Education and/as Art: A Found Poetry Suite

• In Event: What Is a Poem Good For? The Possibilities of Poetic Inquiry Within Educational Research

Abstract

Embracing metaphor as method (Prendergast, 2005; see also Prendergast, 2006), which I suggest is a key characteristic of thinking poetically and doing poetic inquiry, is the process conveyed in this suite of found poems. The investigation began with a cross-disciplinary scholarly database search on the term “education as art” that asked: How has education been conceived as artful over time? This search led to (sadly but unsurprisingly) very few sources that explicitly employ this metaphor. However, what was discovered was powerful enough to warrant interpretation through poetic transcription and representation in a suite of found poems. These poems reveal the frustration, even rage, of those who wish to re-vision education as artful. They also reveal hopeful (perhaps utopian) views if what education could look like if re-conceived as the enculturation of artists. These found poems, and a theoretical introduction framing the use of metaphor as method, were presented as a keynote lecture at the University of Minho, Braga, Portugal in April of 2011. Here are two short poems from the suite, by way of illustration:

likelihood

there is no more a
likelihood of finding a
recipe for education
than finding
an infallible method
for making
painters
or
poets

(Black, 1944, p. 294)


art and education

art and education
are not different things;
they are different
specifications
of a common activity

(Camnitzer, 2009, p. 234)

Author

• Monica M. Prendergast, University of Victoria