Aesthetic Material Biography as Pedagogical Method in Teacher Education

• In Event: 73.049 - Reconceptualizing Teacher Biographies Through Complex Embodiments, Material Engagements, and Arts-Based Research

Abstract

Objectives
This paper maps Aesthetic Material Biography (A:M:B) as a pedagogy that explores what role encounters with art-making objects play in the experiences of teachers and the significance of material encounters within teacher education.
Theoretical Perspectives
A:M:B extends the work of collective biography (Davies & Gannon, 2006), a feminist research methodology, by bringing in Deleuzoguattarian and feminist new materialisms. Our exploration invites an assemblage (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) in which affect, bodies, sensations are unearthed by considering the material or object as an actant (Bennett, 2010), or something that speaks to us and takes on an active role in the production of selfhood. As actants collide, they become lively, producing something new. Barad (2007) coins this intra-actions (difference as a result of matter coming together). A:M:B explores intra-actions between teachers and materials.
Mode of Inquiry
The pedagogical approach moves through visual and verbal creative processes (writing, drawing, sculpting, and collage) to evoke memories, sensations, and stories through material/object encounters. In envisioning AMB, we discuss four interchangeable provocations exercised with pre-service teachers (as explained in the following section).
Evidence
This paper draws from the following forms of artistic evidence:
Provocation: Listening to materials/objects as memories
Participants chose objects of deep salience to their childhood art experiences and responded to: What would the object or material remember about your experiences playing, exploring, creating with it? This prompt was used to think through material-discursive practices and phenomena regarding teaching-learning as creative processes.
Provocation: Listening to materials/objects as visual art making
Participants used their object as a provocation for art making during open studio time where other art-making materials were provided.
Provocation: Listening to the materials/objects of others
Participants were invited to share responses from the opening prompt, and encouraged to forge connections to the materials/objects of others through stories, bodily sensations and written feedback.
Provocation: Listening to materials/objects as diffractive practice
Participants engaged in analysis by creating collaborative rhizomatic mapping of pedagogical implications, bodily sensations, actions, and material influences.
Results
A participant brought forth the awareness that A:M:B stirs us to reacquaint ourselves with materials. In this insight, we see potential in the everyday objects of classrooms for opening up something new. Paying attention to and becoming reacquainted with the objects of classroom spaces and art making practices creates an opportunity to reimagine educational spaces, teacher renewal, and professional engagement.
Significance
The 2015 AERA conference theme invites scholars “to consider how education praxis, research, theory, and policy can change the world—toward more justice“ (AERA, 2015, p. 1). Contemplating this, we recall Barad (2007) who explained “the world materializes differently through different practices” (p. 89). A:M:B starts from a different place: the material/object. Through this shift, we automatically live and conceptualize our practices differently. Our ethical responsibility as researchers is to engage teachers, students, and objects as active participants in theorizing rather than passive participants and suggest A:M:B as a way to engage in that process together.

Authors

• Jaye Johnson Thiel, The University of Tennessee - Knoxville

• Brooke Anne Hofsess, Appalachian State University