Teachers of ART: time constraints within old fashioned educationsystem.

Dr. Hilary Bradbury and Dr. Ben Teehankee respond to the question: “if we are advocating ART for our students, how do we balance the need to cover topics in a subject (we teach in 12 weeks) with the need to cover certain topics.” We’re encouraging students to not only propose ideas but actually implement them within a relatively short time cycle. How does this work? How can teachers avoid being exhausted?

Dr. Ben Teehankee: “One particular part in the ART documentary talks about factory style classrooms and how our knowledge creation process is being impoverished.  My thinking is that it’s old fashioned, it’s a relic. But it’s hard to get rid of. However if we do support our teachers to adopt a particular mindset which is consistent with action research, we don’t really need to follow the syllabus. As long as we are very clear about what our learning outcomes are we begin a dialogue on how our learning environment is better structured.” 

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