Research and resources

We are Auckland’s wharenui/home for authentic and meaningful engagement with art for all... 

Over the past couple of years, we’ve started working on expanding what we can offer for secondary students and their teachers, and this statement – part of the Gallery’s new purpose/values/vision statement, really resonates with much of our thinking over this time.

We are very conscious that the Gallery and its resources have a lot of possibility for use in schools, with potential applications across a broad range of subject areas. And we know from our stats that many schools aren’t currently accessing these resources – a shame for many reasons, not least because they’re owned by the very people not accessing them!

So, how do we support meaningful and authentic engagement with this institution and its resources, by students and teachers in a diverse range of subjects? Especially when our subject speciality sits most specifically in the Visual Arts and Art History?

What we know is that you can’t have authentic, meaningful engagement if you don’t know your audience well – what’s happening for them, the challenges they face, and the needs they have. If you can understand that, you’re at a point where you can potentially respond to real needs – and ideally you’ve got a great opportunity to collaborate together, and share your varied expertise in creating the best possible resources and experiences for all.

So as part of this push we undertook a small research project earlier this year. We asked 18 teachers from nine schools, in Visual Art, Art History, English and History, to tell us about their experiences and needs. We also shared specifically the types of resources we have available (for example, the art, our physical environment, our staffing expertise, resources like our research library) and asked what they imagined we could do with these that could best benefit their needs. Lots of interesting data came out of these conversations . . . and even more questions for us to follow up in the future! I’ll share more about our findings (and further questions) in the coming months, but wanted now to share a few, and what we’re doing now to start to respond in one area.

All the teachers we talked to:

• were enthusiastic about the possibilities of engaging with the Gallery and its resources in their subjects, and had lots of ideas about how meaningful connections could be made 
• needed to teach students visual analysis skills 
• said that help in doing this would be appreciated, as especially for English and History, this wasn’t something that teachers necessarily felt confident in doing 
• identified how an important focus in the classroom is in developing students’ research skills 
• found it difficult to locate accessible, reliable content that could be used to support students in this process; and in relation to art – a serious lack of information on New Zealand (and even international) art, artists and contexts 

In response to the last couple of points, we’ve started a process of developing some of this content, alongside support activities and resources that could be used or adapted for use by teachers both in the classroom and the Gallery.

For two upcoming collection shows on display at the Gallery during Term 4, 2014 and Term 1, 2015 (Age of Turmoil: Art in Germany 1900–1923 and The Social Life of Things) we’ve developed bibliographies of books, articles and websites students can access for further research. Alongside this, for Age of Turmoil, we’ve developed:

• a PDF with an overview of the show, plus detailed descriptions of a good number of the key works 
• two videos of the curator – one with him talking to a PowerPoint where he discusses the German context in the period 1900–1923, the other where he shares his curatorial process in developing the show (including photographic images of his planning process) 
• curriculum aligned worksheets tailored specifically for students of Art History, Visual Art, History and English 

We intend to continue developing resources for future shows, and we’ve got many more ideas for how we could develop these even further, but we’d love your thoughts to help with this. Feel free to let us know any feedback you have on these resources – how they work for you, how they could be improved, plus any other ideas you might have for other resources of any kind.

We’d also love to hear your feedback on the findings shared above – do these reflect your experiences? Is there more you’d like to share, or a different perspective not represented?

Feel free to respond in the comments section below, or email us at education@aucklandartgallery.govt.nz with your thoughts.

– Christa Napier-Robertson, Schools Programme Coordinator

ArtLinks conference – December 2013

A conference that explores cross-curricular programming for secondary students, linking in and through the Arts. An experience that is relevant to a person’s real needs and interests… by being driven by its audience. An experience that feels less like a blind date, and more something that really connects people... That’s what we were trying to create with ArtLinks. 

I’ve never worked on developing a conference before - and that’s probably one thing that got me through it - not knowing what I was going to be dealing with! The other, very important thing that got me through it was being able to collaborate with my colleague Lee Devenish, Assistant Head of Art from Waitakere College and chairperson of Auckland Secondary Art Teachers’ Association. I cannot over-emphasise how key it was being able to co-develop this event, from concept to fruition.

So I thought I would just share a bit about the conference - what happened and why, and how people responded. Also I’d like to share a bit of our ‘where to next’.

Why did we do this?

• For all the reasons identified above, and… 
• Because we passionately believe that learning in and around the Arts is a vital part of a rich, holistic education. Current trends in education don’t seem to support this in our school system. We want to ensure these valuable areas of learning are not only maintained, but continue to expand and develop, and enrich all other learning areas also. 
• Because we are keen to expand the ways in which we work with teachers in our Schools Programmes. We wish to expand programming and resource options, but feel it makes most sense to do this in conjunction with teachers. So it’s important to spend time face to face with people, and to make the most of opportunities to hear the triumphs, and challenges being faced. We hope that continuing to do this, and to work in conjunction with teachers as we pilot and prototype, will help ensure that our young people get the best possible access to top notch Arts education, and this fabulous public institution and its resources.

Development 

• It took six months to pull ArtLinks together. After completing it, someone casually mentioned it usually takes two years to do something like this, so no wonder it felt like it did! 

What did we do to try to make it as relevant as possible to teachers? 

• Limited the subject areas allowed to participate this year. We concentrated subject areas to the Arts, English and Media Studies, hoping that this would give us the critical mass required to ensure robust conversation. 
• Ensured it was by-and-large teachers selecting the topics, and running the majority of sessions. We developed starter ideas for teachers to vote on, or add to for others to vote on. The ultimate idea being that the most popular session topics, would be those that ran. To be honest, that didn’t work entirely. See below for more details. 
• Set parameters around how sessions could run - sessions had to be participatory and focused on people having ‘take home’ ideas – no dry lectures allowed!

What did we do to try to encourage real connections between people?

• We invited a diverse group of people, including inviting arts professionals - visual artists, filmmakers, writers, musician, actors, and those working within arts organisations. We were interested in the idea of building a strong sense of community between this group of (hopefully!) likeminded people. 
• We did an icebreaker. This involved forcing everyone to work in a changing group of other participants, creating tableaus of artworks on display. And there were winners! Fastest to complete, and best photo (see some samples above). It was definitely a conference highlight - everyone was enjoying themselves! 
• Imposing the participatory session model on everyone - it was all about talking (smiley face) We made sure there were lots of yummy things to eat, and time to enjoy them with others 

How do we plan to ensure the learning ‘lives on’? 

•  Everyone who participated wrote themselves a postcard identifying what they’d learnt, and what they were wanting to take forward into their work in the following year. We posted these out to people in the first weeks of the New Year. 
• We audio recorded most sessions. These will soon be added to the Gallery’s YouTube channel and website, along with any worksheets etc that our session developers included in their sessions. We’d love for everyone interested to be able to benefit from what was shared at ArtLinks

What were some of the results? How did people respond?

'I just want to say thank you, thank you for holding, co-creating, and co-facilitating one of the best conferences/gatherings I have ever attended.' – participant feedback

• The conference itself got a fantastic response from participants. We were thrilled that putting such a diverse group of people in the room together seemed to result in such rich, connecting conversations. 
• This was especially great because getting to the point of getting people in the room, was a hard job! Our initial idea of getting potential participants to vote on topics of interest just wasn’t possible, as we just weren’t able to get enough response to make that work. In the end, we went with contacting people through a variety of means and asking them individually if they had something they were passionate about and wanted to talk to. Some of these topics aligned with our suggested topics. I personally spent weeks and weeks emailing and ringing people to drum up interest. Really worth it in the end though - I met many very, very interesting and passionate people that I remain in contact with. 
• Working on an intimate scale - only 70 people total, worked very well. This gentle ‘hot-housing’ meant people really got to know each other 
• The participatory model - which ended up mostly involving the facilitator sharing their work within a particular area, establishing key questions for the group, then opening the floor up for these to be discussed and others to make links with their own experiences, seemed to work well for our participants Lee and I bringing our diverse backgrounds together in this initiative worked really well. We each were able to bring to the table our unique knowledge, skills and networks to create this eclectic, but connected programme. 

Where to next?

There is obviously an appetite for this - so Lee and I are keen to continue to offer the conference in the future. We both love the idea too that facilitators at future versions of this event might be sharing experiences that came out of conversations started during this particular event! So, we’ve reviewed the feedback, and are in the process of thinking about questions that have arisen, and what we can do with the event going forward.


A few questions of interest we are thinking through: 

• What subject areas do we involve in this? We really value the relationships that have been formed with the teachers participating this year, and would love to be able to continue with these. However, there are also teachers of a range of other subjects it would be great to involve too. We’re a small venue, so larger numbers wouldn’t be a possibility here. 
• Topics discussed during ArtLinks involved ways of thinking that could require changes to pedagogical approach and timetabling. How do we get school leaders involved in this conversation too, as people in a position to influence these things within their school settings? 
• How might creatives across the Humanities contribute further to something like this in future? We had two fantastic keynotes, John Pule (visual artist and writer) and Vincent Ward (painter and filmmaker) who generously shared their practice with us. Likewise, we had a ‘creative careers’ session where other attending creatives could talk about their practice also. However, we didn’t have the opportunity to involve participants in much experiencing of art forms. I had another participant offer to perform her work during one of the sessions, and I had to tell her there wasn’t enough space! Since experiencing the Arts is so vital in valuing both the Arts and Arts education, how do we ensure this is present? Especially when participants may not be ‘experts’ in the Arts, so may be experiencing some of these art forms for the first time. 
• Are there ways we can better support teachers in sustaining connections made, and in implementing ideas developed during the event? 
• How might this conference support Maori and Pacifica students in achieving educational success? What relationships does the conference have with issues around secondary-tertiary transitions? 

Whether you came along or not, feel free to comment on anything above, and offer your ideas in answering some of the questions Lee and I are currently considering.

- Christa Napier-Robertson, Schools Programme Coordinator

Schools Programmes - Engaging Teenagers with Art in a Gallery Context

Below is a blog I wrote almost a year ago, when our secondary programme was in its infancy. It developed out of a realisation that it was not just a case of pitching our existing programmes at a higher level, but actually writing something that was meaningful for students and their needs at that age. 

Making Sense of Art: What do you think? was born out of this inquiry, focus groups with secondary teachers, and a pilot version of the programme. It is a programme that consists of a debate (options are: 'This is relevant to today’s audience/this is not relevant to today’s audience' using historic works, 'This is art/this is not art' using contemporary NZ works, and 'This best represents NZ identity/this does not best show NZ identity') and a close analysis (which incorporates sketching, and descriptive language exercises. 

Hopefully this blog gives you a bit of insight into what goes into writing these programmes, and how we develop our practice to engage with new audiences! We are constantly evolving and developing this programme as we learn about this audience, and it has inspired our new programme For or Against: Debating Ideas and Concepts around Art.

How do I get them to talk to me?

For every group of students whose conversation is impossible to stop because all cylinders are firing with ideas, questions, problem solving and discussion; there is a group that can elude me. Where the metaphorical clock is ticking incredibly loudly and you are staring at the students, pulling out every trick in the book and being met with silence. Experiences like this got me wondering, how can I get these groups to talk? The problem was not the students, it was that I was unprepared on how to engage them, because they were not my usual audience. They were teenagers. The same old tricks just didn’t work for them.

What we offered these year 9-10s was a one-off Tour programme where we explore ways to talk about artwork, focusing on object, subject and context. I was anticipating the level of discussion and engagement I had experienced with younger children. I was wrong.

Aspects of the tour definitely worked, like:

• Independent looking around spaces of their choosing
• Historic artworks that had recognizable symbols, themes and techniques.
• They felt comfortable with works that had a clear narrative. 

What didn’t work was:

• Talking about artworks an an object (perhaps it was too obvious and felt like a trick question when I asked 'what do you notice?' or, 'what do you think the work is made of?') 
• Sharing with the whole group, and me (too much pressure)
• There seemed to be an underlying look they all had, which was ‘what has this got to do with me?’

If I’m really honest, in hindsight… probably not much of it had anything to do with them. Who can blame them for not wanting to talk about something they found irrelevant and disconnected from their daily lives? No one does.

However, I firmly and stubbornly believed that this age group could engage meaningfully with artwork. So what was I doing wrong?

After researching some tips and teaching strategies for teenagers (see below for links), I realized I had broken some cardinal rules.

1. This age group has very tight social spheres and is riddled with anxiety, and is therefore resistant to sharing with strangers (me).
2. Nina Simon says in her blog Museum 2.0, that you will have more success by creating opportunities for teens to share with their friends than by forcing them into uncomfortable situations. (Again, me, and a new environment)
3. It takes a lot of time to build a connection and rapport with this age group. They need to trust you. (They are only with me for an hour)
4. Topics they might ‘geek out’ on at home, they will not share with friends because fear of judgement. So even if they were really interested, peer approval trumps 'geeking out' in public.
5. Louanne Piccolo writes that they appreciate participating in decisions on what happens in a lesson, so they feel ownership of and commitment to the learning programme. Teenagers look for meaning and significance in their own lives in what they are taught, and teachers should capitalise on this and personalise their lesson with regards to what is happening in their lives.

So my entire lesson was a horribly awkward situation for them that was not personalised, current, quick paced or relevant. Based on my research, my new challenge was to create a fast-paced, fun, student-driven session that gave them independence to take control of what they were learning and why. And I had one hour to do it. And I was a complete stranger. Piece of cake!

Students taking part in our Secondary Pilot in 2013. We used what we learnt from our experiences with the students I talk about in this blog.

If they were anxious to voice their own opinions because of their growing fear of right and wrong, then I decided to give them opinions. If they didn’t want to talk to me, then I would get them to talk to each other and nominate a confident spokesperson. I would also flat out ask them what the gallery had to do with them, and try to personalise the gallery experience, bracing myself for whatever response.

When I finally got to put theory into practice, I was thrilled to see that I was on the right track. I incorporated half an hour of self-guided looking with their peers (no facilitation) to satisfy their growing desire for independence, and within the facilitated component the discussion and debates were student-driven. I took a back seat and talked much less.

The opinions I gave to them to debate in a contemporary space were 'this is art, this is not art'. Students had to pair up, choose an artwork, and argue both sides, coming up with three points as to why this was or was not a piece of art. In the Victorian art exhibition they argued, 'this is relevant, this is not relevant', where they argued the relevance of showing these artworks for today's visitors.

This approach gave them a safe space to voice opinions in a supportive environment where there was no right or wrong. It was informal, it was not a question-answer session. They got to take the reins on the direction of the lesson and the discussion. What I want to include next time is a close analysis to create a balance between broad looking across a range of works, and close looking at one artwork.

The revised programme felt like an opportunity for them to apply skills from their lives into a real world context. There was high level critical and creative thinking happening where they were making connections, synthesizing and evaluating their ideas and the ideas of their peers. They were justifying, debating, and seeing things from multiple perspectives. I can't wait to teach more with this age group. When you engage this age group meaningfully with art, it is a hugely satisfying and rewarding experience for everyone involved.

What is your experience teaching teenagers in a gallery or museum context?

Here are just a couple of useful sources I came across in my research:

Picolo, L. (2010). Teaching Teenagers: How to Motivate and Interest Them.

Simon, N ( July 2010). Teenagers and Social Participation.

Sale, J. (2011). Teenage Behaviour: Tips for Teachers.