Arts-based learning in vocational education: Using arts-based approaches to enrich vocational pedagogy and didactics and to enhance professional competence and identity

Some principles of vocational pedagogy and didactics

A number of educators from the Department of Vocational Teacher Education at OsloMet took part in the development of a set of methodological guidelines for vocational pedagogy and didactics (e.g. Haaland & Nilsen, 2013; Hartviksen & Kversøy, 2018; Hiim, 2010; Inglar, 2015; Johnsen, 1984; Larsen & Schwencke, 2015). The learning principles were founded in Pragmatism (e.g. John Dewey, Donald Schön, Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus) and Critical Theory (e.g. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Oskar Negt, Jurgen Habermas). This set of principles was based on experiential, experimental and exploratory learning processes in which the emphasis is on reflection. Participants were required to be active partakers in their learning processes learning through collaboration with peers, through integration between practice and theory and through using professional tasks and roles as interdisciplinary bases of learning. Values from Confluent pedagogics were a central reference point in this context.

Confluent pedagogics

Confluent pedagogics arose as a critique of conventional teaching and didactics and of the emphasis on rationality and predefined answers. The word confluence comes from Latin, meaning the place where two or more objects or shapes merge into a continuous shape, such as the point where two rivers meet. The overall focus of confluent learning was on meaningful experiences and individuals’ discoveries and the use of these to enhance the outcomes of teaching, through linking the learner’s cognitive (intellect, activity of the mind in knowing) and affective experiences (feelings, emotions, attitudes and values) (Brown, Yeomans, & Grizzard, 1975).

George Isaac Brown, a pioneer of Confluent pedagogics, acknowledged the need for a humanisation of learning processes, his belief being that thinking should not be separated from feeling and sensing. He founded the Confluent education programme at Berkeley, University of California in the 1970s. This educational programme represented a holistic alternative in education and was profoundly influenced by his background as a professional musician and poet and his training as a Gestalt therapist.

Brown (1971) proposed that ‘the healthy integration of the cognitive domain with the affective domain through the techniques of confluent education includes ways to learn one’s personal existential responsibility’ (p. 192). He also advocated the individual’s need to do something ‘personally meaningful in a major area of his life, that he is exercising creativity, no matter how humble its manifestations, and that he is not a part of a machine but a human being’ (p. 193). Brown (1965, 1968, 1969, 1970) draws on his background as a professional artist in several of his articles, exemplifying how creative learning approaches can be used to enhance creativity and increase self-awareness.

Arts-based learning

Arts-based learning, and the linking of emotions and sensations to cognitive understanding, closely relate to confluent pedagogy. These learning methods, all founded on experiential, experimental and exploratory learning processes, also correspond with the principles of vocational pedagogy and didactics. The purpose of arts-based learning approaches is not to create art nor to educate new artists. It is to renew academic subjects and develop the competencies needed in education and working life. The act of making and, through this, the exploration of tacit knowledge may open and reveal perceived challenges and possibilities (Meltzer, 2015; Scharmer, 2010; Schön, 2011).

Bamford (2006, 2012) addresses the development of subject-specific competences when distinguishing between education in the arts and education through the arts. Education in the arts means training in disciplines such as visual art, music, drama and crafts. Learning through the arts is the use of art and creative expression as a pedagogical tool in different academic subjects (Bamford, 2012). Austring and Sørensen (2010) deepen this perspective by describing how participation in artistic processes can be included in the development of interdisciplinary competencies. They emphasise how the use of arts-based learning methods in education can foster life-skills; competencies reflecting professional and personal development, cultivation of character and citizenship, locally and globally.

CC, continuing education programme (30 stp.)

Both authors were responsible for the development and implementation of the CC course. Thirty-four students, divided into four different groups, completed course CC between 2009 and 2012. They had different occupational backgrounds and work experiences. Some were employed as teachers in schools or as managers, supervisors or advisors in companies providing services to people outside the job market. A few were self-employed artists. Others were unemployed or out of work and were taking the course as part of their retraining for working life.

CC, tailor-made course (15 stp.)

In 2012, 11 managers, engineers and researchers from a major construction company took part in a tailor-made CC course. They felt a need to develop their creativity to strengthen the quality of their work. They also wanted to learn new teaching methods to motivate their internal training courses for participants.

The bachelor study programme in DC (180 stp.)

The DC vocational teacher education students had been previously trained, for example, as hairdressers, flower decorators, tailors or jewellers. Between 2012 and 2015 approximately 100 second year students in three different units took part in arts-based learning methods as part of their ordinary coursework. These students were, like many of the participants in the CC 30 spt. course, changing career and were now training to be teachers in vocational education.

Analysing our results and organising our findings

Analysis data are derived from students’ journals, their reflective writing and their final evaluations at the end of the year from courses held between 2009 and 2015. Student responses have been analysed and categorised based on what appeared to be the most obvious consequences of this specific project. We found four different perspectives in their feedbacks that we focus on: (1) the act of making and the experience of gestic knowledge, (2) the sense of free space and feel of flow, (3) the use of projective techniques to understand the tacit knowledge in the paintings and (4) how one through these processes could reach an understanding of essence. We refer to, when outlining our results, Ingold’s (2013) concepts of making and gestic knowledge, Taylor and Ladkin’s (2009) suggested processes in arts-based learning methods, Dewey’s (1938) ideas of experience in education, Schön’s (2011) thoughts on knowing and reflecting in and on action and Csikszentmihalyi’s (1997) theories on flow.

Initial challenges

The motivation for the participants taking part in the course differed. The CC students applied to the course to learn more about arts-based approaches to learning. The DC students were offered the painting sessions as a part of their coursework. DC students encountered a way of learning that was very different from what they were used to or expected. This affected their attitude to and motivation to participate in this project.

Some DC students expressed feelings of stress and confusion, despite the project and its theoretical foundation being presented at the very start of the course. Engaging in an ongoing painting project throughout an entire school year was a new experience to them. They questioned the use of the learning methods and the objective of the painting project. They equally struggled to understand the task, the constraints given and questioned the transference value of this learning approach. The DC students were accustomed to being required to produce expected answers and correct outcomes. They therefore described experiencing performance anxiety and shared their uncertainty and fear of misunderstanding the task or doing something wrong. They also expressed a general resistance to painting and expressed being uncertain whether they had something to show, what to paint or where to begin.

Many of the DC students found it difficult not to compare, comment on or evaluate their own or others’ paintings. Their lack of painting skills furthermore enlarged their internal critiques, and the feeling of vulnerability and insecurity if they sensed that their paintings were being evaluated for their artistic or aesthetic value. Others felt powerless and were worried about others interpreting and understanding who they were, by studying their expressions or through their sharing, felt that the other students came too close to them.

Many, and very understandably, initially expressed that they experienced this approach to learning as being demanding, as placing them outside of their comfort zone, as leading them to lose their usual sense of mastery and of needing courage to be creative. This first initial lack of enthusiasm was more prominent in the first group of DC students. These students, through sharing their experiences from the painting project with upcoming students, however seemed to pave the way for a keener anticipation to this way of working in later groups.

1. How did the act of making enhance their awareness of gestic knowledge?

Ingold (2013) describes the concept of art as an ongoing subjective process that can contribute to inner change. He points to the concept of making in the creative process: doing and designing something to achieve change and development. According to Taylor & Ladkin (2009), the ‘making of art can foster a deeper experience of personal presence and connection’ (p. 56). Dewey (1934) conveys how working with art can represent an arena in which struggle and conflict can be enjoyed and can give meaning, because the experiences occur within a closed circuit of energy. The acts, episodes and occurrences that take place in a work of art melt and fuse into a unity. They, even so, do not disappear or lose their character as they do so, as ‘every work of art follows the plan of, and pattern of, a complete experience, rendering it more intensely and concentratedly felt’ (Dewey, 1934, p. 54).

Ingold (2013) also explains how creative work gives access to gestic knowledge, the hands expressing the connection between being and emotions. This represents the essence of ‘being-feeling-telling’. This silent question–response relationship between the craftsman and the material, in which the intention of any action is to provide feedback from the material, may help the craftsman in achieving his goal. ‘The Humanity of the Hand’ describes how the hand is an extension of the brain, and not a separate controlled and obedient instrument; ‘your hands are your head, and your head is your hands’ ( pp. 111–116). He argues that creating something activates a dialogue between the creator and the material used. This expertise represents a bodily awareness that has not been voiced, but which is present in the performance of the task (Nielsen, 2010 in Schwencke, 2017). The challenge is to be attentive and notice the response.

It was evident that experiencing gestic sensuality surprised the students. They were astonished how they, through their hands, clearly noticed the natural responses within themselves. Several students described a steady shift between a predetermined plan and being spontaneous. They became marvelling observers of their processes when they let go. Some shared how their hands and bodies took command, that new symbols appeared, and shapes and colours emerged by ‘themselves’. Others expressed surprise, conveying how ‘the paintbrush took charge and made the decisions’ or that ‘the red line suddenly began to stretch upwards’. One student wrote the following: ‘Each time I painted, it was automatic. I never doubted for a second how to paint or where to begin. This surprised me. I didn’t spend time wondering or planning how the image should be painted’.

The recurring painting sessions, which included the allocation of time to inward listening, opened the students to new sensuous experiences and the possibility of being beware of their own needs. Many students were courageous and challenged their performance anxiety by painting with their least dominant hand. By doing so, they found that their non-dominant hand displayed a more intuitive and spontaneous approach and supported their need for less control and more play in the process (Capacchione, 1991). One student, alternating between her left and right hand, expressed the following: ‘I painted with both my right and left hand and found two parts of myself that worked differently, complementing each other. My movements were therefore more dynamic, and the contours appeared controlled and uncontrolled’.

It was clear that a number of students, over time, experienced a shift in attitude to the painting sessions, marvelling how their hands ‘knew’ the way and what to do in the act of making, which was often in contrast to their preconceived expectations.

2. How did involvement in arts-based processes facilitate a sense of free space?

According to Csikszentmihalyi (1997), past thinkers could only realise their potential if they had free time to devote themselves to self-development through learning, to the arts and political activity. Free spaces are also characterised as being a situation that is potentially free from the experienced influence of power (Larsen, & Schwencke, 2015; Schwencke, 2017). Free time and free space is, however, in our society today too often occupied with work, chores and mind chatter that limit our experience of having opportunities. Aesthetic experiences and arts-based learning methods therefore represent a counterpart, enabling experiences of free expression and space to open development processes and strengthen the sense of subjectivity both at work and in leisure time (Dars⊘ & Meltzer, 2019).

One intention of the long-term painting project was the facilitation of recurring experiences of free space and flow. We allocate space and time in our courses to the process of making and being creative and to reflect in and on the action (Schön, 2011). Allocating this time gave the students the opportunity to explore, make new experiences, and feel passion and joy. We see our students and our own personal and professional learning process as being a continuous spiral in which ‘the learning from one cycle stimulates the beginning of a new cycle etc. and thereby providing us with a process that allows us to reconstruct our knowledge and skills in light of new experiences’ (Dewey, 1933, cited in Slesser, Morago, Bruce, & Macmillan, 2006).

A number of students described this process, in which there are no familiar frames and clearly defined goals, as a move into unknown terrain and found working without clear outlines or resolutions of what is right or wrong and good or bad, to be both liberating and demanding. Many discovered that the combination of constraints, structure and a freedom from the requirement to achieve specific results gradually opened them to more exploratory processes. They also established an inner focus and enjoyed the collective silence during the painting sessions. One shared her experiences as follows:

With people around me all the time, this way of working gives my head the opportunity to ‘disconnect’ - something that feels good. I feel more secure in myself, better equipped to go beyond the given frames and more willing to move out of my comfort zone.

Some students also explored and experimented with how they could alter the painting’s composition by doing things differently, such as turning the canvas upside down. For some, this was a conscious choice, others experiencing this as unintentional.

One can become oblivious to things around you or the passage of time when completely caught up in activities. Csikszentmihalyi (1997) defined this experience as flow; an intermediate place between arousal and control, in which higher skills are learned and developed by moving beyond their comfort zone. According to May (1994), this absorption frees a person’s unconscious mind and releases a creative imagination. Winnicott (1971) emphasised the role of play in our everyday life and described how children create a potential space where creativity can blossom. He also uses the term transitional space to indicate this ‘intermediate area’, the area of human experience where experience transpires, and change can occur. This space, one in which possibilities can be explored, can be compared to the experience of flow when involved in creative processes.

The students shared, in the classroom, how they rediscovered tranquillity and how they, despite the pressure of university and work, felt that the free space to paint enabled them to be more detached. They felt more at ease during these processes with their expression, were able to turn inwards and were pleased that they could. They described their experiences of flow as feeling like ‘time stood still’ and of ‘communicating with themselves’.

These sessions were different from what they were used to. Many, however, expressed thinking about their painting in the periods between the campus meetings. They found that the opportunity to be creative and delve into the painting process counterbalanced the unpredictability and fractures they experienced in their ordinary working life. Several shared how they longed for this free space and to express themselves creatively, and how they looked forward to immersing themselves again in their paintings.

3. How did the paintings help clarify the connection between working life, everyday life, personal growth, professional identity and cultivation of character?

Known and unfamiliar parts of artefacts or objects are used in arts-based approaches, as physical symbolic analogues of given topics or perceived challenges. According to Jung, von Franz, Henderson, Jacobi, and Jadde (1964), everything can have a symbolic meaning if it unlocks something more than that which is visible and immediate. These symbols can open associations, so reminding us of something familiar and something unknown (Ronnberg & Martin, 2010).

Taylor and Ladkin (2009) describe projective techniques as a way of seeking out the embodied knowing in an object. Using an artefact as a subconscious expression of the theme in question can therefore provide the distance and detachment needed to explore and discuss ‘emotionally charged issues’ (p. 65). Unrecognised or hidden feelings and thoughts may likewise be seen and identified, and perceived challenges and problems can be solved without risk. Here, ‘the output of artistic endeavours allows the participants to reveal inner thoughts and feelings that may not be accessible through more conventional developmental modes’ (p. 56).

It was clear from reading the students’ logbooks that they, when viewing their paintings, found common features in the three different symbols and in how they perceived themselves, their professional identity and their workplace. They saw parallels between what they expressed in their painting and how they felt, and they discovered how their symbols illuminated previously hidden fragments of self and so facilitated self-reflection.

Some reflected on the need to focus attention on their professional identity, finding it to be a way to visualise their competencies. They witnessed how the different stages of the painting process reflected their evolving sense of self and professional identity, through this understanding the need to distinguish between personal and professional life. In their feedback, however, there was a clear distinction between those who had an established workplace relation, and those who were outside working life or were in the process of changing jobs.

The consequence of having a firm professional footing in working life was particularly evident for the tailor-made CC 15 stp. course participants. Most of these participants, at the first gathering, painted all three symbols on their canvases with no particular preference. The DC students, however, were unsure of their working identity and started by painting the tree (themselves). It in general took a long time before a human body (their working identity) or a building (their workplace) appeared in their paintings. They were uncertain what the future would bring, of whether they would be able to get a job and whether the decision to pursue further education was right. A number of these students described in the early stages of the painting project their sense of uncertainty when referring to their present and future professional identity. One student explained her experiences in this way:

The painting illustrates how this sense of ambiguity is present in all parts of my life. I am so hesitant when it comes to the choices I have made. I don’t want to work as a hairdresser anymore, and I am unsure of my future as a teacher … . At present, my lack of working identity makes it difficult to paint symbols of my professional identity and workplace.

Betensky (1995) exemplifies how this can be reached by describing how a painting or work in clay can represent a micro expression of the theme in question. According to her, deep contact with the essence of an individual’s created expression can be reached through a phenomenological approach. In this process, the artwork is shared and examined with a partner who has no predetermined opinion, seeking through this the inner experience that guided the creator’s hands. A closer examination of the artefact can shed new light and insight on old patterns of behaviour, open new encounters and support change.

Our students also often found that their actions in and the results of the sessions reflected experiences from their lives and work. A student exemplifies below how she, through this process, discovered the essence of her working identity:

I initially felt that the images did not agree with my sense of self and my professional identity. However, I discovered, along the way, that my professional identity was part of me, not something that is separate and represents the sum of all my knowledge. I have found that my working identity is a part of me and embraces the tree (her sense of self).

4. How did this long-term painting process lead to new understandings and insights?

Barnes (1998) advocated that involvement in creative processes and making concrete things can open new insights into existing problems and into established patterns of behaviour. However, according to May (1994), there is a need for courage to be able to create, as these processes challenge habitual patterns of behaviour and thought. Creating something new means letting go of control, enduring the unpredictable and not knowing how the process evolves or what the final solution or outcome might be. These processes involve feelings of resistance, despair, joy and surprise and so require a sense of trust (McNiff, 1998; Meltzer, 2015).

A number of students found it initially difficult and unfamiliar to express the thoughts and feelings they experienced in the painting process. They, however, gradually found that reflecting and talking about their sensed experiences with a fellow student was more manageable than they feared. Letting go of their dissatisfaction, they now conveyed how the longitudinal painting project gave meaning, and felt courage when entering unknown areas within themselves. They established a collective space in the classroom where they felt sufficiently confident to share their experiences, despite the students finding their paintings far from perfect. Attention in sharing was focused on their emotions and frame of mind, and how different situations affected their mental state. Some experienced that the work triggered their emotions and made them cry, but that it was ok.

The students’ verbal feedback and log notes showed how they used the painting work to experiment, discover and relate to new phenomena. In their reflection papers, they described how they were curious about how the processes evolved. They noticed the changes that took place and were surprised when they discovered new possibilities. They reflected on how recent incidents had an impact on their painted outcome, pointed out how their paintings changed when they added new elements and that they perceived these results as symbolic representations of their experiences and views, both at the university and from the practice field. They also shared how they felt before they started painting, and the thoughts and feelings that they experienced in the work process.

The repeated opportunity to reflect and study themselves from a meta-perspective added new understanding to their processes. The mutual sharing that took place at each gathering and at the very end of the project produced new insights and added extra dimensions to their painted expression.

Several students experienced, further into the painting process, the disappearance of their initial frustration. They sensed that their feelings, and the shapes and colours in the painting changed as time went by. Initiating developmental projects at a workplace or in teaching sessions at a school enhanced their self-confidence in their future professional roles. They now described pride, joy and increased confidence after finding the essence in their work. One of the participants at the CC course summarised this as follows: ‘To me, the longitudinal painting was meaningful throughout the course. It represented a necessary and useful room for reflection and helped me find ‘words’ or ‘images’ that describe my journey’.

Students in all groups expressed, with time, feeling joy at regaining contact with their creativity and that this had awakened their desire to be more playful and creative in their personal and working life. They conveyed that this form of work had helped them to bring forth and express different emotions in a positive way. A number of students shared in-depth experiences from arts-based work in their exam papers. Later findings (unpublished) show that many continued to use these learning methods in the workplace or in their practice as teachers in vocational education.