Creating Lifelong Relationships With the Arts: A Caring Philosophical Approach

• In Event: The Arts and Creation of Beauty

Abstract

It is important to understand how performing and visual arts teachers make their classes personally relevant for students. This study examines what the intentions of elementary performing and visual arts teachers who chose to teach with additional affective content. This qualitative study adopted educational criticism and connoisseurship as its research method. The findings indicated that participating teachers established caring relationships with their students as understood through Noddings’ ethic of care and demonstrated teaching methodologies aligned with Dewey’s views of holistic relationships. The findings suggest that teachers who introduce additional affective materials are looking to make performing and visual arts classes relevant to their students’ lives.

Author

• Jennifer Bartee, Johns Hopkins University