Thinking Skills and Creativity 5 (2010) 83–96

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Thinking Skills and Creativity

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Disrupting the taken for granted: Exploring urban teacher candidateexperiences in aesthetic education

Catherine Franklin ∗, Gretchen JohnsonThe City College of the City University of New York, School of Education, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 15 January 2008Received in revised form 6 February 2010Accepted 7 February 2010Available online 13 February 2010

Keywords:CreativityTeacher educationAesthetic inquiry

a b s t r a c t

This qualitative research study explores the experiences of a diverse group of teacher can-didates engaging in an aesthetic line of inquiry within two teacher preparation courses at alarge, public urban university in New York City. Research centered on the question “Whatare the different ways that teacher candidates make meaning from a collaborative aestheticexperience and how do they connect this experience to their emerging practice and beliefsas educators?” Emerging findings from this study of two classes, one at the undergraduatelevel and one at the graduate level, suggest that engagement in an aesthetic line of inquirycan become an invaluable “touchstone” for exploring and/or challenging teacher candidatenotions about the role of art in their future practice as educators.

Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The arts have been a neglected part of the American educational landscape. At both the national and local levels, reportson educational policy and reform seldom address issues related to the importance of aesthetic education, or the educativevalue of engagement in inquiry-based experiences. In their need to comply with federal educational mandates, publicschool administrators and teachers, particularly in low-income urban environments, too often place excessive emphasisand pressure on: students’ test-taking performances, scripted curriculum that is limited to basic skill driven competenciesand school report card ratings driven by yearly progress on standardized test scores (Au, 2007; Fuller, Wright, Gesicki, &Kang, 2007; Kozol, 2005).

This research study explores how aesthetic lines of inquiry can become an invaluable “touchstone” for exploring and/orchallenging new educators’ notions about quality educational practice. By engaging with a work of art through an experien-tially based approach within a teacher preparation program, new urban educators at both the undergraduate and graduatelevels began to explore the power of aesthetic education in their own lives and emerging practice. During their semester-long course, they recognized the role that the arts could play in the teaching-learning process and the power of the arts toengage students on social, emotional and cognitive levels. They began to envision ways of designing rich and challengingcurricular experiences that could actively engage their students with the world around them.

1. Description of study

This research study took place at The City College of New York (CCNY). This is one of the senior colleges in the nation’slargest public university system, City University of New York (CUNY) and one of the most diverse college campuses in theUnited States. CUNY is the major source of teachers for the New York City public school system (Michelli, 2005). CCNY’s

∗ Corresponding author at: The City College of the City University of New York, School of Education, North Academic Center 6/207B, Convent Avenue,138th St., New York, NY 10031, USA. Tel.: +1 212 650 6258; fax: +1 212 650 8672.

E-mail addresses: cfranklin@ccny.cuny.edu (C. Franklin), gjohnson@ccny.cuny.edu (G. Johnson).

1871-1871/$ – see front matter. Published by Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.tsc.2010.02.001

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School of Education is the primary pipeline for those teaching in Harlem, Northern Manhattan, and the South Bronx. Asizeable number of our teacher candidates are immigrants (e.g., Caribbean nations) and/or are the first in their family toattend college. Those who are native New Yorkers tend to be individuals who earned their high school diploma in the city’spublic school system.

Since 2002, CCNY’s School of Education has participated in the “Teacher Education Collaborative” at the Lincoln CenterInstitute (LCI) (Lincoln Center Institute, 2000), a major non-profit arts institution. This initiative views engagement in thearts as an essential component in the teaching and learning process. CCNY faculty members collaborate with LCI teachingartists to construct an aesthetic encounter with a work of art within their respective courses so as to:

enable education students to understand the power of artworks as objects of study, participate in and come to utilizean experiential process for teaching artworks, and bring the way of knowing the world that experiences in the artsprovide into the general curriculum of the classroom. (Lincoln Center Institute, 2003, p. 2)

Participating classes engage in a hands-on workshop experience co-led by a faculty member and a LCI teaching artist.Classes attend a live performance around a particular work of art in one of the following areas: dance, drama, music;inter/trans-disciplinary works of arts are also included (e.g., opera). The repertoire reflects works of art that can be richlymined for exploration; each year the program represents a “broad spectrum of . . . classical and modern works” (Holzer,2005, p. 3) from a variety of different cultures around the world.

Since the spring of 2003, we (the authors of this study) had been engaged with LCI experiences and had co-designednumerous workshops with teaching artists for the courses we taught within the Childhood Education Department at CCNY’sSchool of Education. Furthermore, Professor Franklin had served as campus coordinator for this collaborative project and hadworked closely with LCI staff and participating faculty within the School of Education. Professor Johnson had led seminarsand interactive workshops on practices within aesthetic education for interested staff and faculty at CCNY. In addition, weboth served on the planning committee that regularly met with LCI staff to further develop the breadth and scope of thiswork in all the departments within the School of Education. Experienced as teacher educators and practiced in the work ofaesthetic education, we had strong familiarity with both the research setting and the phenomenon we intended to studywithin our respective courses.

We designed a collaborative research study that endeavored to examine the meanings that our students were makingfrom these planned encounters with a work of art. By working as a team, we could compare two data sets so as to enlargethe field of our inquiry. With formal approval from our Institutional Review Board, we conducted this work within twodesignated semester-long courses.

Certain criteria were used to select the two classes for this study. We decided to choose an undergraduate and a graduateclass of pre-service teachers, so that we might see if there were notable differences between the data collected from thesetwo academic levels. We identified courses that we had taught previously and that were scheduled for the same semester.Finally, we wanted our courses to share the same art form and performance. This would help us to explore how differentlines of inquiry can be constructed, for different courses, at both undergraduate and graduate levels, around the same work ofart. Our criteria lead us to identify Professor Franklin’s undergraduate course “Inquiry in Education” and Professor Johnson’sgraduate course “Curriculum Development in Childhood Education”. LCI had scheduled both courses to attend the sametheatrical performance “Secret History: Journeys Abroad, Journeys Within”.

1.1. Participants

In total, this research studied 51 teacher candidates. 24 undergraduates were enrolled in Professor Franklin’s class “Inquiryin Education” and 27 graduate students were enrolled in Professor Johnson’s class “Curriculum Development in ChildhoodEducation”. The majority of these participants were pre-service teachers (i.e., candidates seeking initial teacher certificationfor grades 1–6). At the graduate level, there were a few who took the course as novice teachers (less than 3 years of classroomteaching experience) or non-matriculating students intending to enter programs of teacher preparation.

1.2. Purpose of study

Situated within the paradigm of qualitative interpretive research (Donmoyer, 2001), this case study provides a “thickdescription” (Geertz, 1973) of two educational experiences in aesthetic education within different teacher preparationcourses—one at the undergraduate level and the other at the graduate level. By describing these endeavors, we hope to com-municate “personal practical knowledge” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) about how the idiosyncratic nature of the classroomexperience and its encounter with aesthetic education practices can trigger teacher candidate reflections about their work asnew educators. Specifically, we explored the following question: What are the different ways that teacher candidates makemeaning from a collaborative aesthetic experience and how do they connect this experience to their emerging practiceand beliefs as educators? By closely examining the multiple experiences expressed from two different classes of teachercandidates engaged in explorations with the same dramatic work of art, we sought to develop a clearer sense of how thiswork helps to trigger and/or challenge teacher candidate notions about quality educational practice in diverse classroomsettings.

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Along with wanting to examine the meanings that our teacher candidates made toward their encounter with a particularwork of art, we also sought to gain new and deeper insights with our own practice for using the arts and aesthetic educationwithin our teacher education courses. As practitioner researchers (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; Fine, 1998; Somekh, 1995;Zeichner & Noffke, 2001), we taught the classes in question and collaborated to make sense of the idiosyncratic nature ofthe classroom experience within this defined context.

1.3. Research design

Primary data sources included: survey, field observations and notes, teacher candidate interviews, and classroom artifacts.Survey data collected at the start of the semester explored such questions as the extent to which the arts were part of theparticipants’ elementary school experience and the extent to which they recall attending cultural events and/or going oneducational fieldtrips. Field observations and notes included our respective observations as teacher researchers of emergingquestions, interactions and conversations as participants interacted in the natural setting of our teacher education course andmore specifically within the pre-show workshop setting that we had constructed with our teaching artist and the discussionwe held with our students after the performance. Teacher candidate interviews explored anecdotal family experiences andthe role that the arts played with parents, siblings and extended family. Classroom artifacts included material generatedfrom the workshop experience (e.g., brainstorming lists, collaborative stories) and material generated after the performance(e.g., written reflections, notes from post-show discussions). This paper explores some of the data collected in this study.

Through the process of writing up the data and meeting regularly with one another to discuss our emerging findings, wetook note of how teacher candidates described their encounter with the workshop experience, the meanings they made fromthe live theatrical performance and the subsequent personal connections they shared about their life experiences. Duringthe reiterative process involved in “reflective analysis” (Gall, Gall & Borg, 2005) which entailed looking for patterns in eachset of data, creating general categories and then collapsing some categories and expanding upon others, we searched forthematic comparisons within and between our respective sets of classroom data.

We provide here two detailed accounts of our classroom experiences (one at the undergraduate level and one at thegraduate level) and we give examples from our various data sources. In places, we also provide detailed vignettes. Asmentioned earlier, we rely on our role as practitioner researchers and our extensive teaching experience to analyze andinterpret data through the on-going process of reflective analysis. Multiple data sources generated within our classrooms andthe process of engaging in comparative analysis between two data sets led to the emergence of inductively conceived themes(Merriam, 2001). This process allowed for strong degrees of contextual completeness, triangulation, and trustworthiness.

2. Theoretical framework and perspective

Educational philosopher, Maxine Greene, has placed aesthetic education as an essential component to quality classroompractice. Through an active inquiry approach which recognizes “perception, cognition, affect, and the imagination as waysof knowing” (Noppe-Brandon & Holzer, 2001), students engage in an educated encounter with a selected art form (dance,drama, music) or an inter/trans-disciplinary work of art (opera). The process can be described as

an intentional undertaking designed to nurture appreciative, reflective, cultural, participatory engagements with thearts by enabling learners to notice what is there to be noticed, and to lend works of art their lives in such a way thatthey can achieve them as variously meaningful. When this happens, new connections are made in experience: newpatterns are formed, new vistas are opened. (Greene, 2001, p. 6)

It is within this perspective that we frame our study. Being fully present to a work of art and its limitless world ofpossibilities, meanings, and imagination, ultimately spurs sustained inquiry, self-reflection, and wide-awakeness. Withinthis space, there can develop a sense of empathy, aesthetic values and an ever-changing consideration of what it means tobe human (White, 2007). According to Csikszentmihalyi (1997) aesthetic encounters have three main benefits:

• They make everyday life more rich, interesting, and enjoyable by sharpening sensory skills.• They enrich experience by presenting emotionally salient stimuli in a way that allows the audience to understand and

respond.• They help make sense of the basic randomness of existence by giving shape to experience.

To this end, classroom research studies particularly in early childhood and the earlier years of elementary school, havenoted how the classroom teacher’s use of the arts and practices in aesthetic education can trigger productive changes instudents’ sense of agency and intrinsic motivation (Short, Kauffman, & Kahn, 2000). Aesthetic approaches in teaching andlearning can potentially work to spur the child’s power of scrutiny, curiosity, intrigue and even more broadly can deepenhis/her understanding and appreciation of the world and everyday life. For example, Carger (2004) noted how artisticexperiences helped children engage in a bilingual classroom, Ehrenworth (2003) observed how the aesthetic experiencein the visual arts worked to engage students in the art of writing, Johnson (2007) examined linkages with early languagedevelopment and the child’s engagement in aesthetic experiences, Sidelnick and Svoboda (2000) noted a link with usingmultiple ways to represent knowledge and an increase in student motivation levels. In yet another direction, Machado-

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Casas (2004) explored how the use of the arts and aesthetic experiences in home based and school-related projects createdproductive channels for adult–child collaboration and communication within her classroom setting, Kemple and Johnson(2002) examined the use of aesthetic responses to nature in the primary grades. These studies suggest that deliberateintegration of the arts and use of aesthetic education practices in classrooms help to promote student creativity and deepacademic understandings (Eisner, 1998).

Curiously, teacher preparation programs that engage teacher candidates in multiple encounters with the arts and aestheticeducation remain the exception and not the rule. Ostorga (2006) studied a group of pre-service teachers engaging in thecomplex experience of developing into reflective practitioners. She concludes with the observation that the goal of teachereducation needs to be a transformative endeavor designed to challenge naïve conceptions of effective classroom practice.Active engagement in the arts and aesthetic education can help facilitate this transformative process. Cuero and Crim (2008)examined pre-service teachers’ use of aesthetic representations for a culminating course assignment and noted its educativevalue in challenging individuals to conceptualize and portray their literacy and pedagogical understandings.

Few studies explore pre-service teachers’ actual engagement in a directed line of aesthetic inquiry around a work of art.Two recent studies have endeavored to do so. One explores a fieldwork experience; the other examines a course experience.Love (2006) studied the internship experience of a group of teacher candidates engaged with teachers and their students inshared lines of aesthetic musical inquiry in an early childhood school. Samson (2005) examined a class of teacher candidatesand their reflections based on their collaborative experiences engaging in a theatrical line of inquiry. In both instances, thefledging educators took notice of how the visiting teaching artists democratically guided the workshop experience so thatit was shaped by all participants and the researchers reflected upon how this helped the pre-service teachers to see moreand experience more when they attended their respective performances—one was a blue grass concert, the other was amodern theatrical performance. In both studies engagement in the aesthetic encounter appeared to help teacher candidatesto reflect deeply upon their practice as future educators and enabled them to articulate reasons for using works of art andpractices in aesthetic education within their future classroom practice.

While these research studies at both the elementary and university level show the educative power of arts and aestheticeducation within the classroom experience, federal educational policy on high stakes tests has narrowed the curriculum to aplace where the arts are in danger of being sidelined at many of our nation’s schools, particularly those schools in urban areaswith low-income student populations (Perkins-Gough, 2004). Our collaborative research study in our respective teachereducation classes builds upon previous work and endeavors to show how multiple lines of inquiry can be constructed froma singular work of art (a theatrical performance) to trigger reflective conversations around classroom practice, teaching formeaning, and the power of aesthetic education.

3. The work of art

Both of our designated classes attended the theatrical performance entitled “Secret History: Journeys Abroad, JourneysWithin”. This work of art conceived by the theatre director, playwright and artist, Ping Chong1 dramatically portrayedvarious stories of immigration to the United States. Chong crafted these story lines based on thematic patterns and detailsthat emerged from his interviews of recent immigrants and their personal histories; this work became a series of piecesin his Undesirable Elements project.2 One of the prevailing themes was the varied motivations for leaving one’s native land(e.g., political upheaval, plummeting economy, human rights violations). In the Lincoln Center production of Secret Historydirected and written by Ping Chong and Leyla Mordirzadeh in collaboration with Talvin Wilks and Sara Zatz, three individualvoices spoke about their respective experiences in different regions of the world—North America, Asia and Africa (LincolnCenter Institute, 2005). Playing themselves in dramatic form, three performers portrayed their own immigrant experiencesas a Mexican teenager, an exiled Iranian, and a Liberian refugee. Two other actors were part of this ensemble; they served asnarrators, translators and choral voices. Seated on chairs positioned in a simple half circle on the stage, with an occasionalimage projected on a large white screen behind them, these actors dramatically revealed both the personal challenge ofliving between cultures and the more universal journey of the immigrant experience.

Before their encounter with Secret History, teacher candidates engaged in extensive preparatory experiences that inves-tigated themes and artistic elements within this theatrical production. The workshop was designed to approximate thecreative process used by playwright Ping Chong and his actor-collaborators when they combined personal stories into adramatic work of art that aesthetically integrated such elements as language, movement, physical setting, and costumingto further the shape, intensity and meaning of this staged narrative. As part of its creative structure, Secret History portraysthe individual story while at the same time illuminating the shared story within the human experience. To this end, thepre-performance workshops created a similar challenge for its participants. Teacher candidates engaged in lines of inquirythat placed attention on the pulling apart and bringing together of personal narratives, using the concept of “home” as aplace where stories can live, and making theatrical choices that provided safety for the actors and deep engagement for theaudience. Contributing in part to their aesthetic education, the workshops created opportunities for teacher candidates to

1 http://www.pingchong.org Ping Cong & Company: History [on-line]. Available: http://www.pingchong.org/company.html Accessed: 10/7/09.2 http://www.undesirableelements.org Production History: 1992–2006 [on-line]. Available: http://www.undesirableelements.org/pages/production-

history.html Accessed: 10/7/09.

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Table 1International origin—undergraduate class.

Region of the world Name of country Number of students

Caribbean Dominican Republic 2Puerto Rico 1

South America Bolivia 1Ecuador 2Peru 1

Asia Bangladesh 1Japan 1Pakistan 1

develop insight into the choices artists make when engaged in a creative process and to experience what it is like to interpretaspects of their own life histories in imaginative and compelling ways.

4. Course experience

This section describes our two classes as teacher candidates participated in their preparatory workshop, attended theperformance of Secret History, and reflected upon the experience. As researchers, we identified themes that emerged fromour respective courses and selected student reflections that were representative of these themes. For privacy reasons, weused pseudonyms to closely reflect the individual’s actual name and his/her cultural background. In Section 5, we synthesizethe themes that emerged from our separate course findings and we draw connections among them.

Interestingly, Secret History was not the only arts-related activity that occurred in either course. Both classes had alsoengaged in the visual arts. In the undergraduate class, Prof. Franklin took the students during a class session to a guidedtour at the Museum of Arts and Design. In the graduate class, Prof. Johnson constructed an assignment where students wererequired to visit a Matisse exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; in another class session they discussed the art ofRomare Bearden. For the purpose of our research study, however, we decided to focus on the theatrical performance ofSecret History as this was a work of art that both groups had experienced.

4.1. An undergraduate inquiry class investigates Secret History

“Inquiry in Education” is one of the first education courses that undergraduates take. This course is “a study of the inquiryprocess . . . students carry out their own investigations and relate inquiry to elementary curriculum and children’s learning”(CCNY, 2005–2007 Undergraduate Bulletin, p. 181). Within this segment of the study, there were 24 students. Fourteenstudents were born in the United States; the majority of whom were born in New York City. Ten students were born outsidethe United States. The chart above lists the geographic regions for those who were born internationally (Table 1).

While classes at CCNY are typically diverse with people from all over the world, the educational background of the stu-dents is surprisingly similar. Based on a survey distributed at the beginning of the term, the majority of the undergraduatescharacterized their elementary school experiences as being either “academic” or “traditional”. In subsequent class conver-sations, they described how their elementary classrooms were largely teacher-directed and textbook driven. It was fromthis pedagogical frame of reference that the undergraduates participated in an exploratory workshop and engaged with thesubsequent theatrical production of Secret History.

4.1.1. Developing a line of inquiry with a teaching artistIn a 2 hr planning session, the teaching artist from Lincoln Center and I, Professor Franklin, met to develop a line of

inquiry around Ping Chong’s Secret History. After reading background material on the artist, watching video excerpts of theperformance, and discussing the work itself, we constructed the following line of inquiry:

• In Secret History how does Ping Chong pull apart and bring together distinct and personal narratives about one’s history?

This question provided direction for how the teaching artist and I began to craft the 90 min workshop experience formy undergraduates. We wanted to creatively approximate the challenges that the artist faced in developing his own workof art. Our plan of action consisted of a series of warm-up activities that served as scaffolding tasks to a final performancepiece. In their culminating workshop experience, the undergraduates collaborated in small groups to create, choreographand perform a dramatic piece that depicted individual and collective narratives connected to a prevailing theme withinSecret History.

4.1.2. The workshop experienceThis workshop took place at one of the large studio rooms at Lincoln Center and had four parts. Seats were arranged in a

large half circle to accommodate the 24 members of our class. In preparation for the warm-up activities, the teaching artist

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and I generated pairs of contrasting words (e.g., isolation–togetherness, insider–otherness,) that related to the prevailingthemes that had been noted during our planning session of Secret History.

4.1.2.1. Brainstorm activity. In this brainstorm activity, the undergraduates called out words that came to mind when theyheard certain terms. For instance, when I announced the word “isolation”, they responded by calling out “alienation”,“damnation”, “empty”. With the word “togetherness”, they called out such descriptors as “solidarity”, “friendship”, and“collaboration”. During this time, the teaching artist worked as scribe and documented these responses on a large posterpaper. This part of the workshop took about 10 min.

4.1.2.2. Creating tableaus. Afterward, the class divided in half and the teaching artist and I challenged the students to phys-ically portray the contrasting meanings of “isolation” and “togetherness” in a group formation. The class gamely took turnspresenting as a work in progress their conceptual tableaus (an arrangement of figures frozen in position and presentedwithout any words). When one group shared, the others participated as audience members and took close notice of thecreative choices that were at play. This took about 20 min.

4.1.2.3. Making connections. So as to make a link between the narrative topics explored in Secret History and those that mighthave been experienced by the undergraduates, I asked the class as a whole to construct a list of current social problems.Without going into detail or discussion, they called out a number of issues. The teaching artist wrote their responses onanother sheet of poster paper.

• Poverty• Immigration• Single parenting• Stereotypes• Discrimination• Gender roles• Domestic violence• Addiction• Disasters

The teaching artist and I had developed this activity as a way to show how people can come to feel like outsiders withintheir own societies and communities. We then asked the undergraduates to think about a time in their own lives when theyfelt like an outsider. They wrote a quick reflection about their experience(s) on an index card. Afterward, they paired with aclassmate and shared highlights about these events in their lives. This took about 20 min.

4.1.2.4. Creative synthesis. These partnerships of two were then combined with another pair of classmates. Working in groupsof four, the undergraduates combined selected parts of their personal stories to construct a collective, narrative experience.They had a limited amount of time to craft their ideas into a mini-drama. Each group then “performed” their theatricalpiece and afterward the “audience” (the classmates, the teaching artist and I) engaged in discussion about the artisticchoices used in each performance. For instance one group, composed of members born internationally (i.e., Bangladesh,Bolivia, Pakistan, Peru), choreographed their poignant entry into American culture. They began their theatrical piece byintroducing themselves in their first language; each spoke with ease, fluency and pride. They then introduced themselvesagain, but this time they communicated as though they were beginners at speaking American English. Each tapped theirlinguistic memories to remember a troublesome word, phrase, and/or idiom that had been difficult to use, pronounce orunderstand. In this second introduction, each projected a sense of stress, awkwardness and disconnection. Each of the sixgroups choreographed a collective piece that was inspired by this theme of being an outsider (e.g., being misunderstood,being lost). This part of the workshop took about 40 min.

Directly following this workshop experience, the undergraduates went to the performance of Secret History. Afterwardthey wrote reflections about either the workshop and/or the performance. I gave them some ideas about how they mightstructure their reflections (e.g., What decisions were made in staging this performance? How did the workshop connect tothe performance? What meanings did you make from this performance?), but I emphasized that these were only suggestions.

4.1.3. Reflections about the experienceUpon analyzing these written reflections, I noticed how the undergraduates had constructed powerful meanings from

the theatrical performance. Three themes were particularly evident: tapping into one’s own life experience, noticing artisticchoices, and making classroom connections.

4.1.3.1. Tapping into one’s own life experience. A number of the students, particularly those who were immigrants, madepersonal connections with the performance and their own journey as immigrants. Their reflections noted such challengesas dealing with: language acquisition, social isolation, and stereotypes.

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I remember when I first came to the United States and how I felt like an outsider in a strange land. I didn’t speakEnglish and couldn’t understand my peers when I first started school. It was awful to feel alone. At times, I wished Icould have turned into a turtle so that I could hide inside my shell. (Consuelo)

When I came to this country, I found a big barrier was the language. I also left my family in Ecuador, making me feelalone. I had to find new friends and a new home. All my life was over there. (Mariana)

I can imagine how hard it would have been for the Iranian woman in the performance to endure the cultural rejectionfrom the Americans since she came here. I, myself had a similar experience when I first came to America. Peopleconstantly attempted to take advantage of me, assuming that I did not know anything. Because I am Japanese, manypeople think that I am naïve and well off, which in fact I am not. (Keiko)

Even for those who were not immigrants, this performance resonated with their own experiences with living in a poorneighborhood or confronting societal stereotypes.

The performers were people who at one point in their lives were discriminated against because of their cultures. Theystruggled to get to the point in their life where they are now. As minorities we are discriminated and our obstaclesin life are hard. . . . I can connect to the performers . . . because sometimes you go into these expensive clothingdepartment stores and you are constantly being followed because you are of a minority culture. (Ana)

Whether it was the struggle of acquiring a new language, finding new friends, creating a new home, or dealing withdiscrimination, the undergraduates tapped into personal memories as a way to actively engage with, and reflect upon, thisperformance. These memories – some distant, some more recent – were activated by the exploratory activities within thepre-performance workshop. This then created a point of entry for the undergraduates as they encountered the theatricalproduction of Secret History.

4.1.3.2. Noticing artistic choices. In their reflections, the class took notice of artistic choices within the play. They noted,in particular, how the actors did not wear formal costumes; instead the members of the cast wore casual, contemporaryclothing. This was far different from their prior experiences with theatrical performances.

The actors were dressed in comfortable clothes just as if they had walked out of their homes to meet friends. I think thatthe idea of not having a costume was to give the audience a sense of the actor’s personality and a sense of belongingto their own story. (Gina)

The cast had regular everyday clothes on and they looked like someone you might have been on the train with thatmorning. This added to the play’s message, because it showed that regardless of where people are from, they are stillpeople. Their stories make them different, but their clothing made them the same as any of us. (Lenny)

During the performance, I was actually contemplating who picked the costumes. For a while I thought they might justwear their everyday clothes because they were telling the story of themselves. But then I thought maybe they wearthe same thing for every show, even though it is their own clothes. The program did not say anything about a costumedesigner, and there is usually a note of one if there is one. (Ellen)

The absence of this artistic choice – costume design – disrupted the undergraduates’ notions of what they had cometo expect from staged drama. While some made the observation of how the actors wore “comfortable clothes” and werenot wearing costumes, others explored how the deliberate choice of everyday clothes was in fact the costume. For thesestudents, this artistic choice helped to “blend” or bridge the gap between the staged performance and the reality of life asexperienced in our diverse nation.

4.1.3.3. Making classroom connections. This performance also triggered reflections with classroom practice. Although theseundergraduates were at the initial stages of their sequence of required education courses, they were becoming aware of thesignificance in: the learning environment, student background, and curriculum.

As future teachers we need to understand that . . . many children come from different backgrounds where theirlanguage is not English. Those children need to feel that they have an active part in their education. I will . . . give themspecial attention so they are not left outside. (Mariana)

To teach children from diverse backgrounds, we have to understand them. If the student just moved here, they mightfeel shy and would not participate in the classroom. We have to give them some time and at the same time encouragethem. We have to see that other students become friends with that child so he or she does not feel left out. (Jannatun)

As a future teacher, I hope that my experiences as an immigrant can help me better understand the needs of newimmigrant children. (Consuelo)

As a teacher I plan to teach about different cultures so that my students wouldn’t make fun of what they don’tunderstand. (Cindy)

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Table 2International origin—graduate class.

Region of the world Name of country

Asia Mainland ChinaVietnam

Caribbean Dominican RepublicJamaica

South America BrazilGuyana

In their reflections about the actors as immigrants, the undergraduates envisioned their own role as teachers interactingwith a diverse group of children. Whether they saw their future students as being in the process of learning English as anacquired language and/or struggling to belong to a new classroom setting, these new educators indicated that they plannedto take a proactive approach to “understand the needs of new immigrant children” and to design curriculum for the purposeof developing children’s understanding and sensitivity about other cultures.

4.2. A graduate curriculum class investigates Secret History

“Curriculum Development in Childhood Education II” is one of the last classes that graduate students take in their pro-gram. It is required of all graduate education majors working toward initial or professional teacher certification in ChildhoodEducation (grades 1–6) in New York State. This course is “an examination of principles that underlie curriculum develop-ment; planning appropriate goals, sequencing content, and implementing teaching/learning strategies” (CCNY, 2005–2007Graduate Bulletin, p. 112). The course focuses on the development of curriculum units, assessment of student learning andplanning differentiated instruction, all in the context of building classroom community. As a final project, students constructan integrated unit that includes an arts component.

Within this segment of the study, there were 27 students in the class. Most were initial certification students. The classwas scheduled to attend a performance of Secret History about two-thirds of the way through the semester.

4.2.1. Developing a line of inquiry with a teaching artistIn a 2 hr planning session, the teaching artist and I, Professor Johnson, explored the work of art and developed a line

of inquiry which informed our approach to how we went about constructing the workshop experience for the graduatestudents. This line of inquiry had two parts to it.

• How does Ping Chong create a home in which the stories of Secret History can live?• What stylistic choices does Ping Chong make to create an environment that is safe for the participants and theatrically

engaging to the audience?

4.2.2. Pre-workshop experienceAs the instructor, I used this line of inquiry to design a series of pre-workshop experiences that I then carried out in my

classroom, beginning two class sessions before the day of the final workshop and performance. This was necessary as theteaching artist and I had constructed a workshop experience that required the graduate students to use their own personalnarratives about home as a jumping off point for creating a theatrical piece. They needed to have the narrative written beforethe actual workshop.

4.2.2.1. Classroom survey. I began the inquiry of Secret History by briefly introducing the work of art and having the studentsfill out a survey on their own background. This survey was adapted from the background form that Ping Chong used whenselecting actors for his dramatic work. The survey items included such questions as: How many siblings are in your family?Where were you born? What is the origin of your name? This activity took about 20 min.

4.2.2.2. Sharing aggregated data. I then compiled this class data and shared the survey results with the class. We found outthat members of the class had between 0 and 22 siblings. We also discovered that students were born in a number of differentplaces. Those who were born outside the United States, came from Asia, the Caribbean and South America (Table 2).

Those who were U.S. born came from different regions of the country. While most were born in New York, there were anumber who were born in other parts of the country (Table 3).

The survey had asked participants to identify the origin of their name. Results included characters from classical literatureor operas, grandparents and great grandparents, soap opera protagonists, actors, and “the donut shop where Mom andGrandpa stopped after the milk route.” With the help of the class, the results were grouped (e.g., family members/ancestors,leaders/role models, popular culture and meaningful places). Sharing the aggregated results of this class survey produced avibrant discussion on culture. This was particularly evident when the class shared their cultural traditions for how they selectnames for their children. For example, a student from Vietnam was surprised at the number of classmates whose names

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Table 3National origin—graduate class.

Region of the United States Name of state

MidAtlantic DelawareNew YorkPennsylvania

Midwest IllinoisMichigan

South GeorgiaWest coast California

came from relatives or from popular culture. He explained that in his culture parents chose a name based on what kind ofa person they hoped their child would become. His name meant brave/heroic and he knew of a person whose name meant“convincing orator.” This discussion inspired one of my students to adapt this same activity in her 5th grade classroom. Lateron, she wrote back to report that:

I had my students write their own story behind their names as part of our writing unit “Getting to Know All AboutUs”. We even stood around in a circle and shared our short stories behind our names.” (Madeleine)

The background survey also asked other questions. What language did they speak growing up as a child? Did they haveany memories of feeling like an outsider in their native or adopted culture? I reminded the students these same questionshad been asked as part of the selection process for the actors in Secret History. This discussion took about 30 min.

4.2.2.3. Written assignment. In anticipation of the upcoming LCI workshop where they were going to develop a mini-dramabased on collective remembrances of home, I then gave the graduate students the task of writing a response to the followingquestions:

• What do you remember about your home (country, city, street, neighborhood)? Include as many sensory details as possible.What would one see, touch, taste, smell there?

• Think of a person from that home environment. Describe the person, your relationship to him/her and an event thatincluded this person. The event can be as simple as shelling peas, washing the dishes, fixing the car.

• Has this place always been your home? If not, what other homes have you had? What do you remember about thoseplaces? (Include sensory detail where possible.)

The story excerpts that follow provide examples of the detail and diversity of these remembrances:

The most impressive thing in my neighborhood is the river that runs through the mountain. It is in a small remotevillage. My house is located in front of the river. During the summer I can smell the fragrance of jasmine plantedaround the river and in the front porch of my house. In the evening many people bring their clothes and wash themat the river. While these people wash their clothes on one side of the river, children are playing and swimming on theother side. (Yue Lin)

I remember a street called Flamboyant Avenue. It is called by this name because it is planted in both sides withflamboyant trees. These trees cover the street forming a canopy or a tunnel. The most beautiful street you could eversee in the month of August because this is the month when these trees bloom . . . the canopy or tunnel turns redbecause of their flowers. But that is not all. The smell makes you think you died and went to heaven . . . My friend andI used to play with the flower stems. These stems felt like silk in our fingers and were sweet when tasted. (Frederico)

I remember hearing a lot of sirens at night. My room faced the street, so I could always hear what was going on outside,the cars, the people, and the stray cats. One sound that I will always remember is the ice cream truck, the Mr. Softeetruck . . . all summer long and early winter, at noon and at night, we could hear Mr. Softee as it strolled along my block.(Wu)

Students also recalled a person from their home environment.

A fixture in the kitchen was always my father. He always sat on the bench next to the back door. He was the officialgreeter and informer. He always waited for people to close the door and make sure it was done right with the properclick. He sat and smoked the days away, reading the paper, tending the fire and shouting bits of instruction. Zorra, thedog found her favorite place to be in front of the door, at Dad’s feet. (Jeannette)

I collected and read these stories, noting their diverse settings (e.g., urban, rural, different parts of the world). I used thisinformation and the data collected from the background survey to create diverse student groups for the following week’sworkshop at LCI. I placed each student in an assigned group of four or five classmates.

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4.2.3. The workshop experienceAt the workshop session at LCI, which took place 90 min before the performance, the graduate students in their pre-

arranged groups, shared their remembrances of home and created a synthesis of their stories. This experience of sharingpersonal narratives triggered unexpected channels of conversation. While each group was purposely arranged to reflecta wide range of individual diversity, some students later noted family similarities and others noted broad differences inbackgrounds. Each group then faced the challenge of creating a mini-drama of 3–5 min that included some part of eachgroup member’s recollection of home. The challenge they faced in working collaboratively and creatively was evident inlater reflections, such as:

I was able to appreciate how difficult it is to choreograph a reading and make it theatrical without killing it. It is noteasy to collaborate with others on presenting personal accounts of peoples’ lives, giving it style . . . (Isabel)

After each ensemble performed their collective piece, we examined the artistic choices made by each group. For instance,one group synthesized their remembrances of home into a poem which included a wide array of sensory detail such ascolors, smells and sounds of home. Another interspersed their individual reflections of parents, grandparents or neighborswith a choral verse “This is a person I remember well when I think of home.” As a class, we noted how each group madeartistic choices in portraying both their collective and individual memories. Immediately following this workshop, the classsaw the performance of Secret History.

4.2.4. Reflections about the experienceAfter the performance, I gave the students a follow-up reflective assignment that was due in 2 weeks. The first part

of the assignment asked students to select and respond to two of the following elements of theater: physical setting andprops, sounds and music, costumes, gestures/movements of the actors. The second part asked students to make connec-tions between the workshop/performance of Secret History and their own life as well as to teaching children from diversebackgrounds and abilities.

The first part of this assignment served the purpose of having students take notice of the various elements that make upa theatrical performance and the choices that the artist had made. The second part provided information on the possibleinfluence of aesthetic education activities on these mostly pre-service teachers’ beliefs and practices.

In their reflections, I noted four themes that regularly appeared. These were: recognition of progressive pedagogy, deepsensitivity toward children, self-reflection about their own life stories, and deep awareness of the lives of their peers.

4.2.4.1. Recognizing the significance of progressive pedagogy. A number of graduate students expressed a motivation toinclude progressive practices that they had experienced in their workshop activities into their present or future elementaryclassrooms. A few who were classroom teachers had done so already.

When you choose to highlight parts of your life journey, you can engage other people to learn from and be interestedin what led you to be who you are. Our own workshop also showed this. I am going to try to use these ideas in mysmall-group advisory group activities during the final period of each day with 7th graders at my school. (Steve)

The urgency of educating all children is a reoccurring theme. I embrace this notion with open arms. Secret History’sactors extended this concept wholeheartedly by candidly sharing their intense journeys. I will eventually have adifficult student. When that day comes, I will try to remember that they too have had their own secret journey. (Amy)

It makes me realize that what I consider the mundane happenings of my life may actually be a rich source of informationto teach children, not only about my native land but also about the similarities that may exist between their experiencesand mine. It also reminds me that I have to be aware of the various life experiences that children bring to school, whichmake it difficult for them to act in a manner that we could call normal. Thus I may in various situations have to dealwith including matters that address the negatives and positives of their experiences. (Ismael)

Since this was a curriculum class that had differentiated instruction as an important topic, I was gratified to note howstudents were making connections to the classroom experience.

4.2.4.2. Developing deep sensitivity toward children. Based on their reflections, the graduate students expressed a deep senseof awareness about the importance of creating a classroom environment where children had opportunities to tell their ownlife stories.

It caused me to reflect on the ways in which I value and respect diversity. Children need to tell their stories and childrenneed to ask their families to tell their stories. Through these stories, one can learn to respect each other’s differencesand begin to lessen the many preconceived notions we have about people. (Kirsten)

I realized how important it is for me to allow my students to express who they are, for each individual is unique intheir own way. I must give my students the opportunity to figure out where they fit in, while supporting them in theirsearch. It is critical to let each individual tell his/her own story. (Daniel)

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This piece from Lincoln Center has informed my teaching by re-centering my attention. Everyone has a story . . .everyone has something to offer, something I can learn from, and something worth listening to . . . the lives mystudents share with me each day are so vast and so different, yet each one has a story. (Jeannette)

One of the key goals in our curriculum course was learning the importance of building classroom community. Based onan analysis of their reflections, I began to note how the students expressed a certain disposition and desire to create a senseof community within their own classrooms, e.g., learning to respect differences, recognizing the importance of telling andsharing individual stories.

4.2.4.3. Thinking about their own life stories. In their reflections, the graduate students recognized defining events and sig-nificant people in their own lives. They began to think about the events and people who made them who they are today andhelped them feel that they belong. The students expressed an awareness of how their own life experiences compared withothers.

I began to think about the moments that really shaped who I am today and the people who played an important rolein making me feel like I belong. (Jeanine)

Our families shape our lives. One of the characters faced hardships and struggles; however, my family made it so thatI would not have to endure hardships or many struggles. I feel that I missed out on seeing what I could overcome.(Susan)

I tried to think of what was occurring in my own life . . . while these people were transitioning countries, I was playingin my sandbox in my backyard. (Jeannette)

The experience at the theatre reminds me of some of the stories I have heard growing up in my own family and theirlife as immigrants in the United States. (Joe)

4.2.4.4. Becoming aware of “the other”. Several students commented that the workshop activities provided them with anopportunity to get to know their colleagues in a more multi-dimensional way. While some had known each other for severalyears from the same graduate program, previous courses, or their work site, this was an experience where they came toknow a different dimension of their colleagues’ lives.

The workshop allowed me to get a small glimpse into the lives of my classmates . . . I learned that some people in ourclass are very much like me and that some are completely different. There are several other people in our class whohad similar childhoods as me. On the other hand, there are people in our class from other countries that have livedextremely different lives than I have. (Barbara)

The group that I worked with during the workshop had a very strong common point: our families had a very importantrole in our lives. What surprised me is the fact that all of us grew up in different locations, even different countries andin spite of that we held the same affection and memories of fun, smells, food, siblings, and family. The performancealso arouses feelings of having similar experiences with people that I never imagine I would have anything in common.(Maria)

The pre-performance workshop helped to deepen student understanding in so many ways. Students noted patterns intheir life histories and the ways that their families had been able to support them in their development. They compared theirown home experiences with those of others. Through this process, the graduate students were “stepping outside” (Smith,2006) their own cultural comfort zones and taking journeys to get to know their classmates in new ways. In addition, theydiscussed such instructional strategies as deep noticing and involving children in collaborative creative work.

5. Discussion and conclusion

In their preparatory encounter with a theatrical work of art, new educators reflected upon and took notice of their ownand others’ personal stories and histories. Collaborating in small groups within their respective workshops, undergraduateand graduate students began to see how the ordinary and the extraordinary can fuel imagination and engender a work ofart; seemingly mundane happenings in life can trigger the making of powerful stories. As one student wrote:

The workshop gave me a chance to reflect on my own “history”, and to interpret it in a creative way for others toexperience. I would have never thought that my own scattered memories could be performed in such a way that theywere larger than my spoken/written word. (Erin)

The workshop experience appeared to provide a powerful lens in students’ encounter with Secret History, the theatricalwork of art. Working with a teaching artist in the undergraduate workshop, Prof. Franklin tailored the workshop aroundthemes related to the experience of feeling like outsiders to the dominant culture. After participating in the workshop andthen attending this theatrical production, students reflected upon the full experience (workshop and performance). By wayof connecting to Secret History, many wrote on their challenging memories as an immigrant (e.g., language issues, culture

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conflict) and/or on socio-cultural experiences that made them feel alienated within mainstream society (e.g., discrimination,poverty).

Working with a teaching artist in her graduate workshop, Prof. Johnson designed the workshop around a line of inquiryconnected to the notion of home and the various narratives within Secret History. In the workshop experience, she hadstudents in heterogeneous groups collaborate together to dramatically portray “remembrances of home”. In their subsequentreflections about Secret History, graduate students appeared to connect to this drama through themes such as “belonging”,“family”, and “journey”.

In their respective pre-performance workshops Professors Franklin and Johnson constructed distinct lines of inquiry thatendeavored to prepare and situate students to the theatrical production of Secret History. In so doing, the two groups ofstudents appeared to experience the same work of art in different ways. The workshop experience appeared to create apowerful context that subsequently framed, narrowed and focused the two groups’ sustained encounter with the theatricalwork of art.

What meanings would students make to this theatrical production without the preparatory workshop experience? Com-munal experiences in lines of aesthetic inquiry endeavor to provide a dynamic and informed entry point for experiencinga particular work of art. This approach stands in marked contrast to the all too familiar memory of rushed, disconnected,and isolated cultural events that occasionally take place in the academic year. In one class discussion, a student recalled achildhood situation when a teacher neither prepared the class for a musical event nor discussed the performance afterward.

They brought an orchestra to the school . . . and I remember watching and being amazed at how everything fit together.How did they know what to do? I remember that very vividly. They had these pieces of paper in front of them. I didn’teven know that it was sheet music. . . . We didn’t talk about the music afterwards. We just went back to our classrooms. . . and we did whatever it was we were doing before the concert. (Nancy)

While Nancy’s encounter with the orchestra had the potential of being a strong educative experience, it became insteada disconnected school event. Though she was able to experience the music and was in fact intrigued with how “everythingfit together”, she was not helped to develop deeper meaning from the encounter. Furthermore, there appeared to be anassumption that art, in this case music, was essentially tangential to the learning and teaching process.

By way of comparison, this research study endeavored to provide a “thick description” (Geertz, 1973) detailing theefforts made by two professors and their teaching artists to prepare their classes for an encounter with a work of art. Afterthe theatrical production, time was then spent in the subsequent class session to share and discuss the experience. In bothinstances, the work of art became a pivotal, not an incidental, part of the course experience.

For instance in the inquiry course, undergraduates discussed the artistic choices made in Secret History. They noted theactors’ ordinary street clothes and how this helped to make the drama seem more realistic. One student remarked how theactors looked “like someone you might have been on the train with that morning”. This discussion helped to unpack certainassumptions that students had developed about theatrical conventions.

Undergraduates made connections with how this work of art helped them to envision the world within an urban class-room. In their reflections about the characters portrayed in Secret History and their diverse experiences with American cultureand schools, undergraduates became initially preoccupied with ways to help the immigrant child “fit into” the classroomsetting. This provided a segue for some class members to discuss the power of diversity and the need to build inclusivelearning environments where all are learners and where all feel welcomed and actively engaged.

The graduate students discussed how Secret History provided them with a lens for understanding the child in the contextof the home, the community and the classroom. Furthermore, they recognized how the pedagogical approaches used withinthe workshop experience could be adapted to the elementary classroom. They noted that the need to tell stories and revealpersonal journeys is important and can help children further develop their sense of self and engagement with the world.

In our respective experience teaching two separate courses, at two separate academic levels, and working with twodifferent teaching artists to design distinct lines of inquiry for the exploratory workshop, we noted how the same work ofart can be richly “mined” in many different ways. In this instance, Secret History provided “an inexhaustible resource”(Lincoln Center Institute, 2007, p. 3) for investigation, reflection and learning. Whether it was an undergraduate tak-ing her first education course, a graduate student finishing up course work, or a beginning teacher pursuing a master’sdegree, these individuals were actively engaged in an aesthetic endeavor. Through this experience, the students par-ticipated in “an intentional undertaking” (Greene, 2001, p. 6) so as to fully encounter and engage with a particularwork of art.

Communal experiences in aesthetic education have the potential to expand developing teachers’ identities to includean important role for the arts in their own lives and to expand their view of good teaching to include the development ofcreativity, self expression and imagination in children. Aesthetic education can be an important strategy for developing theclassroom into a community of learners, especially when a school has a diverse student population, and for encouragingchildren to express their individual voices.

This research study was somewhat limited by its focus on exploring how an encounter with a work of art could challengeteacher candidates’ notions about the classroom, their emerging teaching practice, and their developing beliefs as educators.This is not to imply that time devoted to art in schools, whether in K-12 settings or at the university level, serves onlya utilitarian purpose. Encounters with works of art can hold boundless and transformative possibilities for the engagedindividual. For example, the lines of inquiry that shaped the workshop experiences for these teacher candidates resulted in

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many opportunities for them to develop their aesthetic appreciation for a particular work of art by exploring and reflectingon an artist’s creative process.

Through the process of conducting this research and sharing our own course experiences with one another, we havebegun to pay closer attention to the role of the arts and aesthetic education within our teacher education program. Weare inclined to believe that for the experience to have substantive weight, meaning, and transfer, teacher candidates needto have multiple encounters with the arts and aesthetic education over the course of their undergraduate and graduateschool study. This would enable us to design a research study focused on exploring the experiences with a set of studentsengaged in art and aesthetic education practices over a period of time. This longitudinal study would then examine the waysthat students make meaning (or build upon previous meanings) with each new encounter with a work of art. For anotherlongitudinal study, we plan to interview a selection of teachers who have graduated from our teacher education program toexplore their current beliefs, practices, and challenges in using the arts within their respective urban elementary classroom.

This study contributes to the fields of teacher education, aesthetic education, and urban education. By exploring theexperiences of a diverse group of teacher candidates in undergraduate and graduate courses, who engaged in aesthetic linesof inquiry within a teacher preparation program at a large, public, urban university, the power of the arts became evident.Through their involvement in the experiential workshop that drew from the prevailing themes of the staged performanceof Secret History, our teacher candidates became “participatory and articulate parts in a community in the making” (Greene,1995, p. 132). This then became an invaluable “touchstone” throughout the semester. The interactive nature of the workshopexperience disrupted the taken for granted notion of what one expects to see and do in the classroom. Well prepared toexperience the theatrical performance of Secret History, students made connections between their own workshop experienceand the immigrant stories they heard on stage. In essence, both the workshop and the performance worked to teach how“reality is multiple perspectives and that the construction of it is never complete, there is always more” (Greene, pp. 130–131).Through this experience in aesthetic education within our respective courses, our students began to envision their futurerole as educators and the necessity for constructing with their students participatory encounters with the arts.

Acknowledgement

This work was supported (in part) by a grant from The City University of New York PSC-CUNY Research Award Program.

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