Conference Agenda

In teacher education we have many practices building on stories. Learning from each other’s stories in teacher educators’ professional learning is not only very common, but also a preferred way of learning (Czerniawski et al., 2017; MacPhail et al., 2019). And we tell our stories everywhere, all from the line in front of the coffee machine to the international conferences we visit. We inquire and discuss our own stories and one another’s, while we reflect on the choices made (Jordan et al., 2022; Ping et al., 2018). Less discussed is what more-than-human relationality does/produces in these stories on professional learning. Teacher educators’ stories can involve both human (e.g. colleagues and students) and non-human (e.g. space, teaching materials, books), but that the material and people’s relationships to the material as agents have received little attention. Haraway (2016, p. 97) inspires about thinking more-than-human relationality and decentring the human, in both telling and listening to stories, when she describes that “human and not … in all our bumptious diversity …relate, know, think, world and tell stories through and with other stories, worlds, knowledges, thinkings and yearnings. …Other words for this might be materialism, …ecology, sympoiesis, …situated knowledges …”. This inspiration frames our listening to more-than-human relationality in teacher educators’ stories.

In this study, we zoom in on stories on experiencing collaborative professional learning from twelve teacher educators in a Nordic context. We attentively listened to their stories during workshops on professional learning with an aesthetic approach, and during interviews about the teacher educators’ individual experiences with professional learning through their careers. This study explores the collaborative practice of teacher educators’ professional learning with an aesthetic approach. More specific how an affirmative notion of critique in this exploration can contribute to new insights in what an aesthetic approach sets in motion and opens for in new practices of becoming-professional. Teacher educators’ professional learning is in this study addressed as becoming-professional in order to emphasize the continuity and performativity of the process of professional learning (cf. Deleuze & Guattari, 1988).

In this article we will situate the stories outlined above in new materialist and affirmative critical perspectives. By tracing more-than-human relational tensions in the stories and look further to see how this opens for in new practices of becoming-professional in different directions. This leads to our research question: To what variation of directions can more-than-human relational tensions in teacher educators’ experiences with professional learning with an aesthetic approach lead.

To look more deeply at what is happening in the more-than-human relationality in the stories the teacher educators tell, we engage with Donna Haraway’s notion of sympoiesis, which she in ‘Staying with the trouble’ describes as “a simple word; it means “making-with” … a proper word to complex, dynamic, responsive, situated, historical systems” (Haraway, 2016, p. 58). We see making-with as a rudimentary process in how telling about experiences become stories with all more-than human present. From a new materialism, with a “relational ontology and ongoing process in which matter and meaning are co-constituted” (Bozalek & Zembylas, 2017, p. 65), perspective we use the argument that we know nothing of the stories until we know what the agents in the stories can do (van der Tuin & Dolphijn, 2010, p. 169). Tensions in the perspective of more-than-human relationality come from different angles in the analysis, both from the teacher educator, the material, and the researchers. With an affirmative critical perspective all these angles might “affirm, support and encourage something” in the tensions which will open up for exploration of a variety of new practices of becoming-professional (Raffnsøe et al., 2022, p. 196).

Historical background and theoretical framework: Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, there has been a change in the perception of art in the religious education system in Israel. After many years of suspicion and being closed towards the term art in Orthodox schools for reasons stemming from conservatism, religious art teachers began to pave their way and establish art classes in girls' schools. The change began as a grassroots movement of individual pioneering women who, in an autodidactic manner, found a way to acquire the profession because there were no ultra-orthodox schools for studying art. Another reason for the shift is sociological and related to the migration of general art teachers into Orthodox society (secular art teachers becoming orthodox) and bringing new knowledge that was thus far unknown and packaging it in an adapted and accepted form to the conservative society. Another reason is related to the technological and media revolution that has penetrated closed societies, and brought about a change in consciousness that has slowly permeated them and brought new ideas. And lastly, there has been a change in the attitude of the education system towards marginalized groups and there is a willingness to allow them to study art in a way that does not contradict their ideological values though certain adjustments (excluding nudity and subject matters relating to other religions, for example).

In one way or another, these art teachers are exceptions among the teaching staff and in the communities to which they belong, communities which glorifies the collective over individualism. Due to the fact that the art education programs are based on postmodern concepts that are contrary to the view of the schools where they teach, and the fact that there is no body that groups them together or recognizes their uniqueness and difficulties and provides them with tailored training, the art teachers find themselves standing in the middle between, on the one hand, loyalty to the values and the schools and representing the establishment, and on the other hand, the creative spirit that brought them to the pioneering path. This contradiction inevitably produces conflicts that take them out of their comfort zone and they have to deal with them alone.

The paper will deal with the conflicts and difficulties these teachers face in teaching modern and post-modern art in conservative educational institutions, and will examine the coping practices and apologetic tactics they have adapted to mediate the issue to their community. It will examine the desire to synthesize the Jewish sources and the art world in order to give validation and the acceptance of perception for their actions, as well as look at the long self-guided journey they must travel to acquire knowledge and the frustration they feel when they realize that there are no institutions that they can attend to acquire knowledge in an optimal manner.

“Every child chooses their own instrument” is an oft-repeated mantra held high by parents and teachers in music schools as the desire for an instrument selection based on intrinsic motivation, rather than external determinants. Research over the years point, however, to a myriad of actors that influence the child’s decision-making when it comes to choosing to learn to play a musical instrument, including strong visible actors such as the parents and peers, but also more fluid, invisible influences such as the gender stereotyping of instruments, socio-cultural dynamics and economic conditions. What at times appears to be intrinsic motivation, could in reality be an unintentional answer to these broader social dispositions. This raises the question how can we approach the support and guidance for the choice of instrument? Is there such a thing as intrinsic motivation? And if so, how could we reach it?

In this study, we set out to study the current practice of instrument choice guidance for children aged 6-8 in music schools across Flanders and investigate the potential of an guiding orientation tool for children and their parents. This is part of a research project funded by the Flemish government in which the feasibility of an orientation tool for arts schools (visual arts, music, theatre, dance) to increase admission and guide children in their decisions within all the domains. The second phase of this project focuses on the domain of the music schools in particular, as a study from the Flemish inspectorate of education identified a potential threat for the diversity of instruments at music schools. Music schools throughout Flanders have indicated that among children, the distribution of instrument choices is shifting with increasingly many children choosing to play piano over other instruments. For this feasibility study, the Flemish department of education and training formulated several research questions that stand at the basis for gaining an understanding of how the guidance in instrument choice should be organised: how can we measure cultural interests, enjoyment and motivation? Which tools can be used to measure physical and psychomotor dispositions? Who would be the main target group within the guidance of instrument choice? And what are the potential risks and pedagogical implications of this guidance?

At the onset, we identified several conditions that whichever form of guidance to be developed should submit to: 1) it ought to take into account the diversity of our population and address also children from demographics that historically participate less in music education 2) it ought to imbedded within the local practice and 3) it should avoid normative stereotyping.

While this research took place within the Flemish context of music education, which has its own specific embedment within the Flemish society, we believe the results of our study to be relevant in an international context too, as it touches on the agency of the child and the network of actors that affect their decision, as well as on the pedagogics of music education for young children and the learning of instrument playing.