Rendering, Writing, and Living Curriculum: Experiences of the Master Builder at Work

Abstract

In this study, a practicing elementary art teacher enacts the multiple imaginations rooted in a/r/tography while examining the complex experiences of the teacher engaged in new curricular work. A/r/tography is framed as a type of phenomenology of practice—a living and in-process inquiry—which accepts the artist/researcher/teacher as points of investigation which move toward understandings of teacher work that are critical, aesthetic, and personal. Using the arts-based practice of narrative and visual art practices of drawing, photography, and video, the artist/researcher/teacher, grounded in personal and public history, wonders about the possibility of creating curricular work with a new theory of curricular development—one in which the teacher and students develop curriculum made from the bricks at hand—much like the Lego master builder who builds from the world they inhabit, fashioning what is needed in the moment. Nine videos created in research are included as supplementary materials.