The benefits of butterflies

Abstract

Teaching art is an aspect of the curriculum that many teachers avoid because of feelings of inadequacy fostered by a lack of confidence in terms of personal 'artistic' skills. Informal surveys of first year students in primary teacher preparation programmes at the University of Waikato suggest this lack of confidence is prevalent before the students have even begun a basic introductory art curriculum module. An important aim of this module is to challenge and positively affect the attitudes of the students. Therefore, alongside developing foundation understanding of art education, the course outline offers to enable participants to ... approach the teaching of art with confidence and enthusiasm `(Department of Arts and Language Education, 1995, p.1).

This article relates how a component of the module was integrated into a junior syndicate science unit at a local normal school. As a consequence, the experience was effective in helping students feel more confident about teaching art. The data was collected from three different participants in order to achieve triangulation (Cohen & Manion, 1989). Reflections of the university lecturer teaching the module, a student teacher participating in the module, and a teacher at the participating school are described. The data suggest that there was affective and effective success for participants when using a partnership model between university and school. The data also show that it was not only the student teachers who stood to benefit from this particular aspect of the module but concurrently, there were distinct advantages for children and staff of the school.