Abstract
This paper investigates the preparation of Australian undergraduate university arts students for a life challenging arts-teaching and creative experience in Timor-Leste. It explores university teaching practice and how we may achieve better student experiences in preparation for their futures as teaching artists. This narrative inquiry research hears the voices of the students through their individual, personal stories. The emerging teaching artists articulate challenges, identify shifts in beliefs and values, and confirm skills that are transferable to cultural arts teaching contexts in the future. In all, the research has resulted in 46 recommendations, some minor, and some requiring more significant structural changes that affect course delivery. For the purposes of this paper, we reflect on and discuss three of the major findings and recommendations in the pedagogical, cultural, and artistic areas of the project implementation. As such, this paper represents a reflective analysis of some of the findings regarding curriculum design within this project.
Keywords
Introduction
Working in universities requires a certain agility when it comes to curriculum design and implementation. The broad spectrum of learning strategies that university curriculum designers draw from, both theoretical and experiential, presents a smorgasbord of content information, pedagogy, and learning intentions. University educators, particularly those who are educating teachers of the future, need to be continually assessing and modifying their own pedagogies. The research project, Cultural stories: Narratives in an arts/language based Australian university project in Timor-Leste, was created to explore curriculum design in an arts-based cultural community teaching context, with a focus on dance and drama. In this paper the stories of the participants are not revealed, however the researchers’ responses and reflections on some of the findings are discussed.
Specifically, the research concerns a second and third-year undergraduate student international project offered to dance and drama students at an Australian university in 2019. Students from this project go on to careers in studio dance teaching, dance and drama teaching in secondary schools, and community arts. The Timor-Leste dance and drama project: Facilitating English language learning through socially engaged arts practice, was designed to present the students with a deep, holistic, engaging, and reciprocal life transaction. This project, implemented annually from 2015, aims to provide training to engage in community and school industries – specifically, an opportunity to experience in-country English-language and arts teaching. Timor-Leste, as one of Australia’s closest neighbours, provides a rich source of cultural, historical, and artistic learning opportunities. It is an accessible environment for Australian students to experience a culture other than their own, and an opportunity for a personally life-challenging arts teaching experience.
Since the onset of COVID-19, many research projects may no longer be as relevant as they once were, however the Cultural stories research becomes even more essential as we re-assess our response to educating future teaching artists in this emerging post-COVID world. This generation of educators need the ability to respond to the effects of trauma and unplanned events as they develop appropriate learning practices for their Australian school communities and the broader community. It has never been more essential for them to have a strong reflective, empathetic, and culturally inclusive teaching practice. In addition, we, the university educators facilitating the Timor-Leste dance and drama project, anticipate that Australia’s close relationship with Timor-Leste will assist in enabling the project to be offered again soon with the possibilities of future in-country and/or online collaborations.
Building an arts teaching project
The Timor-Leste dance and drama project was designed to meet the learning needs of these emerging teaching artists as they develop their artistic and pedagogical skills in the latter stages of their degree. They need opportunities to develop collaborative and co-creative teaching skills, and to rehearse and implement agility in their personal pedagogical practice. They also need a diverse toolbox of teaching and arts practice and ways to explore new definitions of performance (Huddy and Stevens, 2011; Stevens and Huddy, 2016).
These skills alone are not enough unless supported by “emotional resilience” (Bearisto, 2000: 5), an advanced empathetic response, deep cultural sensitivity, an ability to suspend self-interest, and an enquiring mind that leads to a thriving curiosity and a desire to be a lifelong learner (Beairsto, 2000; Deangelis, 2019; Huddy and Stevens, 2011; Stevens and Huddy, 2016). As the students develop their collaborative and co-creative skills throughout their undergraduate degree, they learn to be confident enough to become vulnerable. This provides space for them to articulate their personal perspectives, views, and beliefs around their arts practice and engage in situated creative practice, and supports transdisciplinary collaboration (Hondzel and Hansen, 2015). The students are usually not fully formed as practitioners at this stage of their careers and the Timor-Leste dance and drama project, as a part of their evolution as teaching artists, was designed as a fertile ground in which to grow the necessary skills and attributes.
We ask a lot of this project, but it cannot be all things to all people, no matter how small a university-student cohort this niche experience involves. Even though the university students learn significant knowledge from this deep educative experience, as we continue to develop the project, the emphasis remains on the benefits to the Timorese stakeholders. These include the Timorese high school students and other children of the community that are involved.
The research problem and research questions
The Timor-Leste dance and drama project needs to prepare university students for the transient requirements and contexts of the teaching artist profession. They need an adaptable skillset to participate in an evolving community/education arts context. At the university relevant to this discussion, many changes have been made to the undergraduate course structure and therefore the skills that students will have acquired prior to joining this project, these changes contributing greatly to meeting this need. Unit (individual subject) structures have altered due to COVID-19 and course structures will also be responsive. In addition to changes wrought by COVID-19, course structures in the future are also likely to encourage greater collaboration and expertise in developing team projects as a part of the unfolding need for workers in the cultural development and human services sectors. This is in response to an occupational need for graduates to have multi-arts and sophisticated collaborative skills. The curriculum has also responded to vast changes in our understanding of cultural engagement in the context of 21st century globalization (Mathews, 2019).
As arts educators at this university, it is imperative that we reflect on what each of these changes means for our students, both while they are undergraduates and when they become professional teaching artists. Most importantly, in the context of the Timor-Leste dance and drama project we need to understand what these changes mean for the curriculum design of a project that connects with communities in another nation – a post-conflict nation that is less economically developed than Australia and is undergoing rapid change. For the 2019 iteration, the project, having already been implemented for four years, needed to evolve in response to Timor-Leste’s changing socio-economic and cultural landscape (McWilliam, 2020). Such change creates, in no small way, a need for our curriculum preparation to also be flexible and responsive, to prepare the emerging teaching artists pedagogically, culturally, and artistically for the project’s challenges. With this problem in mind, the Cultural stories research therefore addresses the following question: How do we pedagogically, culturally, and artistically prepare Australian university arts students for a life challenging arts-teaching and creative experience in Timor-Leste? We investigate our practice, through the eyes of the participants, at the time of data collection and explore how we can better achieve student outcomes in the future.
This research builds on the recommendations from previous research projects carried out by Rachel Mathews (formerly Rachel Pedro) and Kym Stevens (Pedro et al., 2017, 2018; Stevens et al., 2020) and evaluates the preparedness of university students for the challenges of designing and implementing arts focussed education projects – specifically, their preparedness for teaching English as an additional language using arts pedagogies in a country other than their own, that is, Timor-Leste. It aims to support the further development of pedagogies that prepare university arts students to engage in this teaching/learning experience in Timor-Leste, to document the specific learning activities, and identify gaps in the current curriculum. The sub-questions addressed in the research consist of: What pre-existing teaching skills, worldviews, and approaches to the arts do these university students possess prior to the project commencing? What makes this preparation a valuable process for the students as they begin their practice? What major changes, subtle shifts, and reinforced values and practices does this preparation yield?
To address the subject of this research, narrative inquiry methodology was applied, allowing the participants – the emerging teaching artists – to tell their ‘stories’ from their perspectives, rather than requiring them to reconstruct a ‘truth’ (Mertova and Webster, 2020: 1–10). This methodology mirrors the co-creative nature of the Timor-Leste dance and drama project; the emerging teaching artists collaboratively create their own lessons and performance pieces to take in-country, the university educators providing guidance and feedback rather than directives. Although we documented the students’ stories about their preparatory and in-country experiences, the research was not about their epiphanies, but rather ours as we investigated our practice and its effects on the outcomes for these emerging teaching artists. The findings of this research, by their very nature, require pedagogical action and/or further investigation from the university educators to fulfil the recommendations. This research does not report on findings related to the partner organization or the logistical organization of the project in-country. Rather, the focus is on the pedagogical preparations done prior to the emerging teaching artists leaving Australia as a support for their transformative teaching/learning experience in Timor-Leste.
The literature: Narrative research and performative listening
In contrast to previous research projects conducted by two of this paper’s authors (Pedro et al., 2017, 2018; Stevens and Huddy, 2018; Stevens et al., 2020), the Cultural stories project investigates the next step in the learning process which involves the emerging teaching artists taking their pedagogical, cultural, and artistic knowledge and applying it in a ‘real-world’ cultural context. The preparation for the emerging teaching artists to engage in an arts education project is not necessarily about them ‘coping’ with the environment, challenges, or even the ‘busyness’ of the project, but rather about their preparation for an evolving sense of self and their self-perceived roles as artists and teachers.
This idea of the ‘emergent’ forms the basis for the Timor-Leste dance and drama project and for the Cultural stories research project, as each individual story has a past, present, and future (Bold, 2012: 19). Bold (2012: 19) identifies the need to address “temporality” within narrative research, and this is represented in the Cultural stories project through the researchers investigating: a sequence of teaching and learning events in Australia and Timor-Leste over time; “causation”, as one event influences the other, as viewed by the researchers; and “human interest” for its ability to create the narrative. The complexity of this interaction between these three elements was not underestimated in this research when we invited the emerging teaching artists to tell their stories.
The Cultural stories research plan was based on the concept of the “three dimensional narrative inquiry space” comprised “of temporality, sociality and place” (Clandinin, 2019: 117–118). This is particularly pertinent given the state of fluctuation and fluidity within the Timor-Leste dance and drama project (Temporality), the “personal and social conditions” experienced by both participants and the accompanying researcher whilst teaching intensively in an alien working environment in Timor-Leste (Sociality), and the significant impact of place on the experience of the participants (Place) (Clandinin, 2019: 259). This qualitative research uses narrative research methodology to uncover the “meaning and significance” of the emerging teaching artists’ learning experiences, both in Australia during the pre-project phase and the project de-briefing phase, and in Timor-Leste during the project implementation phase (Elliott, 2005: 9). Through their individual, personal representations of this phenomena, the emerging teaching artists articulate challenges, identify shifts in beliefs and values, and confirm skills that are transferable to cultural arts teaching contexts in the future (Bold, 2012).
Creating the narratives was used as an opportunity to bring the participants’ differences, omissions, and contrasting views out in the open. It provided a vehicle to search for the university educators’ assumptions, and to step back from a position of dominance and listen reflexively to each emerging teaching artist in the project (McRae, 2015: 31). During the interviews, this involved “performative listening” – “an embodied practice of critically and reflexively engaging with and learning from others” (McRae, 2015: 31). It entails “listening to and with the body” (Palmer-Mehta, 2016: 4182) and “asks the researcher to attend to feelings and sensory qualities as significant sites of inquiry” (McRae, 2015: 40). “Listening with curiosity” is an essential element of performative listening for the qualitative researcher and is an equally important skill for a teaching artist (Palmer-Mehta, 2016: 4182). The concept of performative listening establishes the importance of the desire to know more while recognising that it is a skill that cannot necessarily be taught (Palmer-Mehta, 2016: 4181 & 4184).
This culturally based arts education research empowers the emerging teaching artists through an acknowledgement of the importance of their stories and, in turn, includes them in a sense of communal learning and collaboration. They become part of a community of practice that includes the researchers and other university educators. For the purposes of this research, a community of practice is defined as a group of people with shared learning and professional goals who come together to bring forward shared experiences and ideas and provide industry-centric insights (Kimble et al., 2008; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). By making time and creating reflective structures, within the pedagogy and the research, the emerging teaching artists are ensured that not only their participation in the research, but their personal reflections too, are deeply valued.
The structure of the Timor-Leste dance and drama project
Structure of project and data collection.
Reflections on the methodology
The qualitative research methodology using narrative inquiry supported the emerging teaching artists in their reflections on the three phases of this project. Data were gathered throughout the Timor-Leste dance and drama project to capture the emerging teaching artists’ changing values, ideas, and beliefs, and to identify their fluctuating wants and needs, across time. To portray the richness of these ideas, the data collection instruments were varied, providing opportunities to hear the emerging teaching artists rather than echoes of the researchers. The main data gathering vehicles, a biographical history (pre-narrative), a first interview (mid-narrative in Timor-Leste), a second interview (summation in Australia), and field notes/observations, helped to establish the internal validity of the findings because they allowed the researchers to look for consistency across the three phases (Elliott, 2005: 22–23). Alternatively, they enabled the researchers to observe changes and shifts that occurred in viewpoints and values contained in the narratives over time in response to changing experiences and contexts.
Co-creating the narratives
Many of these learning experiences, both in Australia and in country, were co-creative in nature. This included the university educators, the guest artists/teachers/other professionals, the Timorese community, and the Timorese high school students co-creating knowledge and artistic outputs with the emerging teaching artists. The research design, through its reflective nature, became a part of the pedagogical structure of the unit, providing opportunities for the emerging teaching artists and the researchers to reflect on this co-creation of knowledge. The pre-narrative, self-written biography enabled the emerging teaching artists to describe their ideas and viewpoints and to reflect on past experiences and contexts to choose the more significant aspects of these contexts and order them as a part of their own narrative. It provided a mechanism for them to pause and reflect on their artistic lives in a university context and their artistic lives outside the constraints of their studies. Of greater impact to their developing self-awareness of practice, it gave them an opportunity to observe where these two ‘lives’ intersect.
This newly created knowledge of themselves enriched the information then gathered through the mid-narrative, semi-structured interview in country, revealing insights into the “cultural frameworks” within which these emerging teaching artists “make sense of their lives” (Elliott, 2005: 48). It provided evidence of the existing culture within this university setting and the boundaries that may exist because of shared ideas, views, and understandings. Embedded ideas about how these students see themselves as artists can serve as roadblocks to their development as teaching artists. The third major data gathering point, the summation of narrative, semi-structured interview after return to Australia, enabled the researchers to observe how the emerging teaching artists reimagined themselves through the insights gained by the construction of this new knowledge. They are free to grow as artists, not just as teachers. This can occur within the Timor-Leste dance and drama project but also in their future professional practice.
Listening to the narratives
The success of this narrative inquiry methodology was reliant on the participants being comfortable enough to use their own “voices” and therefore it was essential to shift “the balance of the power” within the interviews (Mishler, 1986: 118–119). The researchers conducting the interviews were conscious of being ‘beside’ the interviewee rather than ‘across’ from them (Kanowski, 2019). Some of the techniques employed were using an “everyday” vocabulary rather than an academic style of language, asking “straightforward” questions that showed interest in the individual and related to their personal experience (Elliott, 2005: 29), and taking the irrelevant with the relevant (Elliott, 2005: 31). The questions were “broad enough” to allow for unanticipated topics to emerge, and the interviewers avoided revealing their opinions and topics of interest (Elliott, 2005: 30).
Valuing individual insights, rather than searching for the ‘truth’ as the individuals recounted their experiences, feelings, and thoughts, alleviated some of the researcher bias. The participants were not defensive but, rather, reaching for clarity in expressing their experiences throughout the project process and how they modified their own personal practice over time. Their responses indicated a level of trust in the researchers as they acknowledged their vulnerability as emerging teaching artists. This became important for the researchers as they, in turn, reflected on how the participants constructed meaning from the teaching and learning materials provided (Bold, 2012; Mertova and Webster, 2020: 29).
Understanding the narratives
The data from the biography and two interviews were firstly grouped according to the data collection point across time (the pre-project, project implementation, and project debriefing phases), as were the other data sets – the documents, field notes, journals, and photographs (See Table 1). Following this, all twelve data sets were sorted according to each participant, whereupon the data from the biography and interviews were triangulated with the other data pertaining to that person. The resulting completed narratives were then reviewed, looking for how they related to the research question and to identify recurrent themes across participants. Every document was coded to categorize emerging themes that were then grouped into pedagogical, cultural, and artistic processes. Throughout this analysis, a separate document was used to compile impressions, pertinent quotations, and directions for deeper reflection. Across the participants’ narratives we identified critical learning incidents associated with strong emotions (Davis and Knight, 2023). The narratives often contained both the problems and the solutions.
The discussions that emerged from this analysis of the data became the scaffolding, not only for the re-working for many of the activities for future iterations of the project, but also resulted in transformational learning opportunities for the researchers. Articulating new ways of thinking, leaving behind judgement of self and reinvigorating pedagogical practices, were central to this transformation. The researchers, in the process of analysing the data, went through their own life-changing experiences echoing the narratives of the emerging teaching artists.
The analysis of the data, by the very nature of the methodology being a joint narrative process, was about evaluation, reflection, and commentary. The themes that emerged reflect the response to events and the resulting thoughts of the emerging teaching artists, but are structured by the shape of the research, imposing a meaningful pattern on each individual story. The interviewers recognised that their position was at times active and sometimes challenging as they struggled to avoid being defensive, whilst avoiding influencing the story the emerging teaching artist was telling. The co-construction of these stories as each piece of datum was put together, unfolded a learning journey that was individual to each participant and the researchers.
A reflection on findings and recommendations: Hearing the stories – listening and enacting
The aims of this research are to support the emerging teaching artists in being better prepared and having more specific skills and knowledge at their disposal to deliver a high-quality learning experience. In all, the research has resulted in 46 recommendations, some minor, and some requiring more significant structural changes that affect course delivery. However, for the purposes of this paper, we will reflect on and discuss three of the major findings and recommendations in the pedagogical, cultural, and artistic areas of the project implementation. This reflective discussion does not reveal the students’ stories in full. Rather, it reflects on their implication for curriculum design. Where extracts from students’ narratives are included in this discussion, gender-neutral pseudonyms are used to assist in protecting participant confidentiality. Additionally, in keeping with narrative inquiry methodology, the narrative material is a composite of the researchers’ and participant’s words. Each student’s data “is reconstructed or represented in a form different from the original information while aiming to maintain the reality” of the events they experienced (Bold, 2012: 145).
The pedagogical story
The 2019 cohort for the Timor-Leste dance and drama project consisted of university students from two disciplines, two year-levels, two courses, and with a range of community teaching experience. Because of this disparity in skill level, there was, at times, a narrower frame of reference to draw from when faced with critical teaching events in Timor-Leste. The problem-solving abilities of those with less experience were challenged when they lost confidence because of this phenomenon. The more experienced students coped better with the uncertainty encountered in the Timor-Leste teaching environment. Challenges around lesson planning, multi-modal implementation, and communication of information within the English as an Additional Language classroom setting required an improvisational approach that experienced teaching artists enact as a part of their teaching toolkit. However, the students’ developing teaching skills were enhanced by the cohesion of the teaching teams, each team member playing their role and acting to fill gaps in practical teaching knowledge. This was all very challenging because I’m not very good with the unknown, but my group members were more relaxed. It was very different from what I was expecting. I felt as though I could have handled this better, although I did manage to run a couple of small, short activities with the students while my group members thought up some new, longer activities. I was thankful for the team, as I don’t go well under pressure. I didn’t know where to go next. We were getting through everything so fast, but I was able to hold the students’ attention doing an activity while the others worked it out. The team sorted it. (Jamie)
Many of the emerging teaching artists’ narratives repeatedly told the story of moments of indecision, if not panic, and being supported by their more experienced team members who kept the momentum of the class going while scrambling to make ‘plans B, C, and D’. I was glad we had all the extra stuff prepared. It was very stressful. What are we going to do now? Someone kept the kids busy while we figured out what to do. I felt a bit low at that point because it didn’t go as well as we hoped it would. We had to make a mental shift. Even though that first lesson was a rough one, we did then have the time to reflect and to have that mental shift. (Frances) We had a loose plan with an idea of structure and some back-up activities. The team worked well in the moment as we galvanized under pressure. I personally felt confident that it would be fine and felt totally safe and just went with what worked. (Jo)
Although the teaching episode resulted in success with this 2019 cohort, it seemed to occur through good luck rather than good management on the part of the university educators. The high level of anxiety that this elicited in the emerging teaching artists was possibly counter-productive in these early stages and it highlighted the need for further support in the pre-project phase regarding improvisational teaching practice and reflecting in-action (Schön, 2016). It cannot be assumed that students undertaking the Timor-Leste dance and drama project will have the skills, knowledge, or experience to be able to think on their feet when in situ. These emerging teaching artists, when working in teams in these kinds of pedagogical situations, will have different teaching experience and implementation abilities. The environment in which a community of practice is incubated, in this case the pre-project phase, is important for developing the team members’ abilities to support each member in high-pressure teaching environments. Opportunities for coming together, learning from each other, and sharing competencies, are inherent to this process (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998).
Resolving the story
A needs-analysis of each year’s cohort of Timor-Leste dance and drama project students should be implemented to tailor-make the teaching activities that are designed for the pre-project phase. A comprehensive formal CV at the application stage that details the student’s teaching experience and teaching philosophies, acquired as a part of their undergraduate degree and part-time work, would articulate their starting point for this project. The varying levels of this kind of knowledge is exacerbated by the students coming from different courses. Transparency about teaching experiences and abilities is crucial to the planning of the pre-project phase, not only as a way of identifying the needs of the students, but also as a way of gauging the students’ level of self-knowledge. The application process should model that of a professional project, including employment criteria and information about how to address them.
The very act of identifying their own skillset starts the process of the students establishing clear learning intentions for the project. If, at this point in the project, they can reflect on and identify inadequacies that may be part of their prior experience, it can enable them to set clear personal goals and outcomes that will enrich their learning experience. Identifying what they know they can do well, enables them to reflect on what they would like to do better. The students possessing the self-confidence to be an active part of their learning journey is crucial to the success of the project.
The inclusion of more teaching episodes in the pre-project phase, whether that involves role-playing with peers or being placed in community/education teaching contexts in Australia, will expose parts of the students’ pedagogy that may require further development. In the process of reflecting on their current practice, they will collect teaching artefacts and skills, and rehearse dialogues, that will support confident engagement in the classroom. The range of these teaching experiences will be dependent upon the needs of the cohort as they identify gaps in their previous experiences of teaching in and through the arts. We didn’t make our lesson plans too detailed during the intensive workshops before we went to Timor-Leste, as we assumed they would be wrong. We wanted to be able to vary them easily if things stuffed-up. But what we needed was the lecturers to take a closer look at each individual teaching plan. (Ash) In the intensive workshops we prepared our lesson plans as well as our back-up plans, and our ‘back-up back-up plans’. So, on our first day of teaching, even though we knew things would probably go wrong, we thought we were prepared because we had back-up material – and we were, in theory. However, we weren’t in practice. In practice, it was a lot harder to change our plans instantly when we needed to as it wasn’t something we had much experience with. But we persevered and, with practice, we got better at it and were able to change our plans quickly if something went wrong. I learned that theory can only take you so far. Everything else has to be taught in practice. (Casey)
The teaching episodes will provide opportunities for the students to develop a toolkit that gives them a structural outline of the phases of a teaching project that may occur in any teaching context. They will therefore have more control over the design of the Timor-Leste dance and drama project as they fulfil the self-imposed requirements of that structure. These emerging teaching artists need a greater awareness of their impact when teaching, in order to make the teaching component in Timor-Leste of greater value to the Timorese students. They will use the knowledge acquired through the pre-project phase teaching episodes to create clear rationales for their teaching actions.
As the university educators collaborate within the project, they, as a part of a community of practice, need to be more transparent about their own teaching practice. Externalizing their reflections as they enact their teaching and learning to provide practical examples of both reflection and practice, they need to pause, observe, and engage alongside their own students. This mirrors the cycles of action research, making it a micro-project, a micro-cycle of action research. It gives the emerging teaching artists opportunities to re-imagine how they may use this in their project design and enables the university educators to reflect on their own practice and make changes as a part of the co-creation.
This process of co-creation within the project plan also emulates the teaching processes that the emerging teaching artists will enact with their Timorese students. It encourages a greater sense of ownership of the final product by all stakeholders, a more sophisticated development of reflective practices, and a practical model for arts teaching in a range of contexts. The emerging teaching artists have opportunities, throughout the project, to observe the same pedagogies enacted in multiple contexts, culturally and artistically contrasting, but always striving to model best arts learning practice.
The cultural story
The emerging teaching artists, throughout the Timor-Leste dance and drama project, referred to it as ‘the trip’, which is in opposition to the overarching philosophy of the project. The terminology ‘trip’ frames the project as a holiday or school excursion rather than a working project where the outcomes for the Timorese participants are the driving force. I’m not an open book with new people. I like my circle and I feel comfortable with them. But I came on the trip to break out of this and get to know new people. (Sam) I hoped to gain more clarification of the structure of the trip as a part of the preparation. It would have been good to not show the videos of last year because it needs to be more of a surprise factor. (Robyn)
The word ‘trip’ implies that the culture that you are engaging with is offering a service to you, whereas in this project our question is ‘What would you like us to learn and create together?’ The language of engagement entails the appropriate use of professional and culturally sensitive language, not just for the sake of political correctness, but so that the project’s philosophical and ethical soul is inherent in every aspect of the planning and preparation for engagement. Despite the university educators, guest artists/teachers/professionals, and partner organization avoiding this terminology, the emerging teaching artists had an embedded idea of ‘tourism’, resulting from their previous life experiences, as a part of their everyday language. This language of tourism and the expectation of a ‘delightful surprise’ is one that is inherent in a modern, privileged lifestyle, that may arise from easily accessible travel to parts of the world that is set up specifically to observe cultures other than one’s own.
Throughout the emerging teaching artists’ narratives, there was a subtle change in their use of language as it moved from a theoretical language to be more connected to the cultural context. It became a personalised experience which acted to change their perception of the Timorese students from ‘other’, to being a part of their teaching and learning community. The language moved from being ‘the Timorese students’ in the pre-project phase, to, on return, being ‘our students’. This shift in language signified a sense of building community through teaching and learning. It also made transparent the transition from a sense of discomfort when going abroad into another cultural context through to feeling a sense of belonging within a teaching and learning community. Prior to leaving for Timor-Leste: I want to share the respect and love with the Timorese students and open their minds to a whole other world, while at the same time making them further their love and respect for themselves and their peers. (Kerry) On return from Timor-Leste: The Timorese people have impacted my individual teaching and arts practice through experiencing first-hand the creative and cultural arts community of Timor-Leste. It inspires my practice, to dig deeper into the history of their culture, uncovering hidden truths and how they bring them to life through the arts. I believe I did not appreciate or understand the impact of my work as an artist or as a teacher until this project made me revisit those skills and revitalize them in a completely different cultural context. (Kerry)
Resolving the story
Although this shift in cultural understanding did occur as a component of the project, for the wellbeing of the Timorese students, our emerging teaching artists require a more sophisticated notion of cultural perspectives prior to leaving for Timor-Leste. They should view their responsibilities within the project as those of a professional working in the field fulfilling a service to others, and incorporate this mindset change from the outset of the pre-project phase. The expectation of them to be project-ready when they arrive in Timor-Leste, is to put the responsibility for learning and preparation into their hands. This may result in a stronger sense of ownership of the project but also take away the ‘tourism’ expectations by replacing ‘being on a guided tour of Timor-Leste’ with ‘side-by-side with the Timorese students in a learning experience’.
In the later part of the pre-project phase, the emerging teaching artists, as a part of their reflective process which leads to the synthesis of the learning within the phase, need to have opportunities to observe and identify the significance of the cultural elements as a broader part of the development of their practice. They require planning and reflection vehicles to make their understandings transparent and identify what this means to how they will engage in the teaching and learning environment and how they will measure its impact on their Timorese students. Teaching with the students rather than to the students, the emerging teaching artists co-creating with their students will result in a heightened sensitivity to their students’ wants, needs, and culture.
A more comprehensive and scaffolded reflective process for the pre-project phase should be developed, affording the emerging teaching artists the time and knowledge to grow a more authentic cultural understanding of the complexities of the Timorese culture and how to teach in that context. This process should mirror the cycles of action research, with multiple opportunities for the emerging teaching artists to reflect on their teaching practice systematically and critically, not only from a pedagogical perspective, but also from a cultural perspective. The emerging teaching artists must be central to developing this reflective process, as a way of supporting their future planning processes as teachers.
Some significant moments of transition to a more sophisticated cultural understanding of the Timor-Leste context may also occur during the conversations with the community cultural liaison personnel. Giving the emerging teaching artists more opportunities to connect with this crucial team member will enable them time to develop a more nuanced understanding of Timorese culture. They need time to process the bigger questions that have many layers, and time to hear the answers and make connections to their teaching and artistic practice. Therefore, the connections with the community cultural liaison personnel should occur across the pre-project phase rather than at a single point, allowing the inquiry learning to happen over time.
In addition, the development of a co-created success criteria by the entire cohort, that highlights the cultural significance of the project, will support a more professional view of the outcomes of the project and require a deeper level of reflection. The emerging teaching artists, in developing their own success criteria, will move beyond the imperative to pass the unit and move towards a fulfilling of self-imposed success outcomes. These success criteria documents may change throughout the project and need to be visited and re-visited at multiple points in all three phases of the project. These documents will give the university educators insights into the subtle shifts in understanding and the needs of the emerging teaching artists throughout the project.
Through the process of the data analysis, the researchers observed their practice, as university educators, under a microscope. Reflection emphasised that the language they used set the tone for the enactment of the project – that any shift in expectations for the emerging teaching artists must start with the university educators. The language used within the pre-project phase needs to always begin with ‘your students’, not ‘the Timorese students’. Attention to linguistic detail will require practice and observational peer mentoring to ensure continued university educator development. The Cultural stories research was initiated with the desire for the university to deliver a culturally inclusive offering for students. The investigation of the university educators’ practice remains key to the improved outcomes for both the emerging teaching artists and the Timorese learning community. This is not just a linguistic change, but a mental frame that the university educators need to embrace, ranging from language used in PowerPoint presentations through to class discussion, enacting the decolonization of arts teaching and learning practice.
The artistic story
The project is designed to support the university students’ transition from the idea of having a job as an ‘artist’ or ‘teacher’ to having the vocation of a ‘teaching artist’. This notion impacts artistically on their connections with both art form and pedagogy. The project needs to support opportunities for them to visualise possibilities for their future practice and, more importantly, their roles within the community. Many of the emerging teaching artists, in their narratives, struggled to identify a development in their artistic practice throughout the project despite their artistic growth being obvious to the researchers. As with much narrative research, what the participants neglect to say is as important as the stories they choose to tell.
The absence of the emerging teaching artists articulating details about their artistic practice throughout this project, identifies a need to further strengthen their self-image as teaching artists. Many of the students’ inability to talk in concrete or abstract terms about their practice as artists, illuminates a need to emphasise the artistic component of this project as it relates to teaching. For instance, when asked about the unfolding of their arts practice within the project, one student reported: I feel like a performer. My self-confidence has been boosted. I really felt like a teacher when teaching, a performer when performing, and I felt like I was making a piece of art. (Ash)
The reason for this imbalance in the emerging teaching artists’ interpretation of their multiple roles and how they intersect, may be a perceived lack of value that they place on their artistic development, seeing themselves primarily as teachers rather than artists. Given that artistic practice is a focussed part of their undergraduate degree, their preparedness for reflective arts practice would be expected. Throughout their degree program, they are investigating artmaking from a practical and theoretical perspective, observing and reflecting on both their own, peers’, and professional works. However, the connections between arts practice and teaching that is so crucial to the development of the teaching artist that is supported throughout the degree, is still evolving.
It is essential in the training of the teaching artist that both the ‘artist’ and the ‘teacher’ are seen as integral to their practice and that the performative and artistic values that are inherent in teaching are a part of their view of their artistic selves (Booth, 2009). Teaching is performative by nature and the scaffolding of learning activities is often like the unfolding of a process drama or a choreographic work as each element builds on the knowledge of the one before. These emerging teaching artists, through reflective practice and by articulating their path to their future practice, will discover the intricate relationship between art and teaching. Some of the 2019 students made these connections very strongly in Timor-Leste, if not before, however this was not commonplace. Investigating my arts practice in Timor-Leste has made me more interested in teaching and makes me understand that I was using dance and art just to make learning fun. Now I’m doing it consciously, not accidently doing it, and I’m asking myself the question ‘how can I incorporate arts practice to enrich these classrooms?’ (Jo)
Resolving the story
The introduction of a “critical friend” (Costa and Kallick, 1993; The Glossary of Educational Reform, 2013) as a mentor may shift the students’ focus towards a stronger view of each component of the project being of equal importance. This new role, where the critical friend acts as a “Guide-on-the-Side” rather than a “Meddler-in-the-Middle”, builds on the importance of a rich arts practice when working in community settings (McWilliam, 2009: 287). The role of the critical friend encompasses the asking of often “provocative questions” about ideas, actions, and “outcomes” (Costa and Kallick, 1993: 50). The crucial component in this relationship is “trust” and, as such, the choice of the critical friend should be someone who the students have already developed a relationship with (Costa and Kallick, 1993: 50). Current or past teaching staff who have worked in an artistic capacity previously with the students would be ideal, however a trusted industry professional may also be appropriate. This critical friend needs access to the students at a variety of points throughout the creative process to ensure the students place value on their artistic product and that, through cycles of reflection, they can select and reject creative ideas rather than settling on their first iteration.
The role of critical friend is particularly crucial at this stage of the emerging teaching artists’ development because it offers support without taking away ownership. In the following narrative, the research participant identifies the importance of these notions of ownership to their artistic practice: During some of the workshop sessions prior to going to Timor-Leste, Rachel [university educator/researcher] left us to work independently as artists. This was a powerful moment for me as I had struggled to give myself permission to be an artist despite years of creative practice across various disciplines. Although I understand the toll this lack of confidence has taken on my study/career, it has still been difficult to move past. (Jo)
The questioning and input from the critical friend promotes critical thinking and further inquiry as the emerging teaching artists hone their own reflective skills. They identify the artistic role of reflection in promoting art that makes a difference in their own personal worlds at the same time as it impacts on the communities in which they practice.
Embedding this as a part of the structure of the project, mirrors the “professional learning communities” by modelling “structured professional discussions” in order to promote self-driven professional development (The Glossary of Educational Reform, 2013). This is an important part of both education and community-based arts teaching practice. They set up support mechanisms for the collaborative and independent teaching artist in a range of contexts that go beyond the cultural teaching contexts of this project. The collaborative nature of the project mirrors the art-making process and leads to a blueprint for development of communities of practice in the university students’ future work as teaching artists.
In each of the emerging teaching artists’ narratives, they identified the importance of collaboration and reflection in growing a strong teaching team. The process of developing a community of practice as teaching artists in the intensive workshops before departure, was a valuable learning experience in collaborative processes, group communication, and transparency. Within the project team, we learned together and from each other. During the planning stage and the implementation of the project in country, the project team worked together to take advantage of a wide range of creative and organizational skills and experiences amongst the group. I believe this supportive and active community of practice resulted in a focussed project team and teaching groups and a richer experience in Timor-Leste. (Jo)
However, despite identifying the advantages of these communities of practice for teaching, few of the emerging teaching artists articulated the notion of collaborative practice within the arts context. The inclusion of a ‘work in progress showing’ for an audience in the earlier stages of the product development would act to promote the ideas of an evolving piece of art throughout the process, including changes that may be made in-country in response to a first-hand experience of the Timorese culture. It would also support the importance of the making process, not just the performance of it as a product, while modelling professional arts practice. The inclusion of the critical friend as a part of the work in progress showing, as well as a range of peers and mentors, would further encourage reflective critical thinking in response to the creation of art works.
The rehearsal process for these performance pieces needs to be structured in a way that supports reflection on both making and performing at every progress point. Having a “trusted” artist as a “critical friend” (Costa and Kallick, 1993) contributes to the refinement process. This artistic mentoring signifies the value of the artistic component of the project. Emerging teaching artists re-imagine themselves, not only as performing artists performing the work or teachers teaching the work, but as artists creating a work of art. Further discussion about these processes will develop their creative and reflective processes and ensure the rigour of each element of the project. To de-emphasise the performance as less than a valued artistic artefact is to lessen the importance of the audience that it is being prepared for.
Conclusions
The findings and recommendations of this research, while not always new, articulate a personal shift for the researchers in the importance of the small things and the impact of those small things within cultural arts teaching experiences. They remind the researchers of where the emphasis should be in our teaching and our curriculum design, and support reflective action, often based on tacit knowledge, through the student narratives. The shifts in order of delivery, changes in pedagogical frames, the questions asked, and the knowledge disclosed, all are equally important and tell their own story of the unfolding of a teaching project over time.
The sustained research focus into teaching and learning through arts practice and the development of the teaching artist, has supported and promoted the work of the Timor-Leste dance and drama project. Analysis of the narratives contained within the Cultural stories research reveals an evolving sophistication of knowledge, skills, and understandings about teaching and arts practice. They reveal the distinct needs of the emerging teaching artists as they journey through the stages of the teaching project, but more specifically they make transparent the importance of the responsiveness of the university educators. While giving additional autonomy to the emerging teaching artists, the university educators require almost unlimited flexibility and reflexivity in curriculum design and implementation in order to respond to their students’ needs.
Throughout the analysis and reflection on the data gathered, the researchers kept coming back to a central question: How do we know when our students are project-ready? However, on reflection, the question should really be: How do the students know when they are project-ready? This brings the researchers full circle back to the levels of professionalism and real-world context that this project emphasises. It is not about the university educators feeding students information; the onus is on the students as emerging teaching artists. The researchers, as educators, need to step back even more from directing this project and place the responsibility and control firmly in the hands of the emerging teaching artists.
This readiness is emergent. The emerging teaching artists will keep working on their ‘readiness’ even while they are in Timor-Leste. The nature of teaching is a changing landscape and, as teaching artists, the university students need agility and flexibility in their approach, including their ability to be life-long learners. It is about coping with uncertainties, revelling in them, and seeing those uncertainties as an integral part of the process within this creative teaching project. The ‘unknowns’ are the intersections between teaching and arts practice, like the overlapping section in a Venn diagram. On return from Timor-Leste: Anyone who wants to be a teacher should have challenges in different contexts because if you’re in the same context constantly, facing the same challenges, you’re not growing as a teacher. If you get placed in a school that’s different, then you’re really going to struggle. You need to be able to adapt to your environment, your audience, your own personal struggle. That could be bad sleep, bad food, whatever, and still be able to go ‘well’, to say ‘this is my goal, and these are my processes’ and if the processes don’t work, well try something else. You just need to be flexible. This is a good lesson about how things can change, like ‘click’ in a classroom – you just have to go with it. (Alex)
The Timor-Leste dance and drama project explores the liminal space that exists between being a student and a teaching artist. It is about finding, or rather, feeling the things that cannot be said, and finding new ways of expressing things that are difficult to articulate, both as university educators and emerging teaching artists. In this way, the project duplicates the artistic process; we reflect deeply, make subtle changes, and re-imagine the final product. The making of successful learning environments is often about critical thinking and inquiry learning on the side of the teacher, not just the student. Much is discussed about being life-long learners, but in the case of teaching and artmaking, each moment in a classroom is a learning process as we explore with our students and learn from each unique learning environment.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Author biographies
). Her research areas include Dance curriculum implementation and Arts teacher training pedagogies. Her qualifications include a Master of Education (Research), Bachelor of Business Communications and a Graduate Certificate in Dance in Education.