Felicity A. McArdle

A model for research-based State professional development policy

Federal, State and school-based professional development has become a multi-million dollar educational enterprise in Australia. Yet there are no published models for the making of systems-level professional development policy. Reviewing the literature on the characteristics of effective professional development programs, this paper proposes a six-phase model using research and theory for the selection, framing and evaluation of professional development programs in State educational systems. Using categories from Shulman, the model focuses on an effective analysis of teacher knowledge and due consideration of contexts for teacher learning. It argues for a research-based approach to professional development policy and implementation that balances ‘informed prescription’ with ‘informed professionalism’.

From balance to blasphemy: shifting metaphors for researching early childhood education

This paper seeks to make trouble for the metaphor of ‘balance’ in early childhood education research, drawing on the arguments of Gore (1993, 1997), Haraway (1991), McWilliam (1999), and a study (McArdle, 2001) that was designed to focus not only on teacher practice, but also to inquire into ways of speaking teacher practice. Our rationale for trouble‐making is to ask questions about the way that the imperative to ‘balance’ disallows the investigation of pedagogy as a more complex field of practice, one that is inevitably riddled with unresolved and unresolvable contradictions and tensions. To understand how it is possible to think structure as freedom, we are forced to refuse any neat distinction between what enables and what constrains (McWilliam, 1999). For Haraway (1991), inquiry is ‘blasphemous’ when it refuses to ‘see’ practices in terms of the possibility of resolution, focusing instead on the irony of their unresolvability.

The Arts and Staying Cool

Art can be messy. Teaching art can be messy. Teaching can be a messy process. The art of making a space for the playfulness and messiness of teaching requires courage and letting go. This article develops the verandah metaphor for re-thinking the place of the arts in education, in order to make space for some of the institutionalised ambivalence in arts education. Four sites of practice are examined, where contingencies come into play, and where current practices act to both enable and constrain our ways of working with young children. The article concludes with some new (messy) possibilities for seeing and thinking about arts education.

Multiculturalism, education for sustainable development (ESD) and the shifting discursive landscape of social inclusion

Australia has a long and sometimes turbulent relationship with the migrant Other. This paper examines a component of this relationship via the window of contemporary multicultural policy. The paper begins with an analysis of the political and social conditions that enabled a national and bipartisan policy of multiculturalism to emerge as formalised federal policy during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The paper re-problematises the influences that helped shape Australias articulation of race and ethnicity and argues that multiculturalism, within a post-September 11 environment, can no longer be framed solely within its traditional framework of social justice. The paper positions education for sustainable development (ESD) as an emerging discursive field that provides educators with an alternative road map for critiquing Australias fluid relationship with the migrant Other. By linking the tenets of multiculturalism with ESD, this paper suggests pre-service teacher educators are presented with a productive, and at the same time politically palatable, means for regaining pedagogical traction for a semi-dormant agenda of social inclusion.

Governing child care in neoliberal times: Discursive constructions of children as economic units and early childhood educators as investment brokers

At any given time in the field of early childhood, there are discourses at play, producing images of children, and these ways of seeing children might be competing, colliding and/or complementing each other. It is fairly widely accepted that in many countries there are versions of dominant discourses that shape and are shaped by current practices in the field of early childhood. These include (1) romantic notions of children running free and connecting with nature and (2) the ‘Bart Simpson’ version of the naughty, cute or savage child, untamed and in need of civilising. These are far from being the only two discursive constructions of children present in current policies and practices. If early childhood professionals are to be active in shaping and implementing policies that affect their work and workforce, it is important that they are aware of the forces at play. In this article, we point to another powerful discourse at play in the Australian context of early childhood education, the image of children as economic units: investments in the future. We show how a ‘moment of arising’ in contemporary policy contexts, dominated by neoliberal principles of reform and competition, has charged early childhood educators in Australia with the duties of a ‘broker’, ensuring that young children are worth the investment. In this article, we begin with (1) a key policy document in early childhood education in Australia and examine the discursive affordances which shape the document. Next, (2) we pinpoint the shifts in how the work of child care is perceived by interrogating this key policy document through a methodology of discursive analysis. We then turn attention (3) to the work of this policy document along with other discourses which directly affect images of children and the shaping role these have on the work of educators. We conclude with (4) a consideration of how the work of early childhood professionals has come to be shaped by this economic discourse, and how they are being required to both work within the policy imperatives and likely to resist this new demand of them.

First Literacies: Art, Creativity, Play, Constructive Meaning-Making

In this chapter art and play are considered children’s ‘first languages’, and therefore are placed at the centre of a curriculum for young children. Through art and play, children represent thought and action, which underpins their later understanding of the ‘second languages’ of reading, writing and numbering. Key issues such as image-making, graphic action, imagination, narrative, empathetic engagement and internalised thought are analysed as evidence of children’s construction of knowledge through art and play. Symbol making is the essence of being human. In children’s art and play, their symbol use captures their sensory modes in emotional and embodied ways, as children know their worlds and their place. The chapter addresses how children’s creation, manipulation and meaning making through engaged interaction with art materials are precursors to learning to read and write and, as first languages, should not be discarded nor replaced. The notion of creativity is explored in relation to pedagogical approaches. In a climate of testing regimes that emphasise ‘academic’ achievements, teachers are encouraged to not lose sight of imagination, pretence, constructive meaning making, holistic teaching and being a co-player and co-artist.

Drawing out critical thinking: testing the methodological value of drawing collaboratively

Early childhood research has long established that drawing is a central, and important activity for young children. Less common are investigations into the drawing activity of adults involved in early childhood. A team of adult early childhood researchers, with differing exposures and familiarities with drawing, experimented with intergenerational collaborative drawing with colleagues, students, family members and others, to explore the effectiveness of drawing as a research process and as an arts-based methodology. This testing prompted critical thinking into how drawing might facilitate research that involves young children, to operate in more communicable ways, and how research-focused drawings might occur in reference to a research project.

Imagining Social Justice

This article examines how creativity and the arts can assist teachers who teach from a social justice perspective, and how knowledge built through meaningful experiences of difference can make a difference. Just as imagining is central to visual arts practice, so too is the capacity to imagine a necessity for social justice. The authors ask what art can do, and how art can work, to bring about greater understandings and practices around social justice and the early years. A version of social justice that is built on a recognition of differences requires the capacity to be sensitive to the multiple voices that need to be heard, and the ability to imagine how lives might be lived differently. The arts can provide powerful means for thinking social justice, and the experiences described in this article can have application in addressing social justice in the professional preparation of prospective teachers. Three teacher educators who teach from a social justice perspective apply a collective biography methodology to their stories of art activity. Data was collected from three sites: transcripts, notes and digital images from a salon evening; ethnographic observations, field notes and artefacts from a school classroom; and a/r/tographic data generated in a university art classroom. The data was analysed using Foucault and the conceptual work of other post-structuralist philosophies in order to explore how aesthetic and creative artistic activity could excite imaginations and open up multiple possibilities for richer forms of educational outcomes — for teacher educators, their students and, ultimately, for young children.

Assessment by interview and portfolio in a Graduate School Program

Assessment plays an integral role in teaching and learning in higher education and teachers have a strong interest in debates and commentaries on assessment as and for learning. In a 1-year graduate entry teacher preparation program, the temptation is to emphasize assessment in an attempt to ensure students “cover” everything as part of a robust preparation for the profession. The risk is that, for students, assessment drives curriculum, and time spent in the completion of assignments is no guarantee of either effective learning or authentic preparation for teaching. Interviews as assessment provide an opportunity for a learning experience as well as an authentic task, since students will shortly be interviewing for employment in a “real world” situation. This paper reports on a project experimenting with interview panels as authentic assessment with preservice early childhood teachers. At the end of their first semester of study, students enrolled in the Graduate Diploma of Education program at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia were required to participate in a panel interview where they were graded by a panel made up of three faculty staff and one undergraduate student enrolled in the 4-year Bachelor of Education program. Students and panel members completed a questionnaire on their experience after the interview. Results indicated that both students and staff valued the experience and felt it was authentic. Results are discussed in terms of how the assessment interview and portfolio presentation supports graduating students in their preparation for employment interviews, and how this authentic assessment task has benefits for both students and teaching staff.

Children have rights: Lessons for teachers and the wider world

RésuméL’un des domaines-clés qui se prête à une réforme dans le monde entier relève de l’apprentissage et de la jouissance de leurs droits par les enfants. D’après la Convention des Droits de l’Enfant des Nations Unies (1990), l’éducation sur les droits de l’enfant devrait constituer un domaine-clé de chaque programme scolaire: en effet, plusieurs articles soulignent l’importance de l’éducation des enfants et une sensibilisation de l’opinion publique dans ce domaine. Pendant deux mois, Felicity McArdle (ancienne enseignante, actuellement en thèse à QUT), quelques bénévoles et la coordinatrice du projet, Barbara Piscitelli ont effectué des visites dans écoles dans la région de Brisbane pour discuter avec des enfants de 5 à 12 ans de leurs droits et les encourager à exprimer leurs opinions sur ces droits. Nous présentons ici la longue liste des idées évoquées par les enfants. Les propos des enfants sur leurs droits nous ont émus.ResumenUn área clave a reformar por todo el mundo es la participación de los niños en conocer sus derechos y vivirlos de manera activa. En la Convención de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos del Niño (1990) se transmite claramente el mensaje de que los derechos del niño deberían constituir una parte clave de todos los planes de estudio; de hecho, varios artículos acentúan la importancia de la educación no solo para niños sino también de programas de concienciación pública. Durante un periodo de dos meses, Felicity McArdle (antigua profesora y alumna de doctorado de la Universidad Tecnológica de Queensland), Raquel Redmond (artista), varios voluntarios y Barbara Piscitelli (ccordinadora del proyecto) visitaron cuatro colegios de la región de Brisbane para hablar con los niños de cinco a doce años sobre sus derechos y para animarlos a que describieran sus ideas sobres estos derechos. Los niños confeccionaron una extensa lista con sus pensamientos que presentamos aquí. Nos emocionamos mucho con las palabras que los niños usaron para hablar de sus derechos.