On Becoming a Professor: The Use of Paintings as a Method for Self-Study
Keywords:
Arts-based self-study, Teacher Education, PaintingAbstract
Art is an expression of the self and its creation assists in the process of reflectively analyzing one’s own practice. Through this arts-based self-study project of myself as an instructor of the course Narrative Perspectives on Exceptionalities: Cultural and Ethical Issues, I created a series of paintings that supported the understanding of my own pedagogical practice. The importance of this study has to do with the empathic understanding of teaching teachers and the critical examination of myself beginning my career as an independent instructor in higher education. In order to delineate the nature of this self-study project, Arts-Based Educational Research (Barone, 2001) will first be delineated along with the current practices in arts-based self-study projects, accompanied by connections to theoretical understandings of teaching and learning. The discussion will conclude with an examination of the paintings as they relate to my own practice and the suppositions that I have drawn from this process.