Explore Learning Through Arts-Based Pedagogy

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Infusing arts-based pedagogy into classroom practice provides students and teachers with an opportunity to view content through a new perspective.

Here’s how we used arts based pedagogy to link the social studies curriculum with the study of poetry.

The focus of the social studies unit was to introduce the 6 components of social studies (citizenship, diversity, economics, geography, history, and relationships) and to apply those components to daily life.

Students were asked to think about Maxine Tynes’ poem, “Is It Okay To Look At You”? (see page 3), decide which component of social studies it most represented, and to create a simple illustrate of the component of social studies that they felt best reflected the content of the poem.

To maintain anonymity among peers, but to ensure we were gathering information about individual student responses AND that we were sure which component each student chose, students wrote their name and the component chosen on the back of the post-it.

Students passed their post its to us. When all post-its were collected, we placed each post-it on chart paper. You may wonder why the students didn’t post their images. The answer lies in our desire to provide an opportunity for everyone to watch the pattern of responses unfold. We were pleased with how this turned out – as the pattern became evident, the questions began.

Here are the results:

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These simple illustrations provided the teacher with a lot to think about, a lot of questions to pose to the class, and the seeds to plan the follow up lessons.

Here are the questions generated by the students:

Why did the columns of history, geography, and economics remain empty? What is the difference between citizenship and relationships? Are there overlaps between diversity, citizenships, and relationships? Does history have a “place” in this poem? How can we view this poem through the topic of economics? Are all of the components of social studies inter-related? If the components are related, how and why do we separate them?

Needless to say, we were delighted that these simple illustrations led to so much thinking and opportunities for future explorations. Ya-hoo arts based pedagogy!

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Is It Okay To Look?

By Maxine Tynes

Is it okay for me to look at youas you go limping down the street?May I look at your wheelchair?May I pick up your cane?May I watch how you get up the stairsthat I can run up and down as easy as the rain?My mom tells me not to lookat your twisted lips or legs or arms or handsbut I want to seeand to ask you, too-What's it like?Does it hurt?Could it happen to me?How'd it happen to you?I'm not sure that I should look at you,not sure just what to say or do'cause my body is whole and normally strong.Your body is different.I'm me.You are you.I finally do take a chance-I look at you, you look backand then you smile.

Tynes, M. Pottersfield Press, Nova Scotia, 1991

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