FULL REFERENCE: Probine, S. (2024). Colouring outside the lines: Re-exploring the teacher’s role in visual arts learning in early childhood. NZ International Research in Early Childhood Education Journal, 26, pp. 14 -29.
ABSTRACT: Teachers can be powerful influences on how young children experience the visual arts. It is often teachers who make choices about when, where, and how children will experience the visual arts in early childhood education. This paper explores an interpretivist, qualitative research project that examined the visual arts experiences of young children (aged 3-4) at three early childhood settings in Auckland, New Zealand. This paper focuses on the experiences and visual arts pedagogies of the teachers who participated in this study. In response to the literature, which suggests that many early childhood teachers continue to experience uncertainty around their roles as teachers of the arts, settings where the visual arts were deeply valued within the curriculum, were purposively selected. The rationale for selecting settings that valued this domain was to determine what factors and choices had enabled these settings to develop a rich visual arts curriculum for children. The study aimed to discover what influences had shaped teachers’ visual arts pedagogies, and how this impacted young children’s learning through the visual arts. The research found that when teachers nurture their own visual arts knowledge and confidence, both personally and professionally, they are equipped to engage authentically with children’s visual arts making and make intentional and creative choices about visual arts curriculum and pedagogy.
KEY WORDS: Visual arts pedagogy, early childhood education, co-construction, co-artists.
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INTRODUCTION
The visual arts support young children in exploring, theorizing, communicating, and reflecting on their experiences of the world (Brooks, 2017; Richards & Terreni, 2023). Formative visual arts experiences shape children’s identities as learners and creators. Early childhood teachers play a pivotal role in initiating children into the visual arts and fostering positive self-images as art-makers and creative thinkers (Denee et al., 2023). However, confusion persists about what constitutes appropriate visual arts curriculum and pedagogy (Denee, 2022; Lindsay, 2017; 2021). Some teachers hesitate to ‘intervene’ in children’s creative processes, while others overly control activities, which can result in identical artworks (Lindsay, 2017). There are also teachers, informed by sociocultural theories and the associated pedagogies, who have found a place in between these positions. These teachers actively plan for and engage in children’s art making, recognising the importance of ensuring children’s ideas and interpretations remain at the forefront. Developing such practices, however, can be challenging if teachers have had little prior experience in the visual arts or recall negative visual arts encounters from their own educational histories (Denee et al., 2023; Lindsay, 2017).
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