Initial teacher education as a dialogic space for agile art curriculum design

Abstract

In this article we draw on our positionality as teacher educator and student teacher to reflect on initial art teacher education as a forum for novel disciplinary curriculum design. We describe how, without new system thinking, much taught school art curriculum may remain conceptually esoteric, or cumulatively dysfluent, and therefore increasingly vulnerable to new measures of accountability. We review the English context and consider the discrete challenges curriculum designers face in this national policy landscape. In response to our findings, we propose a locus for curricular development that might satisfy expectations of external auditors, but more excitingly, connect school art to authentic artistic practices. Here, student art teachers are promoted to key stakeholder in the development of new materials, rather than positioned as inheritors of habit. We defend this proposition by highlighting three potentially beneficial characteristics student teachers can contribute to curriculum design: disciplinary relevance, objective criticality and latent agency.