The Swing of the Pendulum: The Urgency of Arts Education for Healing, Learning, and Wholeness PDF
Preview The Swing of the Pendulum: The Urgency of Arts Education for Healing, Learning, and Wholeness
The Swing of the Pendulum The Swing of the Pendulum The Urgency of Arts Education for Healing, Learning, and Wholeness Foreword by Judith M. Burton Edited by Diane Caracciolo and Courtney Lee Weida Ruth S. Ammon School of Education, Adelphi University, USA A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: 978-94-6351-222-0 (paperback) ISBN: 978-94-6351-223-7 (hardback) ISBN: 978-94-6351-224-4 (e-book) Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands https://www.sensepublishers.com/ Cover image: Painting by Imogen Weida Farr, age two, 2017 (personal collection of Courtney Weida) Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved © 2017 Sense Publishers No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. To Robert Caracciolo, a father who loved song and storytelling, and Robert “Robby” Chinosi, a teaching artist whose words and works endure. TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword ix Judith M. Burton Acknowledgements xv Introduction xvii Diane Caracciolo and Courtney Lee Weida 1. Memory, Memorial, and Mentorship: The Companionship of Literature and the Arts 1 Courtney Lee Weida and Jaime Chris Weida 2. Taller Than the Trees: The Promise of Nature Writing for Inspiring Change 7 Rob Linné and Shari Caton 3. What Ails Thee?: Stories That Strengthen 23 Leonore Russell 4. Caretakers of Warmth and Wonder: Creative Storytelling in Schools Today 29 Nancy Mellon 5. The Girl Who Loved Stories: Weaving Connections through Narrative 41 Dianne Schure 6. Homage to Orisha: The Expressive Power of Praise Poetry or Oriki 59 Dolapo Adeniji-Neill 7. The Possibility of Nurturing a Kernel of Creativity in a Child 69 Michael O’Loughlin 8. Back to the Future: Imagination and Creativity as the Heart of Subjectivity 87 Karen L. Lombardi 9. Balance Arises out of Movement and Stillness: Healing Observations of a Eurythmy Teacher 101 Maria Ver Eecke 10. The Third Space of Play 111 Sophie Alcock vii TABLE OF CONTENTS 11. This School Saved My Life: Therapeutic Possibilities for the Dramatic Arts in Education 125 Stephen Keith Sagarin 12. Transformation and Renewal through the Arts: The Life and Work of Deirdre Hurst du Prey 135 Diane Caracciolo viii JUDITH M. BURTON FOREWORD There are many moments of learning and healing in this lovely book: all of them made possible by narrative experiences in and through the arts. It does seem ironic though that at times of national or local disasters such as 911 or the depredations of hurricane Katrina the making of art in its many forms is evoked as central to public healing. Yet, and as this book so richly attests, arts practice is often marginalized in schools such that many young people are left bereft of the experiences and skills they need to make their words meaningful. The gaps in individual learners’ education are much less obvious, perhaps, but as we learn here, they may precipitate personal disasters of unimaginable distress and duration In this gripping set of narrative accounts, the culprits for this lacuna are many. A generalized ignorance and suspicion of the arts in the culture often conceived as casual entertainment; impoverished in-school provision and teaching framed by received authority and rigid standardization. On the other hand, the arts conceived in terms of their narrative functions are offered in this text as primary vehicles for self- discovery co-existing with disciplinary border crossings that empowers learning. The fourteen authors represented here argue from their own experiences that the power of the arts in their multiple narrative forms and practices are central to the health of the nation and, thus, critical in the education of all teachers. This is a book about transformation and hope! NARRATIVE These individual texts circle round the theme of storytelling uniting in a chorus of complementary reflections of deep and profound personal relevance. Writing as teacher-educators, with diverse backgrounds in the arts, curriculum development and psychology they seek to reclaim the importance of the narrative function in the arts as voices for human interaction and-cultural well-being. In ways small yet demanding, often painful yet enduring, the assumption is that fundamentally the arts—visual, verbal, musical and physical–are communicative media, powerful ways of constructing and expressing meaning that are too often underplayed in education. In these very thoughtful and detailed re-enactments of personal histories, we are opened to experiences that range across a number of narrative forms. Each chapter is told in the context of a story leading to personal discovery, transformation and, often, redemption. In some stories, the writer finds relevance and personal insight ix
The list of books you might like
