Chapter 1: Artistic Ways of Knowing as a Catalyst to Creative Learning and Transformative Learning

Transformative Visual Literacy: An Important Dimension of Multimodal Learning

Transformations, openings, possibilities: teachers and teacher educators must keep these themes audible…To tap into imagination is to become able to break with what is supposedly fixed and finished, objectively and independently real. It is to see beyond what the imaginer has called normal or “common-sensible” and to carve out of order new experience (Maxine Greene, 1995, 17, 19).

In his book Art as Experience, John Dewey (1834/2005) writes about the connection between emotion and expression in art and learning processes. This type of creative learning involves close observation, curiosity, creativity, inquiry, and imagination. Dewey refers to the creative works of writers and artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Auguste Renoir, Raphael Santi, William Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, and John Keats to exemplify creative processes in art and writing. Artists are involved in a cycle of ordering and re-ordering images, patterns, perceptions, observations, memories, and emotions; the inner world is manifested in a poem, painting, or narrative. Creating art is a process of transformation that engages the imagination; higher levels of consciousness can be activated through the artistic process. Art can tap into the emotional and spiritual facets of learning.

Tangled scenes of life are made more intelligible in aesthetic experience; not, however, as reflection and science render things more intelligible by reduction to conceptual form, but by presenting their meaning as the matter of a clarified, coherent, and intensified, or ‘impassioned’ experience (Dewey, 1834/2005, p.302).

Individual and collective experiences, spontaneity and a freshness of ideas, universal truths, and the realm of the possible and ideal are all included in art from across cultures and across millennia. Achieving proportion, uniqueness, symmetry, and harmony may also be part of the product of an artistic creation. Art has a unique way of “telling a truth”:

The object of art is to educate us away from art to perception of purely rational essences. There is a ladder of successive ways leading from sense upwards. The lowest state consists in the beauty of sensible objects; a stage that is morally dangerous because we are tempted to remain there….Works of art are means by which we enter through imagination and the emotions they evoke into other forms of relationship and participation than our own. (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 347).

In other passages, Dewey writes about the liberating and united power of art:

Shelley said, ‘The great secret of morals is love, or a going out of our nature and the identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A [person] to be greatly good must imagine intensely and comprehensively.’ What is true of the individual is true of the whole system of morals in thought and action. While perception of the union of the possible with the actual in a work of art is itself a great good, the good does not terminate with the immediate and particular occasion in which it is bad. The union that is presented in perception persists in the remaking of impulsion and thought. The first intimations of wide and large redirections of desire and purpose are of necessity imaginative. Art is a mode of prediction not found in charts and statistics, and it insinuates possibilities of human relations not to be found in rule and precept, admonition, and administration (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 363).

Artistic Ways of Knowing (AWOK) can elevate and enrich life experience; as educators, we are in a position to encourage art appreciation and awareness. The creative potential of visual art integrated with literary and non-fiction texts can lead to new understanding. To become immersed in art and artistic creations challenges individuals to be both spontaneous and disciplined. The landscapes of Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, or Albert Bierstadt and the poetry of John Keats, Bliss Carman, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Christina Rossetti reflect a range of emotions that can be catalysts for contemplation and creative self-expression. Vincent van Gogh’s paintings are notable for their intense portrayal of emotions such as joy, fear, anguish, surprise, and wonder. In one of his many letters to his brother Theo, Vincent wrote that “emotions are sometimes so strong that one works without knowing that one works, and the strokes come with a sequence and coherence like that of words in a speech or letter” (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 75). Intellect and reason are insufficient to explain the deep mysteries of life and the presence of good amid destruction and evil. John Dewey (1934) refers to John Keats’s famous lines in “Ode to a Grecian Urn” that “beauty is truth, truth beauty-that is all/Ye know on earth and all ye need to know” to emphasize the importance of imaginative intuition as a form of truth that can unravel life’s uncertainties and mysteries. The emotions present in Vincent van Gogh’s self-portraits or landscapes such as almond trees blossoming or a night café amid a starry sky. Dewey emphasizes qualities such as awareness, empathy, close observation, and reflection that are common to many artists: “Such fullness of emotion and spontaneity of utterance come, however, only to those who have steeped themselves in experiences of objective situations to those who have long been absorbed by observation of relevant materials and whose imaginations have long been occupied with reconstructing what they see and hear (Dewey, 1934/2005, p. 75). Dewey’s ideas (1934/2005)  remind educators that the future of arts integration provides opportunities for development and growth of emotional, social, aesthetic, and intellectual skills. Listening, speaking, writing, reading, viewing, and representing are enriched with multi-modal literacy development.

Conceptions of Visual Literacy

A  major focus highlights the way visual or artistic  images can be used in an integrated and complementary way to enrich literary genres and forms used in English language arts and related disciplines. The art images and poetry featured  in this text are derived from the Public Domain (PD); links to contemporary texts are also provided.  From an interdisciplinary perspective, visual images can complement ideas, concepts, and themes in literature, expressive arts,  psychology, sociology, world issues, history, ethnography, environmental sciences,  cultural studies, graphic design, mathematics, engineering, and other fields.  Creative writing, drama, storytelling, and the analysis of literary works that include poetry, novels, and non-fiction can be enhanced when visual images are used. Skills in listening, speaking, writing, reading, viewing, and representing can be developed and extended when multimodal literacies are encouraged. Literacy learning is extended with the emergence of the Internet, multimedia, digital media, and now Artificial Intelligence (AI), literacy skills  The New London Group (1996) emphasizes that a pedagogy of multiliteracies  “focuses on modes of representation much broader than language alone. These differ according to culture and context-in an Aboriginal community or in a multimedia environment, for instance—the visual mode of  may be more powerful and closely related to language than more ‘literary’ works would” (p.64).

The New London Group conceptualizes literacy as dynamic, interactive, evolving, multimodal, and transformative.“New communications media are reshaping the way we use language” and that “literacy  educators and students must see themselves as active participants in social change, as learners and students who can be active designers and makers (Jewitt, 2008; Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996;  Kress, 2003; Serafini, 2017). The curriculum is also seen as dynamic and emergent; learners are actively involved in negotiating, critiquing, and creating new curricula. Authentic “real world” learning opportunities, cross-cultural and cross-curricular discourses, critical thinking, collaboration, and transforming curricula in new ways encourage meta-cognitive and meta-linguistic abilities to develop (New London Group, 1996).

Visual literacy is one component of multimodal literacies of visual literacy are also varied. For example, John Debes (1969) writes that “visual literacy refers to a group of vision-competencies a human being can developing by seeing and at the same time having and integrating other sensory experiences” (p.27).  Skills and abilities such as close observation, perception, pattern recognition, and decoding can enhance individuals’ ability to appreciate and comprehend the world more fully.  Communication skills are extended and individuals are able to express themselves more creatively.  R. Williams (2003) explains that “the integration of intuitive, visual knowing with rational cognitive processes generates expressions of whole-mind cognition that have the potential to foster greater creativity, more powerful problem-solving abilities, and balance between quantitative and qualitative analyses”  (p.2).  He explains that individuals’ perceptions of  visual images can influence their emotional, cognitive, and behavioural learning processes.  Conceptions of “visual intelligence” have been influenced by “a cluster of fields in communication, including  photojournalism, rhetoric, mass communication, advertising, digital media and interpersonal and intrapersonal communication”(Williams, 2003, Key Note Address, Rochester Institute of Technology, RIT, p.2).  Rick Williams (2003) connects visual intelligence as intersecting and informing Howard Gardner’s (1981) theory of multiple intelligence. Williams writes:

All eight intelligences have significant visual components: visual/spatial intelligence is clearly visual; musical intelligence employs vision both to read and write music and music often generates mind’s eye imagery or dream-like meditations; intra-personal intelligence employs dream imagery, and both intra- and interpersonal intelligences employ sight as does bodily kinesthetic intelligence; linguistic and mathematical intelligences (the rational intelligences) use both physical sight and generate mind’s-eye imagery as in thinking about a geometric figure or imagining a scene from literature; and naturalistic intelligence is an integrating process that employs the other intelligences, often in visual ways, to understand the natural world (p.7).

There is an important narrative component to visual texts; for example, the 20,000 year old paintings in the Lascaux petrographs of bison, bulls, deer, bears, mammoths, and other animals tell a story about  humans’ survival, their relationship with themselves, the animals around them, and the natural world during the Palaeolithic time period. Visual literacy skills and strategies can help individuals analyze and interpret these stories (Beier, 2013). The definition of visual literacy provided by Deborah Curtiss’s (1987) definition of visual literacy most closely aligns with the way visual literacies are conceptualized in this text:

Visual literacy is the ability to understand the communication of a visual statement in any medium and the ability to express oneself with a least one visual discipline. It entails the ability to understand the subject matter and meaning within the context of the culture that produced the work, analyze the syntax—compositional and stylistic principles of the work, including the disciplinary and aesthetic merits of the work and grasp intuitively the Gestalt, and the interactive and synergistic quality of work. (p. 34).

The chapters in this text provide many examples of visual images that can be used to complement and enrich teaching and learning in English language arts and related disciplines. It is also important to note that while a wider focus of this book is on visual art connections and poetry, other creative approaches to teaching English language arts that include storytelling, transcultural texts, letters, drama, and short stories will be explored in various sections.

Multimodal Learning

I take the position that multi-modal literacies enrich and deeper our understanding of texts in ways that, potentially, can empower and inspire. The second book Transformative Approaches to Teaching English Language Arts Through Poetry, Art, and Related Texts is meant to provide complementary art-text resource guides that are theme-based and that further exemplify the possibilities of integrating art in literacy courses at the secondary level. Book Two includes themes such as Myths and Legends, A close look at the sea, and Fantastical Creatures and Mythic Monsters. The theoretical and practical foundations of Book One (Artistic Literacies) inform the themes in Book Two. The themes align with specific curricula from the Grades 10-12 ELA curriculum in Manitoba and other Canadian provinces. These books are an invitation for educators to further design innovative ways that arts based pedagogies can be a catalyst for creative learning in diverse educational contexts and in the larger classroom of life.

Teachers would observe learners in action to notice these questions in order to help inform further and deeper learning. Prompts in many forms (e.g., objects, concepts, specimens, visuals, events, books) can also inspire wondering and questioning to guide deeper learning. Through rich learning experiences and processes to deepen understanding, students are given opportunities to engage meaningfully in the four practices of English language arts. By exploring broad questions and significant ideas, students will be using language as sense making, system, exploration and design, and power and agency. When planning, teachers need to ensure that the learning experiences are rich enough to engage students meaningfully in all four practices ( p. 59).

 

“In Summer”by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Oh, summer has clothed the earth
In a cloak from the loom of the sun!
And a mantle, too, of the skies’ soft blue,
And a belt where the rivers run.
And now for the kiss of the wind,
And the touch of the air’s soft hands,
With the rest from strife and the heat of life,
With the freedom of lakes and lands…..

To read more of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poetry, please open the link here.

 

Encouraging Empathy and Awareness with Art and Poetry

“Trees”by Bliss Carman

IN the Garden of Eden, planted by God,
There were goodly trees in the springing sod,-
Trees of beauty and height and grace,
To stand in splendor before His face.
Apple and hickory, ash and pear,
Oak and beech and the tulip rare,
The trembling aspen, the noble pine,
The sweeping elm by the river line;
Trees for the birds to build and sing,
And the lilac tree for a joy in spring;
Trees to turn at the frosty call
And carpet the ground for their Lord’s footfall;
Trees for fruitage and fire and shade,
Trees for the cunning builder’s trade;
Wood for the bow, the spear, and the flail,
The keel and the mast of the daring sail;
He made them of every grain and girth
For the use of man in the Garden of Earth.
Then lest the soul should not lift her eyes
From the gift to the Giver of Paradise,
On the crown of a hill, for all to see,
God planted a scarlet maple tree.

To read Bliss Carmen’s edited volume (illustrated) of “The World’s Best Poetry” (J.D. Morris & Co, Philadelphia, 1904) please open the Internet Archive link here.

 

 

“Night” by William Blake

The sun descending in the west,
The evening star does shine;
The birds are silent in their nest,
And I must seek for mine.
The moon, like a flower
In heaven’s high bower,
With silent delight,
Sits and smiles on the night.

William Blake (1757-1827), Songs of innocence and experience: Two contrary states of the human soul. Edited by George Cowling. London: Methuen & Co., 1925. Internet Archive.

Resource: J.Patrick Lewis (Ed.). Book of Nature Poetry (p. 24). National Geographic Society.

“Stars”by A. E. Housman

Stars, I have seen them fall,
But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
From the star-sown sky.
The toil of all that be
Helps not the primal fault;
It rains into the sea,
And still the sea is salt.

 

Students can also explore connections between art images, poems, and other literary forms such as letters and biographical texts.

Excerpt from Vincent van Gogh’s 1888 Letter to His Friend Bernard:

Vincent van Gogh felt like an outcast, unappreciated, and misunderstood, for the most part, from society. His solace came from painting and from the few friendships she had with fellow painters and his brother Theo. van Gogh’s existential reflections reveal his hope in the mysteries of the universe that might offer spiritual transcendence and an alternative existence without anguish and suffering.

Yet our real and true lives are rather humble, these lives of us painters, who drag out our existence under the stupefying yoke of he difficulties of a profession which can hardly be practiced on this thankless planet on whose surface ‘the love of art makes us lose the true love.’

But seeing that nothing opposes it—supposing that there are also lines and forms as well as colors on the other innumerable planets and suns—it would remain praiseworthy of us to maintain a certain serenity with regard to the possibilities of painting under superior and changed conditions of existence, an existence changed by a phenomenon no queerer and no more surprising that the transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly, or of the white grub into a cockchafer.

The existence of a painter-butterfly—seems to me an instrument that will lag far, far behind. For look here: the earth has been thought to be flat. It was true, so it is still today, for instance between Paris and Asnieres. Which, however, does not prevent science from proving that the earth is principally round. Which no one contradicts nowadays.

But nothwithstanding this they persist nowadays in believing that life is flat and runs from birth to death. However, life too is probably round, and very superior in expanse and capacity to the hemisphere we know at present ( Vincent van Gogh, 1888, in Auden, W.H. (Ed) (1963), Van Gogh: A self portrait-letters revealing his life as a painter, New York Graphic Society, p.  303).

For more information about Vincent van Gogh’s art and letters please see Chapter 7 of this text.

 

 

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). The Bedroom (1888). van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Public Domain.

Vincent van Gogh: Excerpts from a Letter to His Brother Theo (September, 1888)

“You are kind to painters, and I tell you, the more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” (van Gogh, Arles, 1888 in Auden, W.H. (Ed.), 1963, p. 329.)

“My eyes are still tired, but then I had a new idea in my head and here is the sketch of it…it’s just simply my bedroom, only here color is to do everything, and giving by its simplication a grander style to things, to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In a word, to look at the piture ought to rest the brain or rather the imaginatinon. “ (van Gogh, September, 1888, in Barent, Burto, & Cain, 2006, p. 895).

 

 

 

Transformative Learning and Links to Creativity

We want our classrooms to be just and caring, full of various conceptions of the good. We want them to be articulate, with the dialogue involving as many persons as possible, opening to one another; opening to the world. And we want our children to be concerned for one another, as we learn to be concerned for them. We want them to achieve friendship among one another, as each one moves to a heightened sense of craft and wide-awakeness, to a renewed consciousness of worth and possibility (Green, 1995, p. 168).

Greene’s (1995) transformative views to re-vision education in more equitable and vital ways are consistent with theoretical perspectives of transformative learning theory and creative learning (Cranton, 1994; Mezirow, 1981; Magro, 2001; Magro and Polyzoi, 2009, Mezirow and Associates, 2006; O’Sullivan, Morrell, and O’Connor, 2001; Taylor and Associates, 2012). Transformative learning is about “change, dramatic, fundamental change in the way we see ourselves and the world in which we live’ (Merriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner, 2007, p. 130). Earlier, Jack Mezirow (1981) explained that meaning perspectives and frames of reference are often rooted in taken-for-granted beliefs and assumptions within a given social and cultural context. It is when we experience a “disorienting dilemma” such as the death of a close family member or a significant marker event such as an illness, the loss of a job or a move that our assumptions and beliefs are challenged. As individuals mature and evolve, they have opportunities to reflect more critically on faulty or incomplete assumptions about themselves, others, and the world. Mezirow (1981) identified ten stages of transformative learning and perspective transformation when working with over 80 women who returned to college as mature adult learners. He identified these stages (which may be linear or recursive; sudden or dramatic) These include:

• Experiencing a disorienting dilemma (e.g. the loss of a loved one, a serious accident, a move, job transition or loss, emotional crisis, etc.).
• Undergoing self-examination
• Conducting a critical assessment of internalized role assumptions and feeling a sense of alienation from traditional social expectations
• Relating one’s discontent to similar experiences of others or to public issues—recognizing that one’s problem is shared and not exclusively a private matter
• Exploring options for new ways of acting
• Building competence and self-confidence in new roles
• Planning a course of action
• Acquiring knowledge and skills for implementing one’s plans
• Making provisional efforts to try new roles and to assess feedback
• Reintegrating into society on the basis of conditions dictated by the new perspective (Mezirow, 1981, in Cranton, 1994, p. 23)

Patricia Cranton (1994) further developed Mezirow’s ideas and provided practical strategies for educators to work toward transformative or deeper level learning. For Cranton, transformative learning is a life-long process of growth and development. Cognitive, emotional, sociolinguistic, and spiritual ways of knowing are explored through learning opportunities that encourage reflective observation, the exploration of alternative perspectives, and having opportunities to challenge, refute, reflect, and hear others do the same”(p.27). Reflecting on meaning perspectives can apply to the way a person thinks, feels, and experiences life events. Social norms, cultural expectations, family upbringing, community connections, peer relationships, socialization, and language codes all influence an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Cranton writes that “the sources of psychological meaning perspectives are often buried in childhood experiences (including trauma) and may not be easily accessible to the conscious self” (p. 29). Cranton notes that individual differences in term of personality, learning style, motivational style, cognitive style, and culture are “readiness” factors that can influence individual journeys of learning. Educators need to be able to assess and gauge the unique strengths and skills of each learner. While the ideas in transformative learning theory have been applied primarily with adult learners, many of the strategies are relevant to older adolescents and young adults. Cranton highlights the importance of experiential learning, multi-modal learning opportunities which tap into students’ unique learning styles, critical incident questionnaires, letter and journal writing, and debate. Encouraging questions about the content, process, and premise of a particular text, for example, can lead learners to be more reflective (What is being said? How is the information being expressed? Why? Whose viewpoint is included? Whose viewpoint is left out?). Cranton (1994) emphasizes that the educator’s own personality and perspectives on teaching and learning play a significant role in creating a climate conducive to transformative learning:

Educators must be adult learners continually striving to update, develop, expand, and deepen their professional perspectives both on their subject area and on their goals and roles as educators. The educator who is not a learner becomes an assembly-line working implementing well-worn habitual tricks and techniques to process learners’ acquisition of knowledge and skills. The educator who is not a learner cannot act as a model of learning. The educator who is not a critically self-reflective learner will not be likely to stimulate critical reflection among learners…The learner-educator can use strategies such as writing critical incidents, keeping a journal, completing a repertory grid, writing a life history, conducting a criteria analysis, or engaging in a crisis-decision simulation. For most people, discussion with a colleague or friend will be an essential ingredient of any strategy for explicating assumptions. Even unconscious assumptions can be ferreted out by a keen observer ( Cranton, 1994, p.228).

Mezirow and Associates (2000) note that emotions are also central to meaning making and perspective transformation and that the arts all have their own unique languages that inform meaning.

Art, music, and dance are alternative languages. Intuition, imagination, and dreams are other ways of making meaning. Inspiration, empathy, and transcendence are central to self-knowledge and to drawing attention to the affective quality and poetry of the human experience. Dirkx writes of learning through soul involving a focus on the interface where the socio-emotional and the intellectual world meet where inner and outer converge (2000, p.6).

It is important to note that the “stages” are not always linear and that they may be recursive, gradual or sudden; the paradigm shift in thinking is relatively permanent and significant changes occur not just in thought and feeling but in actions and behaviors. There are different strands of transformative learning that highlight varied ways of knowing, but the definition provided by O’Sullivan and associates (2001) best illuminates the individual and collective dimensions of TL:

Transformative learning involves experiencing a deep, structural shift in the basic premises of thought, feeling, and actions. It is a shift in consciousness that dramatically and permanently alters our way of being in the world. Such a shift involves our understanding of ourselves and our self-locations; our relationships with other humans and with the natural world; our understanding of relations of power in interlocking structures of class, race, and gender; our body-awareness; our visions of alternative approaches to living; and our sense of possibilities for social justice and peace and personal joy. (O’Sullivan, 2001, p.11).

There are also many parallels between transformative learning and creative learning. Tsai (2013) notes that like transformative learning, creative learning involves an exploration of new perspectives and paradigms. Creative learning is “an experimental, destabilizing force; it questions starting points and opens up the outcome of the curriculum” (Sefton-Green, Thomson, Jona, and Bresler, 2011, p.2). Personality traits such as an openness to new experience, the ability to think divergently, curiosity, intrinsic motivation, and flexibility are often associated with creative individuals.

Creative learning is interactive, incorporating discussion, social context, sensitivity to others, and the acquisition and improvement of literacy skills; it is contextual and has a sense of purpose and this cannot be based in small unit of testable knowledge (p.41).

As educators, we have to consider whether existing educational cultures encourage or impede imaginative and creative learning. To what extent is enough time given for students to reflect, envision, dream, and think in imaginative ways? Newton and Newton (2016) assert that creativity does not exist in a vacuum and that educational systems need to support the professional development opportunities for teachers who wish to integrate creative teaching and learning strategies. They also explain that while creative thinking is connected to problem solving and practical wisdom, the moral and ethical context must also be considered. Artificial Intelligence, for example, has the creative potential to help in many ways but the deleterious impact of AI on the world of work and human interactions must also be considered. Mezirow and associates (2012) noted that individuals who possess emotional intelligence skills such as self-awareness and empathy are more likely to be open to perspective taking and transformative learning experiences:

Effective participation in discourse and in transformative learning requires emotional maturity—awareness, empathy, and control—what Goleman (1998) called ‘emotional intelligence’—knowing and managing one’s emotions, motivating oneself, recognizing emotions in others, and handling relationships as well as clear thinking. (p.79).

Heather Bruce (2011) notes that empathy should be extended to “nonhuman species, for the soil, water, and air in which all of life depend” (p. 13). She further asserts that:

English teachers specialize in questions of vision, values, ethical understanding…Our expertise in addressing the aesthetic, ethical, and sociopolitical implications of the most pressing human concerns of our time enable us to reach toward and embrace environmental problems (pp. 13-14).

Magro and Piece (2011) observe that ecoliteracies and inter-textual studies are ways to encourage students to explore issues that impact their lives. Interdisciplinary approaches, experiential, and place-based learning are ways to encourage empathy for all living things. The setting of a literary work or a painting can be explored through a geographical, psychological, social, cultural, or historical lens. Nancy Mack (2012) wrote that artistic forms of expression can become “emotional rehearsals for the larger social experiences of our lives, culture, and epoch” (p. 21). Studying art and literature can encourage an exploration of emotion, logic, memories, thoughts, and perceptions. Integrating art with literature and non-fiction can help learners make emotional connections to the characters and experiences. Edward Taylor (2012) and Magro (2009) asserts that there are many factors that can influence creative and transformative learning: the readiness of the learner, personality dispositions, the skill and philosophy of the educator, learning styles, the philosophy and mission of a particular school, the subject area, and opportunity and access to teaching and learning resources. Cognitive rigidity or a “fixed mindset” (Dweck, 2011), Psychological, situational, and institutional barriers can impact the trajectory of any learning experiences. Artistic Ways of Knowing can help to remove some of these barriers and pave the way for engaging learning. Teaching styles are also important to consider if creative learning to occur. A teacher’s repertoire of pedagogical knowledge, intra and interpersonal skills, beliefs about the potential of creativity, a non-hierarchical teaching style, diverse multi-modal assessment approaches, a keen understanding of individual learners strengths and challenges, and the motivation to integrated artistic literacies in the classroom all may contribute to the constellation of the teaching/learning climate in the classroom.

Art Can Challenge, Disrupt, and Inspire

Artistic works have the capacity to act as catalysts and “disorienting dilemma” that challenge familiar frames of reference and that encourage individual to explore new perspectives and paradigms. Lipson Lawrence (2005) notes that artistic images can be a way to come to a deeper understanding of human emotion and life’s challenges—grief, fear, and the mysteries of the unknown. Engaging with art imaginatively, perceptually, affectively, and cognitively requires energy and motivation (Green, 1995, p.225). From the perspective of analytical psychology, personal transformation is a “fundamental change in one’s personality involving conjointly the resolution of a personal dilemma and the expansion of consciousness resulting in greater personality integration” (Boyd, 1989, p. 489 in Cranton, 1994, p. 55). Symbols, dreams, visual images, and archetypes relating to personal life journeys might be explored through creative artistic expression involving painting, bricolage, and poetry writing. Exploring artistic ways of expression has the potential to impact spiritual and affective learning. Lipson Lawrence (2005) notes that our experiences are animated by unconscious and conscious processes and a work of art, poem, or related text can awaken dormant emotions and thoughts. Mythic journeys often feature a hero’s quest in search of something of value that will improve life and bring peace to individuals and communities. In a similar way, each individual is on a journey and quest to understand, heal, gain insight, and find meaning in life experiences. Symbols are “pre-linguistic abstractions that emerge from archetypal material and almost always have an inherent meaning as well as a representational meaning” (William Scott Wallace, 2008, p.38). Alchemists recorded their work of turning metal into gold only in writing but they also created fabulous paintings that emerged from their dreams and visions; often these pictures featured symbols that had multi-layered meaning about the nature of good and evil. Lipson Lawrence suggests that an exploration of art (both in studying art and in creating art) learners can enrich their spiritual awareness.

Exploring the Symbols and Dreamscapes in Art can be a Catalyst for Learners to Explore their own Emotions, Dreams, and Intuitions

Creativity is any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain into a new one. And the definition of a creative person is someone whose thoughts or actions change a domain or establish a new one (M. Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p.20)

Randee Lipson Lawrence (2008) explains that words alone can be limiting and limited while artistic expression can invite discussion and exploration. Paired together, words and art can be a catalyst for further creative learning opportunities. He refers to Ortega y Gasset’s (1975) insights: “one might say whereas language speaks to use of things, merely alluding to them, act actualized them” (p.147 in Lawrence, 2008, p. 67). Artistic ways of knowing can enrich students’ learning experiences, self-expression, and sense of agency. They can help learners see the world in ways that “deepen understanding of self, others, and the world around us”. Edmund O’Sullivan (2002) explains that we are at a “terminal phase” in life; we are living in a time that demands critical solutions to overpopulation, climate change, the exploitation of natural resources, natural and human made catastrophes, conflict and war, and toxic globalization that benefits a few and disenfranchises so many. Our sense of belonging to a larger stable community is eroded in the maelstrom of keeping up with change and mobility. “The wisdom of all our current educational ventures in the 20^th century serves the needs of a dysfunctional industrial system. “(p.92). O’Sullivan writes that “we are living in a period of the earth’s history that is incredibly turbulent and in the epoch in which there are violent processes of change that challenge us at all energy levels imaginable. The pathos of being the human being today is that we have it within our power to make life extinct on this planet” (p. 9.). Too often, education “has been compromised by the vision and values of the market” and “in a world economy governed by profit motives, there is no place for the cultivation and nourishment of the spiritual life” (p.10).

A visionary and transformative education would embrace a new path and encourage a reverence for all life forms. It would encourage “all members of the planet to enter communities of greater inclusion. Inclusion does not entail a violation of boundaries. Inclusion means an openness to variety and difference” (p.9). Unbridled materialism could, in effect, lead to a “dulling” of the imagination. Ptak (2006) notes that strip malls, cathedrals of mass consumption and big box stores, on-line commerce, and the “gigabyte” culture threatens the creative promise and potential of vibrant and diverse communities around the world (Ptak, 2006, p.3) A transformative vision of education would encourage hope and creative problem solving. The global world we are living in challenges educators to be life-long learners who are attuned to the events, issues, and dramatic changes that are emblematic of a new epoch.

I take the view that literacy is a life-widening process rather than a life-limiting one. Reading and writing must be situated in ways that are meaningful to students and that are complemented with new forms of literacy that evolve from daily transactions between individuals, their local communities, and events in the larger global context. Literacy extends to a critical awareness of political, social, cultural, and environmental events. Along these lines, Romano (2000) emphasizes the importance of students having opportunities to read varied texts and then to create multi-genre texts that may include literary works, digital, audio, traditional graphics, and multi-media texts. Projects can integrate diaries, photographs, letters, in addition to traditional forms of writing such as exposition, description, persuasion, and narration. Literacies must also extend to imaginative and creative realms of thinking, feeling, and acting:

[Transformative] pedagogical approaches encourage self-expression, reflection, democratic discourse, and experiential learning that can result in perspective-taking and new creative insights into problem solving. Storytelling; artistic creations such as collage, sculpture, and painting; creative writing; student generated discussions; and open-ended questioning form an interest-driven curriculum where students have ‘choice and voice.’ (Magro, 2018, p.197).

Learning and literacy are interconnected; they involve a continual discovery of new understandings and ways of knowing. Literacy texts can cross disciplines, genres, and pedagogical models. In previous works, I describe various theoretical perspectives in critical literacy, arts-based education, creativity, and transformative theories of learning (Magro, 2021, 2022). Three approaches to creative literacy learning (detailed in this chapter) are particular important for Artistic Ways of Knowing (AWOK). These include storytelling; the integration of art and emotional literacy in teaching English language arts and related disciplines; and, interdisciplinary and ethnographic approaches to literacy learning. These approaches can provide opportunities for students and teachers alike to be researchers, artists, and co-learners in a dynamic process that extends beyond the classroom. Learning is both self-directed and collaborative; it is dynamic, cyclical, and taps into emotional, spiritual, cognitive, and imaginative domains of learning. Literacy can be conceptualized as a set of social practices that are often, but not always mediated by written and oral texts (Barton and Hamilton, 1998, p.9).Mass media and new technologies have changed the way that individuals develop literacy skills as they navigate between school, work, home, and community. Mathematical systems, musical notation, maps, and other non-text based images point to multi-layered and integrated literacy and language systems. There is a permeability of boundaries and a movement between boundaries so that literacy form and function are always changing and evolving.

The outcomes of art education are far wider than learning how to create or see the objects populating museums and galleries. The world at large is a potential source of delight and a rich source of meaning if one views it within an aesthetic frame of reference. It can be said that each subject studied in schools affords the student a distinctive window or frame through which the world can be viewed (Elliot Eisner, The Arts and the Creation of Mind, 2002, p.44).

Creative teaching and learning repertoires that highlight interdisciplinary and panoramic ways of knowing can be a catalyst to creative learning. In their overview of Scotland’s government initiatives to integrate creativity into all levels and curricula I education, Das Dewhurst, and Gray (2011) write about the importance of teaching for creativity with a focus on helping learners develop metacognitive abilities and skills that include: intrinsic motivation, self-direction, collaboration, flexibility, confidence, curiosity, intentionality, risk- taking and resilience. (p.5). The ability to cope with ambiguity and solve unpredictable problems with innovative are also skills associated with creativity. They refer to the UNESCO (2001) “four pillars of learning”: Learning to do; Learning to be; Learning to know; and, Learning to live together as a foundation for meaningful learning across the educational levels. Elements of creative learning can be woven throughout these learning pillars throughout an imaginative and meaningful curriculum.

Das, Dewhurst, and Gray (2011) also highlight the value of interdisciplinary thinking with a focus on integrating cognitive, social, artistic, and affective ways of knowing. Visual literacy and artistic ways of knowing can also be viewed as a way to strengthen “interpretive reasoning.” There are many consistencies and parallels between holistic learning, creative learning, multimodal literacy development, and teaching for wisdom, creativity, and intelligence (Sternberg, 2016; Sternberg and Lubart, 1995). Research studies have found that regardless of their socio-economic background, positive learning achievements were associated with learners who experienced higher levels of arts education (Bamford, 2006). Another finding from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH, 2011) found that “the practice of teaching across classroom subjects in tandem with the arts, have been yielding some particularly promising results in multiple-careers-learning how to ‘re-design’ oneself, locate oneself in a job market, and choose and fashion the relevant education and training”(PCAH, 2011, p. 2 cited in Das, Dewhurst, and Gray, 2011). Creativity also extends beyond the expressive arts forms (drama, music, visual art, etc.) to include a way of thinking that can lead to purposeful (and ethical) imaginative originality. Das, Dewhurst, and Gray explain that:

Originality can be expressed through writing, painting, building, thinking or even simply doing things in a manner that is distinct. The school of thought which explored the concept in relation to intellect claimed that divergent thinking is more capable of fostering creativity in a learning context. According to these researchers (Hudson, 1966), closed reasoning or convergent thinking, despite producing conventional responses, lacks the power of imagination and therefore less capable of school reform and closing the achievement gap (Das et al. 2011, p. 8).

Teaching from an interdisciplinary stance is also more than making “cross curricular links” between subjects. It involves a holistic and panoramic analysis where ideas from one or more fields of study/disciplines inform and illuminate other subject areas. Interdisciplinary thinking involves analysis, synthesis, and creative integration. An emphasis is placed on facilitating deeper level meaningful connections between and among disciplines (Das, Dewhurst, and Gray, 2011, p.8). Drawing upon John Dewey’s (1916) criticisms about the narrow classification of educational disciplines, theorists such as Hugh Petrie (1992) moved from the “essentially fragmented and sometimes disjointed nature of disciplinarity to the additive nature of multi-disciplinary engagement, the integrative aspect of interdisciplinarity and ‘the idea of the desirability of the integration of knowledge into some meaningful whole’ exemplified by transdisciplinarity” (Hugh, 1992, cited in Das, Dewhurst, and Gray, 2011, p. 8).

Inviting diverse viewpoints and deepening the way individuals perceive, interpret, and understand their life worlds speaks to a major focal point in teaching and learning today. Meaningful interdisciplinary connections between subject areas to understand a holistic perspective can be made between social studies and art, for example when studying the Civil War in the United States (1861-1865). Forms of dress worn by people from different social classes could be analyzed; literature (fiction and non-fiction) can be studied to inform the social, cultural, and historical context of the civil war. Art, music, literature, and history can be meaningfully integrated to form a holistic understanding of a particular period in history (Eisner, 2002, p. 40). Interdisciplinary learning can be encouraged with thematic explorations of topics like metamorphosis. Ovid’s “Metamorphosis” can be explored through art images that depict the myths and legends featuring mythic beings, human, and deities that transform their shapes and physical identities within supernatural contexts that convey existential messages. Written in 8^th CE, Ovid’s poem is written in 15 books or parts; each book chronicles the history of the world and interprets the creation of the universe (until the death of Julius Caesar in 44 BC) as a complex series of minor and major transformations. Ovid’s epic poem inspired artists and writers who provided their interpretation of famous myths such as “Daedalus and Icarus,” “Orpheus and Eurydice “and “Echo and Narcissus” in unique ways. Eisner explains further interdisciplinary connections that explore Metamorphosis:

The concept of metamorphosis, for example, can be illustrated through the way a melody is altered in a symphony, by the ways in which the demographics of an area change the terrain, and by changes in a sequence of images in film or photography. Metamorphosis is a biological concept, but its manifestations can be located in a host of other domains and disciplines. An integrated curriculum can help students see the connection between biological meaning and other meanings, artistic and nonartistic, that pertain to the concept.

Artists such as Maria Sybilla Meriam and Ernst Haeckel produced exceptional artistic images of the process of metamorphosis where caterpillars are transformed into butterflies. These art images can complement scientific and literary depictions of transformation. Problem solving and “intelligent reflection” (Dewey, 1932 cited in Eisner, 2002, p. 43) explored through the lens of multiple disciplines could be used in experiential learning projects. Designing a new park or playground could be a catalyst to perspective taking and interdisciplinary study. Eisner (2002) emphasizes that “the visual arts make visible aspects of the world—for example, the expressive qualities—in ways that other forms of vision do not. The ability to see the world in this way is no small accomplishment. It engenders meanings and qualities of experience that are intrinsically satisfying and significant” (pp. 42-43).

In the Grey Olive-Grove a Small Brown Bird by Sappho

“My Song” by Rabindranath Tagore