Improving my subjects knowledge through Huh: Part 1 — Art and Design

In my new role, I’m going to an enormous number of lessons outside of my own subject area. However, I often enter these lessons very much as a novice, unable to go beyond the generic pedagogy in terms of offering feedback. This doesn’t feel entirely satisfying.

Furthermore, when I was interviewed for my role, I was asked how I would cope moving away from my pretty evident love of History. Would I be able to tear myself away from it. My answer was that, of course it would be really difficult and I would never lose that love of my own subject. But I was really looking forward to diving into other subject areas and learning about those with as much vigour as I had the History. And that fundamentally I wanted teachers of all the different subjects to be as enthusiastic about their subject as I was about mine. I think it was an answer that definitely helped get me the job, given conversations thereafter.

This is where Mary Myatt and John Tomsett’s work, Huh, is valuable. Each chapter covers a conversation with a Head of Department of a different subject. I started dipping into it today with the first chapter, about Art and Design (with Jo Baker, a former Head of Art and now an Assistant Principal), and thought it might make an interesting occasional blog series to type up my own reflections and thoughts based on it, as I aim to improve my subjects knowledge (see what I did there?).

My own personal experience of Art

One thing that non-specialists do a lot is bring their own past history with a subject into the present. With any sort of practical subject, that’s a problem for me because I was generally hopeless at all of those subjects. I’ve always been a bit clumsy that’s probably led to some sort of internalised sense that I just can’t do practical things. I also perceive that I don’t have much sense of any sort of aesthetic either. I would say that my favourite piece of artwork is Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, but I think that’s more because of the historical angle to it than necessarily because of its’ artistic qualities.

Art and Design certainly was a subject I dropped like a hot potato when GCSE options rolled around. I remember at my school they used to the end of term report grades on the door or the back of the form classroom so you could all see what you’d got. What that made clear was that I was the worst person in my class in Art in Year 8. Probably not very encouraging.

I get very irritated with parents who tell me, ‘oh I was no good at History’ at the consultation evenings, and always fight against the same comments as it pertains to Maths. I need to keep reminding myself to check my own inclination to do this with subjects like Art and Technology.

Reflection #1: The challenge of ‘teaching’ students better than you

As a History teacher, I don’t think I’ve encountered many students who are better than me, in that moment, at the subject. I’ve taught successful Oxbridge, A* Sixth Form candidates and still, perhaps arrogantly, felt as though I probably knew a little more or could write as competently as they could. I could see that they could become better than me in the future, but that this wasn’t the case at that moment.

In this chapter, Jo talks about the fact that some of her Art students in GCSE and A-level classes are actually better than her at Art, and therefore her job becomes more coach than teacher. I’d not really considered that as a challenge, although given the range of specialisms that are possible in the subject, and the fact that it’s impossible master all of them, it should come as no surprise. If the teaching model becomes more about coaching, that probably changes what a lesson is going to look like really quite significantly. My pre-conceived model of ‘good teaching’ would need to adapt quite a bit to that.

Reflection #2: Building relationships really matters

I’ve blogged before about my scepticism regarding the old trope that it’s ‘all about relationships’. I don’t think that’s a terribly helpful phrase when supporting new teachers in a school who by definition won’t have those relationships yet, or where your behaviour policy as a school is carried too much by that phrase.

That being said, and again when I thought about it a little bit it seems a pretty obvious point, but Art teachers have got a pretty tricky job in nurturing relationships with their class to foster improvement, while keeping the class believing that it’s worth expending their time to do so. I don’t think as a History teacher I have to think quite as hard about that. In the book, Jo says that “If a student were writing a paragraph in English, it is quite a private matter and it takes some scrutiny before anyone can judge the quality of the writing; but the instant a student begins to draw, it is open for anyone to judge.” That’s a really insightful observation.

Certainly I’ve had students before who have become ‘defeatist’ when it comes to their History prospects at GCSE, and I’ve got to reflect on where I’ve gone wrong there. The brutal context of a mixed-attaining class of 30+ students where it’s pretty easy to see where you fall in the pecking order doesn’t help either. I need to ruminate on the implications of this insight for my own teaching a little more, but it’s useful to see this alternative perspective.

Reflection #3: Making the basics come alive is a real skill

One of the things I thought was really interesting was the attention to detail around how you create the conditions for creativity. I certainly was under no illusions that good Art just happened spontaneously — some knowledge of different techniques was obviously (to me) important, and spending time practicing those also clearly very helpful. What I appreciated was the example of the way in which a fairly mundane-looking task could be elevated into something remarkable.

Jo talks about how in Year 7 they begin with an image of a tube, a cube and a cylinder, and get the students to think about light source direction. The process helps the students to ‘see’ more clearly. Students can then start to produce their own works of art — maybe something apparently simple like a drawing of an apple, but with that knowledge of how light and dark work, it is transformed into something ‘more’.

I wish I’d been taught that.

What lessons can I take forward into future conversations with Art teachers in my school about teaching and learning?

• I’ve struggled to know what I’m looking for when I observe KS4 Art lessons in particular — I’m now going to look for the coaching, which provides a helpful frame of reference to think about what best practice might look like.
• I’m really interested in trying to ask students and teachers about how the skill development builds up over time. Can they talk about the process for improvement in the level of granularity discussed in the chapter?
• In a school with a trust-wide curriculum model, I’m interested in thinking what makes the Art curriculum in our school distinctive and particular to the expertise of our teachers, and the interests and heritage of our students.

This may seem like fairly basic observations to those more knowledgeable about this subject area (Art teacher or not) than me. I am a beginner — but it’s been helpful to start to build a frame of reference for what I see moving forward.