Imprinted Beneath Our Skin: An Arts-based Murmuration Inquiry into the Somatic Lessons of the Hidden Curriculum
Date
2018-12-19
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Abstract
This study is about students, curriculum, schooling and the hidden curriculum. Students carry powerful lessons away from school. They carry these lessons out into the world, shaping our shared world. To attend to the power of these lessons and the impact schooling has on students and society, I explored the somatic lessons that students learn from the hidden curriculum of schooling. I came to this research as an artist, researcher, and teacher. Using a murmuration of Arts-based inquiry methods, I opened a space for student somatic knowledge to emerge, using dance as interview, documentation as listening, and poetry as translation. I asked students to represent their understandings of schooling, teaching, and learning through movement. Together, the students and I reflected on their movement expressions through Reggio-Emilia inspired documentation. I then supported the students in creating found poetry from their documented notes and comments; translating their embodied knowledge into written language. I embodied the concepts that emerged by dancing them with a small group of adult dancers and reflected on the lessons I learned about school through poetry. The dance, photographs, videos, and poetry are gathered together in an arts murmuration that paints a picture of school and the lessons that students learn from the hidden curriculum. This arts-based inquiry murmuration hopes to create a pause, a disruption, in the rhythm of taken for granted school rituals. I hope to encourage educators to question and reflect on the decisions made on behalf of students and consider the lessons that schools teach. This research is an act of love–caring for and valuing the lessons that students embody. Through listening to the body, I attend to the impact of schooling on student minds, student bodies, and subsequently society. Keywords: hidden curriculum, somatic knowledge, arts-based inquiry, dance, poetry
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Keywords
hidden curriculum, arts-based inquiry, somatic knowledge, dance, poetry, pedagogical documentation
Citation
Duchscher, T. M. (2018). Imprinted beneath our skin: An arts-based murmuration inquiry into the somatic lessons of the hidden curriculum (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.