Art Schools and the FE/HE System'). Another key project highlight was the creation of the display 'Basic Design' at Tate Britain in 2013. This explored a radically new approach to training in art schools in the 1950s and 1960s, looking at the work of key teachers including Roy Ascott, Richard Hamilton and Harry Thubron and that of their students. The display contained archival material and video documentation, and was accompanied by a booklet.

The team went on to produce a monograph, The London Art Schools: Reforming the Art World, 1960 to Now (London 2015), with essays on:

the history of the exhibiting of art students' work

the Life Room

the foundation course (an innovation that saw part-time teachers quadruple in number in four years)

the contribution of William Johnstone, an underestimated figure

the teaching of art history and contextual studies, massively encouraged by the Coldstream Report

the teaching of colour

the architecture of the Chelsea College of Art and Design

the pedagogical shift from criticism to performance, with its origins in group critical practice at St Martin's.

An appendix also provided key information about the histories of individual art schools including department histories and changes of title, the profiles of key teachers and heads, geographical moves and institutional mergers and other changes, key dates and data about student numbers.

Complementing this volume, this site republishes the book's institutional histories and presents excerpts from interviews with the project's protagonists and commentators, as well as films documenting a series of artist-led life drawing masterclasses.

Nigel Llewellyn
Head of Research 2007-15
Tate

Project team:
Catherine Antoni, Administrator
Elena Crippa, PhD student
Lucy Howarth, Research Assistant
Professor Nigel Llewellyn, Head of Research (Principal Investigator)
Alex Massouras, PhD student
Dr Victoria Walsh, Head of Adult Programmes, Tate Britain (Co-Investigator)
Hester Westley, Research Assistant
Beth Williamson, Research Assistant

Editorial team:
Jennifer Mundy, Head of Art Historical Research
Beth Williamson, Coordinator
Susannah Worth, Digital Editor (Research)

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Art School Educated: Curriculum Change in UK Art Schools 1960-2010 | Tate

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The research project 'Art School Educated: Curriculum Change in UK Art Schools 1960-2010' investigated the impact of art education on artistic production in Britain. A comprehensive history of UK art schools and their impact on the history of modern British art had not been undertaken, despite the schools' distinguished contributions to cultural life.

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We need creative teaching to teach creativity

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Whether or not creativity can be taught is still a contested question, though it really shouldn't be. The evidence is well and truly in on this question. The idea that creativity cannot be taught is based on two misunderstandings: a misunderstanding of what creativity is and a misunderstanding of what teaching is.

Let's tackle creativity first.

For many of us, when we think of creativity we think it is some kind of internal personality trait or characteristic inherent to a rare type of person. Many of us also think that creativity is difficult to define. Both of these notions miss the mark.

The first notion, that creativity is an inherent personality trait, a rare characteristic in exceptional people, has its roots in the notion of creative genius that we have inherited from the Romantics. The Romantic ideal of the creative genius is epitomised in the figure of Lord Byron - brooding, eccentric, solitary, difficult. This Romantic notion leads us to believe creative types are not only rare but born rather than made: people cannot be taught to be creative, they just are or they aren't.

Over the last few decades a lot of evidence has been generated that not only disproves the idea that creativity is an inborn trait, but actually indicates the direct opposite.

What we know about creativity

This research into creativity has occurred mostly in the fields of psychology and neuroscience.

The evidence shows that creativity is a learned behaviour: it is not restricted to exceptional people and it is not even a solitary activity. Creativity, the evidence shows, is most often socially-engaged and often undertaken in group situations.

This research also demonstrates that creativity is not an ill-defined, somehow esoteric quality but a set of cognitive approaches that generate innovative ideas. Basically, creativity is just a way of thinking and acting differently to the way we are normally encouraged to think and act. American scholar R. Keith Sawyer compiled and discussed much of this evidence in his 2008 book Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation.

And yet the idea of the poet or artist born to suffer in isolation for their art continues to be a potent cultural idea.

How we learn

The second misunderstanding, the one about teaching, comes from our own experience of education. The dominant model of teaching of which we all have experience is often referred to as "direct instruction", which is routinely teemed with learning by repetition.

In direct instruction we are basically given information or techniques that we are asked to remember or assimilate. The idea that direct instruction is the ideal model of teaching is, thankfully, on its last legs, but it is still how most of us were taught. It is therefore perfectly reasonable for us to expect that if creativity were to be taught, it would be taught using this method.

Some aspects of creativity can be taught with direct instruction, but others cannot.

Part of learning to be creative is acquiring knowledge about our field of endeavour. We can teach the history of ideas within visual art, poetry or physics and show the benefits of thinking differently in those disciplines. We can demonstrate that innovations in physics, poetry and visual art are often breaks from tradition, departures from received wisdom or belief.

Direct instruction is also valuable in showing how things are done: how paint can be applied to give texture, how atoms respond to each other when placed in proximity, how white space on a page can make a poem breathe.

Nevertheless, teaching creativity needs to go further than direct instruction; it needs to be a relational kind of teaching in which the teacher mentors, encourages and inspires the student. To teach creativity we need creative teaching, and creative teachers. We cannot expect to be more creative if those who teach us are not capable of inspiring and encouraging us.

That's why the best teachers of creativity are also practitioners, those engaged in creative practice, whether in visual art, writing or chemistry.

Creative teachers need to be experts in their discipline and also experts in teaching creatively. Too often we assume that success in a field of endeavour qualifies someone to teach. This is not the case. Teaching is in itself a creative undertaking that requires real commitment and expertise.

Most of all, teachers of anything needs to have confidence in their students, they need to believe that their students can learn what it is that they are teaching, that their students can acquire the creativity they need and become great in their chosen fields.

As esteemed educational expert Sir Ken Robinson has noted, you can be creative at anything, creativity is simply "the process of having original ideas that have value".

As a process, a way of thinking and acting rather than an inborn trait, creativity is something we can all learn to apply in our lives.

Read other articles in our creativity series here.

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We need creative teaching to teach creativity

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Whether or not creativity can be taught is still a contested question, though it really shouldn't be. The evidence is well and truly in on this question. The idea that creativity cannot be taught is based on two misunderstandings: a misunderstanding of what creativity is and a misunderstanding of what teaching is.

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Art Enhances Brain Function and Well-Being

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Art Enhances Brain Function and Well-Being

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Art Enhances Brain Function and Well-Being

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There is an increasing amount of scientific evidence that proves art enhances brain function. It has an impact on brain wave patterns and emotions, the nervous system, and can actually raise serotonin levels. Art can change a person's outlook and the way they experience the world.

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(William Rotor)
This topic reminds me of an article I read from Aeon magazine about how art and experimental science are traditionally separate but should in practice be more integrated. It talks about the way that philosophers and artists have relied on "gut feelings" and intuition and dismissed concerns as unknowable and ephemeral, when in fact experimental science, particularly in the field of psychology, can shine a light on many of the questions about art that have been pondered over the years. Not everything needs to be poetically unknowable: sometimes there actually is a reason for why we feel the way we do.

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Many philosophical questions about the arts would benefit from some serious empirical research. One thinker who welcomed empirical findings was the art historian E H Gombrich (1909-2001), who was influenced by findings in experimental psychology showing that perception is a matter of inference rather than direct seeing. But all too often philosophers have relied on intuitions and hunches without seeking information about how people actually interact with works of art. If we want to understand the arts, it's time to take experimental psychology seriously.

Today, experimental philosophers and philosophically inclined psychologists are designing experiments that can help to answer some of the big philosophical questions about the nature of art and how we experience it - questions that have puzzled people for centuries, such as: why do we prefer original works of art to forgeries? How do we decide what is good art? And does engaging with the arts make us better human beings?

Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus, believed to have been painted by Johannes Vermeer in the 17th century, hung in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam for seven years; in 1937, it was admired by the Vermeer expert Abraham Bredius as ' the masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer of Delft'. But in 1945, Han van Meegeren confessed that he had forged this painting (and many others), and should thus be deemed as great an artist as Vermeer. But this did not happen. The same work formerly revered was now derided.

There are two kinds of art forgeries: invented forgeries in the style of an established artist, and copy forgeries, which are reproductions of existing works. Most commonly, forgers such as van Meegeren produce invented forgeries. Copy forgeries are less common; these are more difficult to get away with since it is often known where the original resides. Moreover, because it is impossible to make a perfect copy by hand, one can always see (or hope to see) differences between the original and the copy, and use these differences to disparage the copy. The art critic Clive Bell in 1914 suggested that exact copies always lack life: the lines and forms in the original are caused by emotions in the artist's mind that are not present in the copier's mind. The philosopher Nelson Goodman in 1976 argued that, even if we can detect no physical difference between the original and the copy, just knowing that one painting is the original and the other is the copy tells us that there could be subtle differences that we cannot see now but that we might learn to see later. This knowledge shapes our aesthetic experience of what we believe to be a direct copy.

The puzzle posed by forgery is this: why does our perception and evaluation of an artwork change simply by learning it is a forgery? After all, the work itself has not changed. Philosophers have taken two broad positions on this question.

According to the formalist position, when the original and the forgery are visually indistinguishable, they are not aesthetically different. For example, Monroe Beardsley in 1959 argued that we should form our aesthetic judgments only by attending to the perceptual properties of the picture before us, and not by considering when or how the work was made or who it was made by. So why did people change their evaluation of the Vermeer painting once van Meegeren confessed to being the artist? According to Alfred Lessing, writing in 1965, this response can be chalked up to social pressures: 'Considering a work of art aesthetically superior because it is genuine, or inferior because it is forged, has little or nothing to do with aesthetic judgment or criticism. It is rather a piece of snobbery.' This view assumes that artworks have perceptual properties that are unaffected by our knowledge about the background of the work.

According to the historicist position, what we perceive in a work is influenced by what we know about it. Despite the original and the forgery being visually indistinguishable, they are aesthetically different precisely because of what the formalists deny is relevant - our beliefs about who made the work, when, and how. The German critic Walter Benjamin in the 1930s argued that our aesthetic response takes into account the object's history, 'its unique existence in a particular place'. He believed that a forgery has a different history and thus lacks the 'aura' of the original. The philosopher and critic Arthur Danto took a similar historicist position in 1964 when he asked us to consider why a Brillo box by Andy Warhol that is visually identical to a Brillo box in a supermarket is a work of art. To determine that the box in the museum is a work of art 'requires something the eye cannot descry - an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld'. Denis Dutton claimed in 2009 that we perceive a forgery to be aesthetically inferior to an original because we take into account the kind of achievement the work represents - the artist's process - and a forgery represents a lesser kind of achievement than an original.

Psychologists have stepped into the fray to determine how much the label 'forgery' affects our response to a work of art - and, if so, why. The first question is easier to answer than the second. Studies show that just telling people that a work is a forgery (or even the less-charged term 'copy') causes them to rate that work lower on a host of aesthetic dimensions. Artworks labelled forgeries or copies are rated as less good, less beautiful, less awe-inspiring, less interesting, lower in monetary value, and even physically smaller than the same image shown to other respondents as an 'original'. In addition, brain activation changes: while the visual areas of the brain didn't change in response to whether Rembrandt paintings were labelled 'authentic' or 'copy', the label 'authentic' resulted in greater activation of the orbitofrontal cortex - an area associated with reward and monetary gain.

Clearly, people don't behave how the formalists thought that they should. What is causing their appreciation to be diminished? One possibility is that our sense of forgery's moral evil unconsciously influences our aesthetic response. Another is that our knowledge of forgery's worthlessness on the art market has the same kind of unconscious effect. But if we could strip forgery of its connection with deception and lack of monetary value, would it still be devalued? And, if so, can we demonstrate that the historicist position is correct?

With my research team, I put this to the test by showing people two duplicate images of an unfamiliar art work side by side, telling them that the painting on the left was the first in a planned series of 10 identical works by a painter. Participants were then told one of three different stories about who made the work on the right: that it was by the artist, by the artist's assistant, or by a forger. For those told it was the artist's assistant, we specified that the assistant's copy had the artist's stamp on it, and that having a team of assistants was typical artistic practice (hence not fraudulent). The auction price of $53,000 was listed below all images (right and left) except for the forgery, which was listed at only $200.

We asked people to rate the copy relative to the original on six dimensions:

Which one is more creative?
Which one do you like more?
Which one is more original?
Which one is more beautiful?
Which one is the better work of art?
Which one is more likely to be influential?

Responses fell into two categories: broadly evaluative (what formalists called aesthetic) - with reference to beauty, goodness and liking; and historical-evaluative (what historicists called historical) - with reference to creativity, originality and influence. We reasoned that forgeries would always be the most devalued of the three kinds of copies because of their immorality and their lack of monetary worth. The artist's copy, however, is like a forgery without these two marks against it. Thus, our key comparison was between responses to the artist's versus the assistant's copy, relative to the original.

We found that, on broadly evaluative dimensions, the artist's and the assistant's copies were rated identically - with no distinctions in beauty, liking or goodness. Thus, our participants behaved like formalists. Previous studies reporting lower beauty ratings for images labelled forgeries had presented works one at a time. But here, when the original and the forgery were presented simultaneously, people were forced to concede that there was no beauty difference.

Even a copy of a Vermeer by Vermeer makes us feel like we are communing with Vermeer

On historical-evaluative ratings, however, the story was different. People rated the assistant's copy as less creative, original and influential than the artist's copy - even though both works were copies, both signed by the artist, and both worth the same monetarily. People now behaved as historicists, consistent with Danto's position that visually identical Brillo boxes are not artistically identical.

These findings tell us that, when moral and monetary considerations are ruled out, there is still something wrong with a forgery. It's not quite what Dutton thought, because while an original certainly represents a different kind of achievement from a forgery, there is really no difference in achievement between an artist's copy and an assistant's copy. Both are copies, after all. So what is it that's wrong then?

I submit that it's the aura that Benjamin talked about, which is dependent most critically on who made the work. Benjamin's idea of 'aura' is consistent with what psychologists call essentialism - the view that certain special objects (eg, my wedding ring, or my childhood teddy bear) gain their identity from their history, and have an underlying nature that cannot be directly observed, a view developed extensively by the psychologist Susan Gelman. This is why we reject perfect replicas of such objects: we want the original. We appear to treat works of art this way too - as if they contain the essence of the artist, or the artist's mind. We prefer the copy by the artist to the copy by the assistant because only the former contains that essence. This leads to the conclusion that just knowing that we are looking at a painting by Vermeer (even if it is a copy of a Vermeer by Vermeer) makes us feel like we are communing with Vermeer. Do we really want to find out that we were actually communing with van Meegeren?

These findings predict that we will not respond well to what the future is bringing us: three-dimensional prints of paintings virtually indistinguishable from the originals, and works of art generated by computers. These works will not allow us to infer the mind of the human artist.

The American art critic Peter Schjeldahl put this well when he wrote in 2008:

The spectre of forgery chills the receptiveness - the will to believe - without which the experience of art cannot occur. Faith in authorship matters. We read the qualities of a work as the forthright decisions of a particular mind, wanting to let it commandeer our own minds, and we are disappointed when it doesn't.

If we read into a work of art the artist's decisions, as Schjeldahl writes, then we are inferring a mind behind the work. Can we do this for abstract art? And, if so, can this help us distinguish art by great abstract expressionists from superficially similar art by children and animals?

Tension between those who revere and those who deride abstract art can be seen even among the most highly regarded art historians. In Art and Illusion (2000), Gombrich focused on representational art as a great human achievement, and disparaged abstract art as a display of the artist's personality rather than skill. Contrast this to the attitude of the late American art historian Kirk Varnedoe, who was chief curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art from 1988 to 2001. In Pictures of Nothing (2006), Varnedoe responds explicitly to Gombrich's challenge, writing that abstract art is a signal human achievement created in a new language, and filled with symbolic meaning. The 'mind-boggling range of drips, stains, blobs, blocks, bricks, and blank canvases' seen in museums of modern art are not random spills, he wrote. Rather, like all works of art, they are 'vessels of human intention' and they 'generate meaning ahead of naming'. They represent a series of deliberate choices by the artist, and involve invention and evoke meanings - for example, energy, space, depth, repetition, serenity, discord.

Chimps, monkeys and elephants have all been given paints, brushes and paper on which to make marks. And their paintings, like those of preschoolers, bear a superficial resemblance to abstract expressionist paintings. Who hasn't heard someone deride abstract art as requiring no skill at all, with statements such as 'My kid could have done that!'

We wanted to find out whether people see more than they think they do in abstract art - whether they can see the mind behind the work. We created pairs of images that looked eerily alike at first glance. Each pair consisted of a painting by a famous abstract expressionist whose works were found in at least one major art-history textbook (eg, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Sam Francis, Cy Twombly, Franz Kline and others) and a painting either by a child or a nonhuman animal (chimp, gorilla, monkey or elephant). The question we asked was whether people would prefer, and judge as better, works by artists over works by children and animals. And, if so, on what basis?

People see more than they think in abstract art - they see the mind behind the work

We set up the study so that people first saw 10 pairs of paintings without any labels revealing who made them, followed by 20 more pairs with authorship information under each image: one labelled 'artist' and the other labelled 'child', 'chimp', 'gorilla', 'monkey' or 'elephant'. Of these 20, half were randomly labelled correctly, and half incorrectly (thus a Hofmann painting might have been labelled 'child'). If people can't distinguish between works by artists and by untrained children and animals, we should expect chance to play a part in their responses to the first 10 unlabelled pairs, which would mean choosing works by artists they liked more or saw as better only 50 per cent of the time. But this did not happen. For both the like and the better questions, participants selected the works by artists at an above-chance level. And when our respondents chose a work by an artist as better or preferred, they often explained their choice by referring to the mind behind the work, saying that it looked more thought-out, intentional and planned. Such mentalistic explanations were significantly more frequent following the choice of the artist's actual work (whatever the label).

We have repeated this experiment in different ways - for example, presenting the works one at a time rather than in pairs, and asking which is by the artist vs the child or animal - and we find that, overall, people are correct about two-thirds of the time, a rate that is significantly above chance responding. Most importantly, when we asked people to rate each image on the dimension of perceived intentionality (without telling them that some were by children and animals), we found that those by artists received significantly higher intentionality ratings. This led us to conclude that people see more than they think they see in abstract art - they see the mind behind the work, and this is what leads them to distinguish between works by artists and by children or animals, and what leads them to classify artists' works as better.

Moreover, when people do make mistakes, they are operating on the basis of perceived intentionality: those artists' works rated as low in intentionality get misidentified as having been done by children or animals; and those works by children and animals rated high in intentionality get misidentified as done by artists. What this shows is that we evaluate abstract art by inferring (rightly or wrongly) the mind behind the art. Just as we evaluate an original as better than a forgery because we infer the mind of the original master behind the original work.

Another area in the philosophy of art that can be illuminated by the findings of experimental psychology is the question of whether studying the arts has the 'transfer' effect of making us better people. It is indeed plausible to assume that reading particular works of literature about particular kinds of injustices might arouse in us feelings of empathy, not just for the characters, but also for real individuals who might be in the same kinds of situations as the fictional ones. This is a view that is often promulgated, but rarely with evidence.

Colson Whitehead, the author of The Underground Railroad (2016), a powerful novel about slavery, reported that a stranger told him: 'Your book made me a more empathetic person.' The claim that the narrative arts make us more empathic seems highly plausible: we project ourselves into fictional characters and simulate what they are experiencing. Where better to step into the shoes of another than with works of literature, where we can meet a wide variety of people, all so different from ourselves? Referring to the novels of Charles Dickens and George Eliot, Martha Nussbaum wrote in Cultivating Humanity (1997): 'It is impossible to care about the characters and their wellbeing in the way the text invites, without having some very definite political and moral interests awakened in oneself.'

Not all would agree. The literary critic Harold Bloom wrote in 2000 that: 'The pleasures of reading indeed are selfish rather than social. You cannot directly improve anyone else's life by reading better or more deeply.' The philosopher Gregory Currie speculates that when we expend empathy on fictional characters, our empathy for actual people is depleted. William James seems to have had the same idea when in 1892 he asked us to imagine 'the weeping of the Russian lady over the fictitious personages in the play, while her coachman is freezing to death on his seat outside'. This is reminiscent of Kwame Anthony Appiah's description in 2008 of Catholic seminarians who have just heard a lecture on the Good Samaritan - and then rush right past someone in need when they realise they're late for the next lecture. After leaving the fictional world, have we paid our empathy dues?

The Germany that led to Hitler was reading Goethe and listening to Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'

Experimental psychologists have begun to seek evidence of fiction's power to induce empathy. In one study, after reading a story about an injustice committed against an Arab-Muslim woman, participants were less likely to categorise angry ambiguous-race faces as Arab. But did this translate into kinder behaviour? This was not examined. In another study, after reading an excerpt from Harry Potter about stigma, children reported more positive attitudes about immigrant children at their school. But note that this change of mind (or heart) occurred only for children who identified with Harry, and only after a discussion of the reading with their teacher - and this might have been the deciding factor. Meanwhile, after reading a story about a character behaving prosocially, participants were more willing to help the experimenter pick up accidentally dropped pens. But note that picking up dropped pens is very low-cost helping, and we have no idea how long such an inclination to help lasts.

If we just go by the studies carried out so far, I would have to come down on the side of the skeptics. The evidence is there only for very near and very immediate transfer - prosocial stories written by experimenters make us think and act more prosocially (often quite similarly to how the characters thought and acted) immediately after reading and, in one case, also after discussing the story's themes. These near-transfer connections are not particularly generalisable to actual literature, since most literature does not carry a moral lesson. And remember that the Germany which led to Hitler was one of the most literate societies, reading Goethe and listening to Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' by night.

And yet, I am not ready to conclude that there might be no link between reading certain works of literature and becoming more empathic. I make here a plea for more and better research on the effects of literature on compassion. Great literature allows us to get inside the lives of people we would never meet in real life. I would wager that if we could do the study right, we could show that reading Dickens not only makes us feel what it is like to be a penniless, hungry and unjustly treated child, but also more likely to help children in such conditions too - if the opportunity to help presents itself.

Similarly, what might be the effect of reading Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (1862) - especially the scene where Jean Valjean, just released from years of hard labour for stealing food to feed his sister's child, steals silverware from the bishop who has taken him in - and when Valjean is caught, the bishop gives him two candlesticks too, as a gift? Here we see the cruel effects of injustice and the potential life-giving results of kindness. Might this make a judge more likely to be lenient in sentencing certain kinds of crimes? Of course, there would be cases of people who don't react this way. No one would claim that there is a necessary link between reading Dickens and Hugo, and compassion for the poor and outrage at injustice. But reading Dickens and Hugo just might nudge some of us to be more compassionate, and that is all we would need in order to make the case that literature has the power to induce compassion.

I have discussed three philosophical questions about art that can be addressed empirically: why do we disparage once-revered artworks when they are outed as forgeries? How do we judge quality in abstract art? And does entering a narrative world make us more empathetic once we exit that world? Of course, not all philosophical claims about art can be studied empirically. No experiment could give conclusive answers to ontological questions such as What is art? or What is beauty? But the philosophical problems discussed here are inherently psychological ones. When a philosophical claim is about how the mind works, then that claim is not immune to psychological data, and it is incumbent upon philosophers to consider whether psychologists' answers are satisfactory.
How Art Works: A Psychological Exploration by Ellen Winner is published via Oxford University Press.

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How experimental psychology can help us understand art | Aeon Essays

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Many philosophical questions about the arts would benefit from some serious empirical research. One thinker who welcomed empirical findings was the art historian E H Gombrich (1909-2001), who was influenced by findings in experimental psychology showing that perception is a matter of inference rather than direct seeing.

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Margaret Wertheim leads a project to re-create the creatures of the coral reefs using a crochet technique invented by a mathematician -- celebrating the amazements of the reef, and deep-diving into the hyperbolic geometry underlying coral creation.

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Margaret Wertheim: The beautiful math of coral

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Margaret Wertheim leads a project to re-create the creatures of the coral reefs using a crochet technique invented by a mathematician -- celebrating the amazements of the reef, and deep-diving into the hyperbolic geometry underlying coral creation.

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Arts Education Research in Western Australia 

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Arts Education Research in Western Australia 

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Arts education is vital to help foster creativity and innovation

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Arts education is vital to help foster creativity and innovation

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I have a dream that this nation will achieve its full creative and economic potential and that Arts education will rightfully be seen as central to making this happen. It worries me that current thinking and policymaking around national innovation concentrates on increasing participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects while the teaching of the Arts (dance, drama, music, media arts and visual arts,) is rarely even on the innovation agenda.

It is not that I begrudge the attention STEM is getting, it is just that I believe if we want to be a truly innovative and creative nation we need to put the Arts, very firmly, back in the mix. We should be talking about STEAM in schools and universities with the Arts very much in the centre of it all.

There exists a popular narrative, used to drive the STEM education agenda in Australia (and elsewhere), that says there are significantly declining enrolments in the Sciences and other STEM disciplines. However I question this narrative as justification for major initiatives. I will come back to that later.

First up what are we talking about, when we talk about innovation and creativity?
Innovation and creativity
Creativity and innovation involves putting things together in new ways, it involves risk-taking, experimenting and refining, valuing the role of productive failure, it involves making and doing, and is often collaborative and co-creative. While creativity is about the capacity to putting things together in new, novel and different ways, innovation is often seen as putting them to work and out into the world so that they meet a need, want or interest.

However these capacities don't get switched on when people hit the world of work, they need to be cultivated across the education lifespan in all subjects in as many ways as possible.

Unfortunately the nurturing of creativity and innovation often seems to be at odds with the direction of many current initiatives in education. I have concerns about mandated curriculum and standards and everyone doing the same thing, the same tests, meeting the same benchmarks. I am particularly concerned about certain subjects or areas of learning being valued as more essential or more important than others.
Why the Arts subjects are important when it comes to innovation and creativity
The focus on STEM, without similar focus being turned to the Arts and Humanities does not appear to be justified by recent research about the impact of technologies on our lives. It is hard to deny that all aspects of life and the world of work are undergoing rapid transformations, many brought about by developments in technologies across nearly all fields of endeavour. Recent research from Oxford University notes however, that while robots will assume the role of many people in many sectors, growth continues in those that rely on creative capacity and social interactions, people, services and experiences. They are not optional areas of focus for education, but essential for opening up future study and work opportunities.

The importance of valuing other areas of learning and related industry sectors is also evident when examining economic development within various industry sectors. Industry growth and projection reports identify that education itself is one of Australia's major export industries. Other projected growth areas identified by the Reserve Bank include household and business services, food, arts and recreation.

A Deloitte report also identifies industry sectors such as agribusiness, tourism, international education and wealth management as ones that are growth sectors for the Australian economy.

To do well in these sectors may require knowledge and skills in some or all of the STEM areas, but also relies on understanding people, design, experience and communications: the Arts subjects.
Is there really a crisis in the uptake of STEM subjects?
A review of senior secondary enrolments in several states over the past 20 years reveals that in most cases all students have to/or tend to study an English and a Math subject. When it comes to the sciences, Biology is the top or near top elective subject and while there is some drop in the percentage of Physics and Chemistry enrolments it is not perhaps as extreme as we have been lead to believe, and in fact in recent times in Queensland, for example, there has been an increase in the numbers for Chemistry enrolments.

Enrolments in sciences have not been dropping more substantially than other subjects over the last 20 years using Queensland data as an example. While percentages of total year 12 enrolments might be 5-10% lower, this has to be considered in the context of increased subject choices including vocational training courses. It is clear that the pattern of enrolment of the Arts and Humanities also shows similar decreases in percentages too. When it comes to the most dramatic drop in enrolments over the past 20 years it is actually Accounting (20% to 7%) and Economics (19% to 5%) that have seen the most dramatic declines.

Similar trends can be identified in New South Wales and Victorian data, though the strength of Chemistry seen in Queensland is not necessarily reflected in other state data.

While there is no doubt that there are still issues with enrolments in STEM by different target groups, including girls and students from low SES backgrounds, regional areas and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, these are not new issues. However a focus on increased enrolments in STEM per se is not likely to change that. Other strategies that focus more on pedagogy, combining STEM and arts based approaches are more likely to have impact (and have been the basis for strategies in places such as Korea).
So what should we be doing?
It is important that capacity building in creativity and innovation be supported across the years of formal education (including early childhood, primary and secondary education) and tertiary study, including teacher education. This requires a shift beyond STEM and the ongoing focus on 'basic skills' in major educational drives, and to look at the cultivation of ideas and passions, calculated risk taking, how to work through failure, problem-finding and problem-solving and resolution of ideas into products and forms.

This requires an approach that recognizes that creativity and innovation can be cultivated across diverse learning and industry fields. If the current obsession with STEM is to continue, as I said previously, it should be converted to STEAM, with the Arts at its centre, at the very least, or perhaps ESTEAM to recognize the importance of Entrepreneurship as well.
Other key points
Here is my list of other key points and issues we need to tackle.

We need to see the arts, education and teacher education as being integral to a national innovation agenda

We should be specifically teaching teachers and children about innovation and creativity and to value the different knowledges and skills that can contribute to innovation

Include scope for more specialisations in primary education degrees, including in the arts and humanities

Recognise that there needs to be space for people to develop different interests, depth of knowledge and experience. Some of this can be supported through formal learning programs, but can also be supported through after school programs, partnerships and informal learning

Reduce the focus in educational agendas on NAPLAN and standardized test instruments and reports. We can't mandate that everyone learns the same things in the same ways for 10 years of schooling and then expect them to do things 'differently'. We need room for people to develop interests and expertise in diverse areas, so room for electives, special projects and enterprises.

If our governments recognize the importance of creativity and innovation for our future national prosperity (as the current parliamentary inquiry would indicate), attention must be paid to learning that promotes problem-solving and inventiveness, social innovation and entrepreneurship, and multiple forms of communication and expression. To do this effectively Australia needs to give just as much attention to the Arts as it is currently to the teaching of and participation in STEM. These areas are all fundamental to cultivating innovation for the future of our economy and our world.
Susan Davis is Deputy Dean Research for the School of Education & the Arts at CQ University, Australia. Her research has focused on drama, arts-education, engagement and digital technologies*NOTE to readers and bloggers (Nov 2017). Our Facebook and LinkedIn shares are not showing in some browsers but are showing in Safari. So check us out in Safari. Our tech people are on the case. . She is one of the Co-Convenors of the Arts Education Research SIG of AARE and a Board member for Drama Australia and the Sunshine Coast Creative Alliance. Sue was previously a drama teacher and performing arts Head of Department and has created and managed many arts-based projects in collaboration with various education, arts industry and community groups. Susan was one of the convenors of a Creative Education Summit held at ACMI in 2016, with summit outcomes contributing to an Arts Education, Practice and Research group submission to the "The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training Inquiry into innovation and creativity: workforce for the new economy". She was also invited to present further evidence at a roundtable for the inquiry.

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Arts education is vital to help foster creativity and innovation

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I have a dream that this nation will achieve its full creative and economic potential and that Arts education will rightfully be seen as central to making this happen.

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Musings From a Year of STE[a]M...How It LooksWalking Down the Path

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Musings From a Year of STE[a]M...How It LooksWalking Down the Path