34

CHAPTER 2

The nature of learning

in and through the Arts
It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make
no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven
symphony as a variation of wave pressure.
Albert Einstein

Chapter Objectives
This chapter explores the particular way children learn and come to know about the
world through their engagement in the Arts. We examine:
• multiple intelligence theory and the Arts
• the Arts as distinct ways of embodied knowing
• epiliteracy—literacy in the digital age
• the qualities inherent in arts learning
• the Arts as playful ways to learn.

Introduction
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Prior to studying arts education in your university degree, your understandings about
arts learning are generally based on your own experiences. You may have an expectation
that arts education will be a perpetuation of the way you were taught. While there is some
truth in this, it is also the case that in the intervening years, research about education and
advances in science have brought new understandings about the nature of learning and
what constitutes effective educational practice. Furthermore, the world has changed and the
educational needs of today’s children—who must function in a globalised, technologically
underpinned and networked world—are different from the needs of previous generations.
For example, it is widely agreed that creative and innovative thinking, coupled with social
and cultural competency, are the types of capabilities most necessary for functioning and
thriving in this world. Therefore the Arts have an important role to play.

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 CHAPTER 2: THE NATURE OF LEARNING IN AND THROUGH THE ARTS 35

Intelligence and literacy reframed

for the 21st century
When we look at the nature of intelligence, what it means to be literate in the digital world
and the role that the Arts play in this context, the picture that emerges suggests that
learning in the Arts has a very real place in the education of today’s children.

Multiple intelligence theory

You may be familiar with the intelligence quotient (IQ) test, which measures intelligence in
language and reasoning terms. In 1983, this particular concept of intelligence (which had
predominated for 80 years) was profoundly challenged by the psychologist and educator,
Howard Gardner, when he published his revolutionary book Frames of Mind. In this book, he
outlined his theory of multiple intelligences (MI). This theory offers a way of understanding
why the Arts are an important part of children’s education.
Gardner described intelligence as a mental faculty, capability or modality of learning
that could be used to ‘solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more
cultural setting’ (Gardner & Hatch, 1989). Using a set of eight criteria for determining what
constituted an ‘intelligence’, Gardner identified seven forms of intelligence. One of these, for
example, was bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence, evident as good body and movement control,
being good with one’s hands, having a sense of timing and clear sense of the relationship
between physical action and outcome or goal. A child who has a well-developed bodily-
kinaesthetic intelligence is likely to be good at sports, dancing and making things. Such a
child could find satisfaction in a career as an athlete, soldier or builder where this bodily-
kinaesthetic intelligence would be important for success.
Bodily-kinaesthetic, musical and spatial intelligences are obviously at play in artistic
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

forms of learning and knowing. However, Gardner is at pains to point out that even though
‘musical intelligence’ appears to equate to the cultural activity of ‘music-making’—the
performance of music entails other intelligences as well—such as bodily-kinaesthetic
intelligence (Gardner, 2011, p. xiv). The different types of intelligences work in concert with
each other and therefore all forms of intelligence contribute to our ability to engage with
the world and to learn. The concern for Gardner was that most of these intelligences were
devalued or disregarded in the school curriculum and standard testing methods.
Multiple intelligence theory has found wide acceptance, though of course, there are
ongoing debates and criticisms. In the intervening years since Frames of Mind was first
published, Gardner himself has updated his theory, expressing a greater awareness of
the significance of cultural and contextual factors in relation to intelligence. He has also
contemplated adding three more intelligences, declaring that the first of these (naturalist
intelligence) does constitute an intelligence. Whether we recognise seven, eight or ten forms

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 36 PART 1: CHILDREN’S LEARNING THROUGH THE ARTS

BODILY-
KINAESTHETIC MUSICAL
LIKING FOR HANDS-ON AND APTITUDE FOR REMEMBERING
PRACTICAL LEARNING MELODIES, SONGS AND RHYTHMS.
SITUATIONS. APTITUDE FOR PREDISPOSITION FOR REMEMBERING
DANCING, GYMNASTICS AND KNOWLEDGE BETTER WHEN
ALL KINDS OF PHYSICAL PRESENTED AS A SONG OR RAP,
SPORTS. TENDENCY TO OR ACCOMPANIED BY MUSIC.
USE GESTURES AND ENJOYMENT OF SINGING
RESPOND TO AND MUSIC
TACTILE SURFACES. GENERALLY.

INTRAPERSONAL
PREFERENCE FOR SETTING OWN LOGICAL-
GOALS AND WORKING ALONE.
ENJOYMENT OF SELF-PACED MATHEMATICAL
LEARNING AND INDEPENDENT STUDY. PREDISPOSITION TO EXPERIMENTING AND
TENDENCY TO BE REFLECTIVE IN ANALYSING PROBLEMS LOGICALLY. APTITUDE FOR
NATURE AND SENSITIVE TO

MULTIPLE
SEEING PATTERNS, REASONING AND ORDERING.
THEIR OWN NEEDS AND ENJOYMENT OF MATHEMATICAL CHALLENGES
FEELINGS. AND COMPUTER GAMES.

INTELLIGENCES
INTERPERSONAL
ENJOYMENT OF THE COMPANY OF
OTHERS AND PARTICIPATING IN GROUP
ACTIVITIES. GOOD AT MAKING FRIENDS,
WORKING COOPERATIVELY, LEADING,
ORGANISING AND SHARING.

NATURALISTIC GRAVITATES TO GROUP

PROJECTS AND

PREFERENCE FOR OUTDOOR SPATIAL-VISUAL PARTICIPATING IN TEAM

EVENTS.
PURSUITS AND BEING IN CONTACT PREDISPOSITION FOR MAKING VISUAL
WITH THE NATURAL WORLD. LIKING REPRESENTATIONS (DRAWING, PAINTINGS
FOR PETS, STUDYING NATURE, AND AND SCULPTURES). APTITUDE FOR READING MAPS AND
FIELD TRIPS. CHARTS, VISUALIZING, SKETCHING IDEAS AND
DESIGNING.
PREFERENCE FOR
VISUAL FORMATS (WEB
PAGES, DIAGRAMS,
APTITUDE FOR SYMBOLS AND
SPOKEN AND GRAPHICS) TO
LINGUISTIC- WRITTEN LANGUAGE –
TALKING, TELLING STORIES, READING,
ORGANISE AND
REMEMBER
VERBAL WRITING AND COMMUNICATING.
PREFERENCE FOR USING LANGUAGE TO
INFORMATION.

REMEMBER
INFORMATION.
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Figure 2.1 We have multiple intelligences that contribute to our ability to engage with the world
and learn.

of intelligence, the idea that we are intelligent in multiple ways is the key message we should
take from MI theory.
Reviewing the implications of MI theory, Gardner also suggests that teachers should
‘individualise and pluralise’. On the one hand, educators should be cognisant of a child’s
intelligences profile and aim to create learning opportunities that capitalise on, and
facilitate the child’s development of, these capabilities. On the other hand, educators
should teach important concepts or topics in a number of different ways so that children
can approach the concept or topic by engaging different learning modalities to create richer
understanding.
The Arts offer a range of avenues for developing conceptual understandings and solving
problems. For example, young children, can explore concepts like up, down, whole and half

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 CHAPTER 2: THE NATURE OF LEARNING IN AND THROUGH THE ARTS 37

through various dancing experiences that draw on their bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence

as well as their logical-mathematical intelligence. Cutting and pasting coloured shapes
mobilises their spatial intelligence to explore these concepts. As Gardner asserts, ‘Every
intelligence has the potential to be mobilized for the Arts’ (1999, p. 1). Later in this chapter,
we review an example of how overall learning outcomes have been improved through the
integration of the Arts across the curriculum.

The Arts as ways of knowing

Multiple intelligence theory shows us that the Arts engage multiple intelligences, but what is
it about Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts that makes them distinct ways of
thinking and learning (that is, knowing)? The primacy of linguistic knowing often obscures
other ways of knowing—other ways of being and becoming in the world. Yet we can know
the world mathematically, or scientifically or artistically.
The nature of knowing (and communicating that knowing) in the Arts involves the use of
imagery, symbols and metaphors and is largely independent of speech as we draw, paint,
construct, move and act. It is through our practical engagement that we are able to explore
and express our insights, understandings and capabilities. Often we find it hard to duplicate
the expression of these in another medium. As the famous dancer Isadora Duncan said, ‘If
I could say it, I wouldn't have to dance it!’
The Arts are forms of praxis whereby learning is enacted and understanding emerges
from the experience. The various art forms, as embodied and somatic ways of knowing
(Matthews, 1991), involve using the body, senses, actions, reactions and energy. Think in
terms of swimming, playing team sports, playing a musical instrument or cooking. Your
comprehension of what ‘swimming’ is and what it means is derived from the experience
of doing it. By contrast, discursive knowing is a way of understanding or learning that
involves building on known information and using thought and linguistic processes to reason
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

and construct an argument, explanation or case before arriving at a conclusion from the
information presented. This way of knowing—where you learn by thinking/talking/writing
about it, rather than doing it—is common in traditional schooling practices. It is primarily
distanced, cerebral and theoretical rather than immersive, experiential and practical. Making
this distinction is not intended to promote a dichotomy but to highlight the significance of
experience as a way of learning.
The nature of arts knowing can also be understood by reference to the philosopher Gilbert
Ryle’s distinction between ‘knowing how’ and ‘knowing that’ (1945). In this conception, ‘Jane’
knows that pushing the pedals on a bike will make the wheels turn. She knows that the bike
is steered by turning the handlebars. She knows that she must squeeze the handbrake when
she wants to stop. So, with this knowledge, does she know how to ride a bike? Arts-making
experiences are like bike-riding ones in that they are forms of knowing how and require practical
experience of the process for effective learning to occur. Similarly, we can think in terms of the
difference between being knowledgeable about music and being able to create music.
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Embodied cognition
These binary distinctions between knowing how and knowing that, being
knowledgeable and being able, praxis and theory, somatic learning and discursive
learning, essentially cast arts learning on one side and mainstream school learning
practices on the other. Such understandings of ‘knowing’ arise from a philosophy of
mind known as dualism which is grounded in the idea that the mind and body are
separate—and that the body cannot think. Dualism is associated with the French
philosopher Descartes (1596–1650), who is regarded as the father of Western
philosophical thought. The philosophy of dualism has cast a long shadow, to the extent
that today most of us would believe that the mind is where thinking occurs and the
body simply conveys the sensory input.
A growing area of research challenges the dualistic view of mind and body by providing
empirical evidence suggesting otherwise. Known as embodied cognition, all branches of this
diverse research field share a common understanding that cognition (thinking) ‘depends
on the kinds of experiences that come from having a body with particular perceptual and
motor capacities that are inseparably linked and that together form the matrix within which
memory, emotion, language, and all other aspects of life are meshed’ (Thelen et al., 2001,
p. 1). Some research highlights the role our sensory experiences (and emotions) play in
the formation of perceptions and decision-making. For example, experiments show how
the subject’s exposure to different tactile sensations of rough or smooth, heavy or light,
hard or soft influences their ‘impressions and decisions formed about unrelated people and
situations’ (Ackerman, Nocera & Bargh, 2010, p. 1712). Other research shows that people
with a heightened body awareness made better decisions about a range of unrelated matters
(Claxton, 2015).
As more children spend time in front of screens, as risk-adverse parents and organisations
discourage active play and as school-style learning makes incursions into the early childhood
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

environment, we suggest the need to pause and consider how children’s active and embodied
explorations of their world through arts experiences are significant in terms of children’s
overall thinking and development.

Indigenous ways of knowing

Looking further at the idea of knowing, we see that culturally we are situated in
different epistemologies or ways of knowing. Western culture is primarily situated
within an object-based way of knowing, where things exist separate from the knower
and are verified through objective measurement. Eastern and Indigenous cultures tend
to be situated in a relational epistemology, where knowledge of what exists cannot be
separated from the knower and is verified according to the context and from multiple
perspectives.

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 CHAPTER 2: THE NATURE OF LEARNING IN AND THROUGH THE ARTS 39
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Figure 2.2 Eight ways of knowing that are culturally familiar to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
Source: Kids Matter, Learning on Country – What do ya know? Did ya know Country owns you?
© Commonwealth of Australia 2014

INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES
Knowing is about relationships and connecting. You’ve got to connect with parents of
the child but sometimes that’s hard because they might not be engaging in their child’s
learning, there can be problems. Our knowing is the connection, if we go to certain place
we get a feeling we can’t be there or we can be there. It’s all connected, all have their
story, all makes one big story and if we are brought up with Elders that know the culture,
we just have that sense of knowing. If we don’t, it disrupts our learning.
Lesley Murray, an Anaiwan woman from Uralla, New South Wales

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 40 PART 1: CHILDREN’S LEARNING THROUGH THE ARTS

When it comes to considering the way Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
are culturally predisposed to learning—the way they come to know—we see that this is
characterised by an active and involved way of learning. Children respond to learning that
involves drawing, mapping experiences, sharing through stories, showing what is meant, and
working outside. Consequently, arts-based learning is well-aligned to the ways of learning
that are culturally familiar to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Therefore, we
would suggest that adopting these learning processes is beneficial for all children.

INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES
Indigenous ways of knowing and being are holistic, non-linear, inquisitive and contextualised.
Indigenous art forms were designed using stories, song, ceremony or landscapes to generate
deeper understanding of Indigenous cultures or to share a significant learning from our
Dreaming. Some artistic expressions from the world’s oldest continuing culture are drawn from
natural materials including different fibres, resins, feathers, skin, rushes and different types of
woods to more inorganic materials including stone and ceramics. These materials were used to
represent Indigenous landscapes and the relationships with nature, people and totems.
Karen Sinclair, a Ngarrindjeri early years educator from Adelaide, South Australia

Epiliteracy: Literacy in the digital age

In 1994, the New London Group, an international collective of ten researchers (half from
Australia), proposed multiliteracies as an approach to education that acknowledged how
digital technology and globalisation were changing the world. The idea behind this proposed
paradigm shift was that literacy—the ability to read and write—and the culture of education
that had formed around literacy, were not well matched to the way we were communicating
in the digital age. Instead, our pedagogical practices needed to embrace cultural, linguistic,
communication and technological diversity in order to prepare children for success in a
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

globalised, networked, digital world.

In the same way that the invention of the printing press at the end of the 15th century
transitioned an oral culture to a written one, the development of the digital networked
world is transitioning us into the epiliterate (epi- from the Latin after) world (Huber,
Dinham & Chalk, 2015). In the epiliterate world, written language, oral language, visual
representation, audio representation, tactile representation, gestural representation
and spatial representation are all valid modes of expression that we draw on in various
combinations for various communication purposes (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009).
Using PowerPoint as a communication medium, for example, incorporates combinations
of visual layout, images, text, animations, transitions, voiceover, music, fonts, colours
and staged release of information. Our PowerPoint images can be photographs, cartoon
characters, drawings or collages. Furthermore, we can decide what combinations we want
to use because in the epiliterate world, meaning-making is an active form of design (Cope
& Kalantzis, 2009) where we have ‘more the mindset of the artist … weaving together
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 CHAPTER 2: THE NATURE OF LEARNING IN AND THROUGH THE ARTS 41

linguistic, visual, aural, gestural and spatial features to form coherent compositions’ (Huber,
Dinham & Chalk, 2015, p. 45). Even when webpages incorporate significant amounts of
text, the way we interact with the text is seen as more akin to the way we interact with a
visual image than a book (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009).
Epiliteracy involves ‘new ways of thinking, acting, being, belonging and becoming’
(Huber, Dinham & Chalk, 2015, p. 45). In the contemporary digital world of expression
and communication, we see how ways of constructing meaning that are traditionally
associated with the Arts are increasingly at play. As with multiple intelligences theory,
embodied cognition and Indigenous ways of knowing, epiliteracy highlights how children’s
engagement in the Arts is important for their overall success and fulfilment in the digital,
technologically rich, globalised and networked world in which they live.

The Arts as meaning-making

journeys
If we are learning in and through arts experiences, it means we are interpreting or making
sense of these experiences—we are creating meaning. We make meaning and we express
and communicate meaning through the Arts. This brings us to the idea that each of the Arts
subjects has its own language. Like our linguistic language, the language of Visual Arts, for
example, is what enables us to express and communicate ideas in a painting.

Pause and reflect: Communicating through the visual arts language

A person creates a painting using colour, shapes, tones, textures
and lines. These ‘elements’ have been arranged in a particular
combination to render a peaceful landscape scene on a winter’s day.
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When viewing the painting what tells us that this is a peaceful landscape on a winter’s
day? It is the way the ‘elements’ (colour, shapes, lines) have been composed. Firstly, we
know it is a landscape because the shapes of trees and hills have been delineated. We
know it is peaceful because of the details in the picture, the gentle colours used and the
rolling shapes of the hills. There are no discordant angles and dramatic contrasts of
colour. We also know it is a winter scene by the grey hues of the colours and the misty
effects created by the blurred outlines of shapes in the distance.
Another painting with no pictorial representation of recognisable objects is still
comprised of colours, shapes and lines. This time though, the colours are intense
and highly contrasted. The shapes are angular and discordantly poking in different
directions. The outlines of the shapes are jagged and coarsely painted. Even though
there is no pictorial representation in this abstract configuration, a sense of disquieting
drama is communicated to us by the way the elements of the Visual Arts language
(colour, shape, line) have been used.

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 42 PART 1: CHILDREN’S LEARNING THROUGH THE ARTS

By understanding the Arts as language systems for experiencing, constructing and

communicating meaning, early childhood educators can appreciate the potential learning
and development embedded in arts experiences. In fact, the Arts subjects represent
powerful ways for young children to ‘be in their world’—experiencing, investigating,
expressing and sharing. You’ll observe how children are developing a growing sense of being
individuals with agency. They can tap these xylophone keys in this sequence and make this
tune—repeatedly. You’ll also observe the way children are developing understandings and
practices of living in a socio-cultural world. Their paintings show their family group and the
activities of everyday life; they sing songs together; and they convey the mood of the music
through their dancing. As you support children in these ventures, you will be facilitating the
development of their arts literacies and their ability to richly engage in their world.

INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES
In fact, Arts subjects represent powerful ways of children to be in their world. We’re born
into story, and our world is our art. Every day is a work of art, you’re adding to your family
story, who’s in it, who does what, your place. This helps with your belonging. These days
we take time to do art, but our whole life is art. It is our expression that connects us to
each other, it connects us to family and culture. We create our legacy after our parents
and great-grandparents. The Arts are the story and the story is the Arts. The stories are
told through music, dance, and play. It’s all social.
Lesley Murray, an Anaiwan woman from Uralla, New South Wales

The Arts as first literacies

When it comes to the adult world of expression and communication, language and writing
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

figure so prominently it can seem as if the priority in the early years is to progress children
as quickly as possible to the stages of talking and writing. Of course, these skills are
important—but equally important is remembering that ‘pre-literate’ young children are
highly engaged in expressing thoughts, ideas and feelings—and communicating these to
others.
To the inexperienced observer, a young child’s drawings (for example) may seem like
inconsequential diversions or indecipherable scribbles. Yet they are the manifestations
of understandings related to perceptions, emotions, thoughts and events (Gardner,
1980; Malchiodi, 1988; Steele, 1998). Our recognition of this has developed from Viktor
Lowenfeld’s landmark work (Lowenfeld, 1947/Lowenfeld & Brittain, 1987), in which
he described the characteristics of child art and how it revealed a child’s physical, social,
emotional, intellectual and aesthetic growth.
The scholarship of Felicity McArdle and Susan Wright directs us to understanding art
(and play) as ‘children’s ‘first languages’—their primary ways of seeing and knowing the

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 CHAPTER 2: THE NATURE OF LEARNING IN AND THROUGH THE ARTS 43

self and the world’ (2014, p. 22). When children draw, they are profoundly engaged in
higher-order thinking as they translate their three-dimensional world into lines and shapes
on a two-dimensional surface, use symbols like love hearts for feelings and sweeping lines
to chart the flight of a bee. In this, they are exercising their cognitive powers through the
symbolic and abstract representation of ideas. This is the same thing they will do when
writing.
Through drawing, children will tell stories by recording the narrative sequence of
events. This act prefigures what they will do when writing. Often when asked, children
will recount in great detail what such drawings are about. This recounting also provides a
focus for developing verbal skills and organising ideas: This is us driving on our holiday and
this is where we stopped for lunch and that’s the table under the tree and the bin where I put our
rubbish and this is us arriving at Nana’s place as the sun is setting and shining in my eyes when
I look at Nana. Drawings like this show how children recognise that thoughts, ideas and
events can be represented in another form—as they will be in their writing.
When drawing, children are also developing the visual perception that will assist them
in distinguishing ‘wow’, ‘mow’, ‘won’ and ‘now’, and the fine motor control to shape their
letters. While primarily being in the moment of drawing and creating meaning, young
children are also developing cognitive and motor skills for language and writing.
If you recognise that the Arts (and play) are children’s first languages—on which ‘second
languages’ like reading and writing are built—you would understand that to deny children
the opportunity to develop their first languages has two significant consequences. First,
children’s capacity to explore the world, construct meaning and express themselves in their
early years is greatly constrained. Second, the groundwork for reading and writing is not
being laid effectively.

Qualities inherent in arts learning

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When thinking in terms of children being engaged in the Arts, it is important to be aware
that often what passes for an Arts curriculum lacks many of the qualities of an authentic
program of arts learning. Colouring-in templates might help develop hand–eye coordination
and involve the use of art materials, but such activities have little place in good quality Arts
education.
The great gift that the Arts offer children is the opportunity to experiment and explore
the world through skilful and practical means. The Arts involve doing and opportunities to
paint, build, dance, sing, perform and play instruments are pathways for children to explore
their sensory world, the world of ideas, the world of feelings and the social world. As we
have said, the Arts enable children to make meaning of their world and to communicate this
to others.

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Open-ended approaches to learning

Good quality arts experiences are essentially open-ended ones. Open-ended experiences are
often couched in terms of a problem to be solved, a challenge to be addressed or a journey of
discovery to be embarked upon. Open-ended challenges sit on a continuum from a prescribed
topic and process that still allows plenty of opportunities for individual interpretation within
that framework, through to a very general topic and choice of processes.
With open-ended approaches, the end result is not predetermined. The educator aims
to make the experience ripe with possibilities—and open to each child’s exploration and
interpretation of those possibilities. Effort is directed towards setting the context, framing
the challenge and facilitating each child on their individual journey.
An example of an open-ended challenge is asking children to work in pairs to create a
dance that represents one of the characters in the story you’ve read to them. You’ve provided
the impetus but are not prescribing the dance steps. To enrich the experience, you would
invite the children to explore the possibilities inherent in each character: She’s small and
light. She could move fast. She might dart around. You can even add more requirements to
the challenge and still be open-ended. For example, you might add that the dances have
to include different ways of moving. Together with the children you would spend some
time discovering what those possibilities may be (wriggling on tummies, hopping, sliding,
crawling). All this strengthens and enriches the learning and the possibilities without
predetermining what children will create with that information and understanding.

Practise for improvement

Like reading, writing and arithmetic, becoming more skilful in expressing oneself through the
Arts requires practice—and the persistence required for this is an important learning disposition.
Children understand the role of practice instinctively. They learn to walk by practising. Watch
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

young children repeatedly trialling processes such as putting different-shaped blocks through
different-shaped holes and you will see how they regularly learn through practice.
Developing children’s physical, cognitive and behavioural skills requires repeated
opportunities to practise. This means repeated opportunities to engage in a wide range of arts
processes and experiences. However, exposure in and of itself is not enough. When practising
a song for example, attention should be given to improvement and not simply singing the
song repeatedly. By giving attention to memorising the lyrics singing in time, in tune, and
with spirit, children’s skill development is optimised. As children’s performances improve
through practice, they are also affirming benefits accrued from this learning process.

Creative thinking processes

Creative thinking is at the core of the Arts—and arts experiences for young children
should be designed to encourage this. When creative thinking is activated, each child’s

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 CHAPTER 2: THE NATURE OF LEARNING IN AND THROUGH THE ARTS 45

response to an arts challenge will always be a unique response or interpretation and not
a predetermined outcome. Unfortunately, we find that the Visual Arts area in particular
is flooded with a dazzling array of activities that are quite prescriptive: follow these
instructions to make one of these. While these types of activities may use arts materials
and may produce an ‘artwork’, they are usually low-level encounters that do little to
encourage children to think divergently, make their own decisions and invent their own
responses.
In an approach that is intended to support creative thinking, emphasis is placed on the
processes of investigation, enquiry, trial and error more than on the end product. The end
product will emerge from the creative process. Furthermore, when attention is given to the
creative or design process, a superior end product is the likely outcome. Equally though, an
end product is not necessarily an immediate outcome as children should also enjoy time
experimenting and being in the moment with the experience such as playing with clay or
exploring sounds.
Creative thinking can be facilitated in a range of ways. Providing opportunities
for children to experiment, investigate and follow their own inclinations with no set
challenge generates its own possibilities and contributes to broadening children’s
experience of the world and their creative invention. The educator can facilitate
this by making sure there are resources on hand, work space and time; and by
asking questions that prompt reflection: How was the clay different after you mixed it
with water?
Additionally, educators can plan arts-learning experiences that are staged to explicitly
take children through the identified steps of the creative thinking process that leads to
unique responses (see Chapter 5).

Responding: Reflection and review

Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

The actions of reflecting and reviewing are such an important part of engaging in the
Arts that they are highlighted in the school curriculum by having responding as the
complementary strand to making. Engaging in the Arts means that children occupy the dual
roles of artist and audience. These roles are both interwoven and separate. For example,
a child will review their own artwork in the process of its making and decide to add more
trees in the background or paint the house red. Alternatively, they will review a painting by a
famous artist and decide that the red colour on the house draws your eyes to that part of the
picture.
Responding begins with noticing—being mindful and curious. It involves contemplating
and pondering on the nature of an experience and/or the artwork being created and/
or an artistic work by a peer or famous artist and noticing what can be learned from that
experience. Educators play an important role in guiding children through this process by
judicious questioning or sharing their own observations.

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 46 PART 1: CHILDREN’S LEARNING THROUGH THE ARTS

INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES
Being mindful and curious informs a pedagogy of possibilities. Learning through multiple
modes and languages enables us to be open to possibilities. For example, I use the
following story to demonstrate the concepts of being mindful and curious to develop an
organic mode of inquiry into an art form that was both familiar and unfamiliar to me. I was
introduced to the traditional method of weaving from my Aunties, as demonstrated in the
following narrative.
As a young girl, I enjoyed sitting with my Elders listening to them
yarn. One of my earliest memories was of listening to a couple of my
old Aunties sitting together yarning as they weaved baskets and mats
using rushes—I would be there taking it all in watching and listening to
the exchange back and forth as they yarned about family, kinship, and
Ruwe (‘country’ in Ngarrindjeri language). These yarns were not linear or
stagnant, they quite often were loud and at times silences prevailed, but
onward the yarn progressed as memories were recalled while the Aunties
wrapped and twisted the natural fibres to create art that was significant to
them at that point of time.

In the narrative above I am not just addressing the process of and importance
of yarning, I am also addressing the importance of listening: listening not just with
my ears, but with all my senses. Through this experience of enacting a ‘pedagogy
of listening’ I created a space for meaning to be co-constructed. I also developed
a curiosity, a desire and an interest to appreciate weaving as a means of cultural
regeneration and affirmation through modes of yarning, story and language. I carried
this desire of learning through experience to practice for improvement throughout my
adulthood.
Karen Sinclair, Ngarrindjeri early years educator from Adelaide, South Australia
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Positioning within the world of art

Positioning children’s own arts explorations in the context of the world of art—artists,
artistic traditions and artworks—is a feature of good quality arts education. Observing
the work of artists opens up children’s worlds to others who ‘talk the same language’ as
them—the language of colours and shapes, movements and gestures, feelings and actions.
Just like the books of childhood, the world of art broadens children’s horizons, fires their
imaginations, and steps them into a magical world of ideas, alternative realities, possibilities
and ‘ponderables’.
Children are astute observers and learn much about the world through the Arts. Paintings
can stimulate conversations about the social world and life in different times and places.
Music is a way of experiencing and expressing imagery, emotions and feelings. A puppet

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 CHAPTER 2: THE NATURE OF LEARNING IN AND THROUGH THE ARTS 47

performance uses the dynamics of characters interacting in space to give shape and form
to concepts and ideas such as the social dynamics of families and friends; how power is
exercised for good and bad; how conflicts are negotiated; and how dilemmas can be resolved.

Wonderment and aesthetic awareness

Wonderment refers to those experiences that capture the imagination, and inspire awe,
curiosity, thought and innovation. The Arts invite engagement with the wondrous world and
provides the fuel for many of children’s own explorations such as drawing the intricacies of
an insect or clock mechanism.
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Figure 2.3 The intriguing subject in paintings can invite children

to ponder: Where is she going? Why she is climbing the ladder?
Source: Lisa Adams
Rose garden 2008
Oil on canvas
70 x 53.6cm
Purchased 2008 with funds from Xstrata Community Partnership
Program Queensland through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
© Lisa Adams
Photograph: QAGOMA

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 48 PART 1: CHILDREN’S LEARNING THROUGH THE ARTS

Captivating and magical moments can be experienced when camping under the vastness
of the Outback night sky, breathing in the sea spray from waves crashing on the rocks,
examining a dewdrop on a flower petal or a fly captured in a spider web.
The world of artistic creation has its own wonders to be experienced and investigated too,
such as the way linear perspective in a Renaissance painting draws you into an illusory deep
space, or the way the sonorous notes of a cello fill the room.
Developing an appreciation of the aesthetic dimension of the world and the Arts is
aligned to the idea of wonderment. The simplest way to understand aesthetics is to
think in terms of how we judge what is beautiful. It is more complicated than that but
being sensitive to balance and harmony, the intrinsic qualities of materials, forms and
spaces, and the qualities of good craftsmanship, are key factors to be contemplated.
Experienced educators strengthen children’s aesthetic sensibilities by devoting time
to studying music, paintings and dances, talking about their own artistic pleasures
and drawing attention to the sensory world around them: Look how this green shimmers
next to the red. The sound of that raven makes me think of vast lonely paddocks in the
Wheatbelt. Look at the way the sun shining behind the leaves creates soft grey patterns on
the window blind.

The Arts as playful engagement

in serious learning
Play is an important way in which children experience the world and participate in it. At its
heart, learning in the Arts is quintessentially play-based learning.
Researchers such as Stuart Brown, who founded the National Institute of Play in
the United States, have been instrumental in assembling research data showing that
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

through play experiences, children learn how the world works

and how friends interact; and that children’s ability to play has a
EYLF
fundamental role in developing children’s creative and innovative
EYLF: Practice
thinking and capacity to sustain social relationships (Brown,
Learning through play: this provides
opportunities for children to learn as 2010, p. 6):
they discover, create, improvise and A severely play deprived child demonstrates multiple
imagine. When children play with other dysfunctional symptoms … the evidence continues
children they create social groups, to accumulate that the learning of emotional control,
test out ideas, challenge each other’s
social competency, personal resiliency and continuing
thinking and build new understandings.
Play provides a supportive environment curiosity plus other life benefits accrue largely through
where children can ask questions, solve rich, developmentally-appropriate play experiences.
problems and engage in critical thinking While a precise definition of play-based learning is elusive, its
(2009, p. 15). characteristics are widely recognised. As an approach to young

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 CHAPTER 2: THE NATURE OF LEARNING IN AND THROUGH THE ARTS 49

children’s education it revolves around children’s involvement in active and participatory

experiences. These experiences may be challenging but they are also intrinsically motivating
and pleasurable for the child. Play is open-ended and voluntary, meaning that children play
on their own terms. Imaginative ‘let’s pretend’ and ‘what if’ explorations are important
features.
When playing, children are physically, mentally and verbally engaged with ideas, objects
and interacting with others in ways that build the cognitive and social skills for ongoing
development and growth. Their play is both intellectually demanding and stimulating.
Regardless of how play appears to adults, it is always meaningful for the children who are
playing.
There are different types of play and different ways in which children engage in playing
with others. Walker (2011) identifies five types of play:
• imaginative and socio-dramatic play
• constructive and investigative play
• explorative play
• directed and scaffolded play
• sensory play.
In Table 2.1 the features of these different types of play are described. The examples of
arts-based play show how the Arts are a natural form of play-based learning.

Identifying the ‘learning’ in the ‘play’

When babies arrive in the world (if not before) they are engaged in learning. The baby’s
senses are receptors of information— sounds, colours, tastes, sensations. However,
this is not enough. Since humans are primed to be active and adventurous learners,
each baby quickly embarks on explorations of their world and their place in it. For
example, the rattles strung across the pram create enchanting sounds, but soon the
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

baby learns that by whacking or kicking these they can produce the sound themselves.
The sense of agency—‘I do this and that happens’—introduces the concept of cause
and effect.
When a toddler pushes toy blocks over the edge of the table, builds towers with them or
pokes different-shaped ones through matching holes, they are making discoveries through
play. They are learning about gravity, balance, size and shape. Playing with yellow and blue
paint leads to the discovery of ‘green’ and the understanding that new colours emerge from
combinations. The malleability of clay and the potential to transform one form into another
are discovered when toddlers play with clay and reshape it by squeezing it through their
fingers, tearing it and rolling it in their hands to create balls.
When children participate in play, they regularly use symbol systems where one thing
represents another: a cardboard box represents a car or a cave. This symbolic play is
the foundation of representational thought (‘this’ represents ‘that’). Representational

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 50 PART 1: CHILDREN’S LEARNING THROUGH THE ARTS

Table 2.1 Types of play and examples of arts-based play

Types of play Features Arts-based play
Imaginative and Children imaginatively and In drama, this form of play is called
socio-dramatic play spontaneously evolve fantasy dramatic play. ‘Let’s pretend’ often
and real world scenarios, initiates dramatic play as children
which they act out. assume characters and use objects
and materials in metaphorical ways
to represent different things (e.g., the
cardboard box is a car). Play boxes of
clothing (e.g., hats, vests, skirts, bags,
scarves) and items (e.g., boxes, cardboard
tubes, balls, hoops, plastic swords, fairy
wings, steering wheel, plastic dinner set)
support this type of play.
Constructive and Using blocks and other Clay modelling resources and
investigative play materials, children make construction materials (e.g., boxes,
things from their imaginations, pop-sticks, glue, elastic bands)
thoughts and intentions. enable children to make sculptures
and three-dimensional constructions
like robots, rockets, telescopes, fish
and towers.
Explorative play Children investigate the Through dance children can explore
properties of things like properties like magnetism and elasticity.
natural forms, water and They can discover how oil resists water
magnetism. For example, they by using crayon-resist drawing processes
may explore properties such or they can investigate how to make new
as volume by tipping water colours by mixing paints.
from a tall thin container into
a short fat one.
Directed and A teacher (or peer) may prompt Children can be led through a process of
scaffolded play certain investigations—often exploring different ways of moving from
to create a particular learning one place to another (sliding, skipping,
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

opportunity. rolling) before making a dance using these

movements.
Sensory play This is play focused on Children explore sounds made by different
developing the senses (our shakers. They can dance or paint to music.
interface with the physical They may make texture rubbings from
world): textures, aromas, different surfaces and carefully draw the
sounds, tastes and visual details of a flower.
qualities.

thought is the cornerstone of literacy where words, sounds, gestures and mental images
represent actual sounds, objects, events or actions. The word ‘apple’ is a series of
abstract shapes on a page that represent letters that represent sounds. The word itself
represents a piece of fruit.

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 CHAPTER 2: THE NATURE OF LEARNING IN AND THROUGH THE ARTS 51
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Figure 2.4 Children make discoveries about gravity and balance when playing with blocks.

Arts-based play provides an important context for the development of representational

or symbolic thought processes. In drawing and dramatic play, children are actively using one
thing to stand for another, whether it be a drawn line that shows the whoosh of a speeding
car or the rocks in the sandpit that represent the walls of the castle.
In dramatic play, children also experiment with roles and characters—a shop owner,
a fairy, a nurse, a wicked witch, a mermaid, a dinosaur, a jet pilot. These activities
involve social interactions and lead to understanding about the social world of jobs,
power, relationships, social conventions and protocols, transactions and needs.
At the same time, oral language and cognitive capabilities are being exercised and
developed.

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In all play/artistic explorations, children are developing their cognitive capabilities

by reasoning and making decisions. They are developing the learning dispositions
of imaginative thinking, exploration and experimentation. They are learning about
consequences and developing a sense of their own agency.

Pause and reflect: Dramatic play with boxes

A small group of four-year-old children is playing with two large
cardboard boxes and a couple of blankets. They are intensely
focused and play together for over half an hour. The direction of
the play evolves as the children play together. In that time, the
boxes have been their car, a house and a secret place. During the
play, they have decided who they will be—a racing car driver, the
mechanic who fixes the car, a builder who wants the blankets for
the carport roof, an interior designer who takes great care with the
selection and placement of cushions, and a guard at the entrance
of their secret place. The play has unfolded and developed through
children’s contributions and interactions.
This episode of dramatic play is a context for children to learn and grow. As they
played, the children made choices, argued strongly about which choice is the best
one, rejected ideas, wondered, questioned, offered opinions, experimented with the
location of the objects and where and how to place them, modified their actions to
suit the flow of the game, made rules and changed those rules when it suited all
of them.
The children engaged in their play as sensate beings who are in the world and
experience the world through their bodies. They have listened to each other (aural),
judged distances and positions of the boxes through vision (visual), felt their heart
rate increase as they drove a racing car (visceral response), delighted in the blankets
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

softness (haptic), felt the change in temperature when they huddled in the boxes
(thermoception) and yelled when they bumped into the corner of a box (nociception)
while struggling to keep their balance (equilibrioception).
The children engaged in symbolic play as the cardboard boxes represented a range of
different things—a car, a house and a secret place.
A casual observer sees children amusing themselves. Skilled educators see children
engaged in dramatic play where important learning is taking place.
While the children’s play is self-directed, the educator still has an important role
to play in terms of creating a learning environment conducive to play-based learning.
This involves providing a stimulating physical environment, an emotionally safe one and
carefully designed, intentional interactions and teaching that enrich children’s learning
through play.

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 CHAPTER 2: THE NATURE OF LEARNING IN AND THROUGH THE ARTS 53

Arts learning as fun learning

Most of us associate play and the Arts with the idea of fun—though maybe it is more useful
to think in terms of ‘satisfying’ or ‘intrinsically enjoyable’ or ‘interesting and engaging’.

Pause and reflect: Well, was that fun?

The children’s beautiful fish paintings have been laid out to dry and
the paints packed away. The array of glistening fish purchased for
the session from the fish markets lie on a plate waiting to go back
into the fridge. As the last brushes are being popped back into the
tub, the teacher turns to the children, smiles and asks, ‘Well, was
that fun?’

This question is one that a teacher is more likely to ask about an art lesson than about
a maths lesson or a science lesson. Does this mean the goal of arts lessons is to have
fun whereas the goal of maths and science lessons is to learn? Shouldn’t arts lessons
be as much about learning as maths and science lessons—and shouldn’t all learning
be fun? Certainly, when learning feels like a chore it is harder to feel motivated to
learn. Maybe ‘fun’ is an important motivator for learning and not an outcome in itself.
What do you think?

The qualities that make arts experiences satisfying or fun are the same ones that underpin
the concept of play-based learning. These are opportunities to
• pursue ideas and experiences that are personally meaningful
• experience captivation, absorption, focus or ‘flow’ (Csíkszentmihályi, 2014)
• explore possibilities and make discoveries
• engage in hands-on or experiential learning
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

• engage the senses

• utilise different intelligences
• be enchanted by novelty
• experience trial and error processes as steps towards success
• be challenged
• self-select experiences and pace oneself.
The ‘fun’ dimension of artistic pursuits has long been recognised. A number of
schools are now leveraging this to boost children’s engagement and focus across the
curriculum. Teachers are finding that by infusing the curriculum with arts- style learning
experiences, children’s learning is richer, more memorable and meaningful—and
children are happier. In an arts-infused approach to the curriculum, learning about the
planets’ rotation and revolution, for example, is undertaken by exploring these ideas

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 54 PART 1: CHILDREN’S LEARNING THROUGH THE ARTS

through dance; maths concepts of alignment, proportion, scale and shape are explored
by creating self-portraits.
When schools like Bates Middle School (in the United States) adopted a whole-school,
arts-integrated educational model, invested in teachers’ professional development and
instituted appropriate school policies, they witnessed how arts-integrated learning
‘[unleashed] a rising tide of academic achievement [as well as laying] the foundation for
what it means to be a truly creative community’ ([Link]/stw-arts-integration).
The research data showed that the improved level of children’s motivation and engagement
resulted in radical improvements in reading, numeracy and personal behaviour as well as
noticeable improvements in learning behaviours such as critical thinking, risk-taking and
collaboration.
When we tap into ways of exploring the world through arts experiences we potentially
light the fires of imagination, fascination and wonder that motivate children—motivate all
of us—to engage and learn.

Summary
Today’s children are growing into a world that is radically different to the world that today’s
adults grew up in. Adults have both embraced and grappled with the implications of a
digital, networked world. The challenge of re-imagining education for this world is still
a work in progress. What we do know is that being creative, flexible, an agile thinker,
epiliterate and socially adept are some of the capabilities that are going to be critical for
success in this world. We know that arts-rich education is a powerful way for children to
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

develop these capabilities; and that play and arts-based learning—learning by doing—is
efficacious.
In places where early childhood education is formally undertaken, whether in a centre,
preschool or primary school, we see that play-based and arts-based approaches to learning are
engaging children in ways that are rich and meaningful for them. As children explore the nature
of being, belonging and becoming in this world, they are fruitfully engaged in learning. They are
laying the foundations for reading, writing and numeracy, and developing the capabilities and
learning dispositions that will help them ride the wave of their unfolding future.

Learning Activities
1 The quote from Albert Einstein at the beginning of the chapter makes a salient point
about different ways of knowing. Elaborate on this to explain why the Arts are an
important dimension of children’s education.

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2 Visit the Edutopia website ([Link]/stw-arts-integration) and read about the

Bates Middle School experience of an arts-integrated curriculum. Prepare a radio story,
podcast or an audio recording explaining the concept of arts-integration, how it worked,
what it achieved and what lessons early childhood teachers could take from this example
in terms of their own approach to education.
3 Working in pairs, locate two famous painting masterpieces on the theme of animals,
families or gardens. (You can choose any famous painting, or you might like to focus on
acclaimed Australian artworks.) Research these and based on what you discover, list six
questions for each artwork that would lead children into observing the different features
of the paintings and learning more about its meaning.

Further reading
Pelo, A. (2007). The Language of Art: Inquiry-Based Studio Practices in Early Childhood
Settings. St Paul, MN: Redleaf Press.
Walker, K. (2011). Play Matters: Investigative Learning for Preschool to Grade 2 (2nd ed.).
Camberwell, Victoria: ACER Press.

Online resources
Americans for The Arts: An advocacy and support network that has a research hub
collating research about the benefits of arts in education. [Link]
ArtsLearning: This organisation is based in Massachusetts, USA and supports the inclusion
of a complete arts program for K-12 students. The library of videos is the most beneficial
feature of the site. [Link]
Arts:Live: An interactive and award-winning arts education hub aimed at meeting the needs
of educators. Teachers can register for free. [Link]
Aussie Educator: Has links to a range of Australian websites that support arts education
through resources and a variety of news and discussion forums. [Link].
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

au/resources/teaching/[Link]
InSEA: This is the website for the International Society for Education Through the Arts. It is
a long-running advocacy and research organisation. It has downloadable resources related
to advocacy and a research blog. [Link]

Chapter references
Brown, S. (2009). Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul. New York,
NY: Avery (Penguin).
Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. ‘Multiliteracies’: New Literacies, New Learning. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3),
164–195.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology: The Collected Works of Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi. Claremont, CA: Springer.
Gardner, H. (1983, 2004, 2011). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York, NY: Basic Books.

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Gardner, H., & Hatch, T. (1989). Multiple Intelligences Go to School: Educational Implications of the Theory of
Multiple Intelligences. Educational Researcher, 18(8), 4–9.
Gardner, H. (1999). The Happy Meeting of Multiple Intelligences and the Arts. Harvard Education Letter, 15(6), 1.
Huber, A., Dinham, J., & Chalk, B. (2015). Responding to the Call: Arts Methodologies Informing 21st Century
Literacies. Literacy, 49(1), 45–54.
McArdle, F. & Wright, S. M. (2014). First Literacies: Art, Creativity, Play, Constructive Meaning-Making. In
G. Barton (Ed.), Literacy in the Arts: Retheorising Learning and Teaching (pp.21–37). New York, NY: Springer.
National Advisory Committee on Creativity and Cultural Education. (1999). All Our Futures: Creative Cultural
Education (K. Robinson, Chairperson). Retrieved from [Link]
Rinaldi, C. (2006). In dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, researching and learning. Routledge: New York.
Thelen, E., Schöner, G., Scheler, C. & Smith, L. (2001). The Dynamics of Embodiment: A Field Theory of Infant
Preservative Reaching. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 24, 1–86.
Walker, K. (2011). Play Matters: Investigative Learning for Preschool to Grade 2 (2nd ed.). Camberwell,
Victoria: ACER Press.
Copyright © 2017. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

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