Talking About Art

          very excited to announce I have a chapter published in this book                                              © 2022 Access and Widening Participation in Arts Higher Education Practice and Research Editor:  Samantha Broadhead One of the few books to address Access and WP from an arts practitioner perspective. Builds on previous work in Access and WP from a perspective that is contextualized in the current political climate. Covers policies and practices that impact on inclusive and diverse art

 So excited for this publication, thanks to the editing team for pulling this publication together despite the pandemic. Here is a short extract to be found at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LebIznHs5AekPU6dnuwZaemCB9j3hpQ1/view  What can critical thinking do for access to higher education adult learners at a further education art institution? Reflections on a poetry group Frances Norton (frances.norton@leeds-art.ac.uk) Leeds Arts University, UK Introduction Although art students would prefer to make and create with their hands rather than write using thinking skills (Somerson and Hermano, 2013), nevertheless using a poetry group as a pedagogic intervention could help participants become more motivated to write because Lipman (2010) states when students engage in dialogue and collaboration they also participate in critical, caring and creative thinking. The purpose of this research is to discuss the importance of criticality and independent thinking for lifelong and WP...

The Tale of Laertes: Double Whammy. Laertes is in his late twenties when he enrols on the Access course. He had been allowed to leave school at fourteen for several reasons, he doesn’t read well, he did not enjoy the patriarchal system at school, got into trouble and became a school refuser. Finally the school let him leave, and he went to help in his Dad’s plastering business. Endeavouring to acclimatise and enculturate him into the college milieu is a difficult task as he is not used to how to behave in an educational setting, this may be down to the bad experience and memories of school. He is good naturedly disruptive and constantly coming across our administrators for not conforming to ‘normal’ student protocols like arriving on time, staying the whole day and handing work in on time. The tale of Laertes is that of a non-traditional route into FE, and is one we are familiar with on the Access course. The collaborative work we do with students talking through thei...

Creating a Community of Inquiry What is a community of inquiry? Lipman 2003, Biesta 2014 and Dewey 1934 believe it is a conceptual investigation into problematic situations. My problematic situation?   The FE Art courses I teach have both practical art and theoretical contextual studies elements, the conflation causes the problem. Students come to art school because they are practically interested in making art and are indisposed and resistant to writing and committing themselves to paper. Why is this? Research hopes to investigate how writing culture is currently viewed. To this end a reflective diary project has been established with 29 participants, in addition participants may also join a book club, interviews and critical incidence will be recorded with the intention of discovering some of the themes and threads, indicating possible issues, hindrances and hang-ups to written success? Does the concern lie in student expectations not being met or learni...

The Reluctant Writer Kratos is the most resistant person in the reading group. She loves reading and all her life she has written at school, in exams, in work documents and has been excellent at it, but now she is unwilling. She has only agreed to write the diaries in honour of our long standing friendship and mutual respect.   However despite being intractable at first and not writing any entries for the first month, she has begun, and says she enjoys it and has even agreed to write the education journey. At book club 3 Kratos talked about the experience of hearing My Story of Resistance saying she was inspired to take up the pen and write her own story, her own education journey. Kratos was truculent about writing, only doing it to ‘please’ me, which is good evidence for the MPhil project but bad in that she is not doing what she wants to do. Having known Kratos for a decade I can tell you that she never ever does anything she doesn’t want to do. Possibly on so...

Chapter 1:  Anthony the Croupier Barriers to Success for Adult Learners. The problem.  Anthony is a croupier taking bets seven nights a week in a local casino. Supporting a young family and elderly parents. He has a couple of vocational qualifications in catering and food hygiene but he is also a very talented and as yet untrained artist. His heartfelt desire is to go to art school and university. So he applies for and is accepted onto the level 2 diploma in art and design.  He excels at illustration and Graphic Design and is good at speaking about art, has opinions and joins class debates. He realises he has a stark choice to make, that of a well-paid career in five years time (after graduation) in a graphic design company or back to the Roulette wheels. This choice rests on a resistance to reading and writing, a fear of failure, past catastrophe and defeat haunting him, blocking his ability to succeed, or even ask for help as well or because o...