April 18, 2018

Love of visual arts essential to raising well-rounded children

PhD graduate focuses on importance of arts education to early childhood teachers

When was the last time you picked up a paintbrush and captured the scene before you? Or when did you last experience the unbridled joy of working with your hands to create a piece of art, a clay pot, even papier-mache?

Dr Gai Lindsay, from the University of Wollongong’s School of Education, said children take pure joy from embracing visual arts. Any parent who has received multiple artworks from excited pre-schoolers, destined to take pride of place on the fridge, can attest to this.

But, Dr Lindsay believes, by the time we enter formal schooling, our interest in the arts is replaced by the rigid focus on literacy and numeracy. Consequently, by the time we reach our teenage years and beyond, we’ve lost interest and confidence in our artistic sides.

Dr Lindsay, who today (Wednesday 18 April) graduated with her PhD, spent more than 20 years in the early childhood sector, first as an early childhood teacher and then as a centre director. She was fascinated by the disconnect between pre-schoolers who loved to explore the world of art, and educators who had largely lost confidence in their own artistic abilities. They then felt unable to effectively engage the pre-schoolers in visual arts education.

“Visual arts is so central to preschoolers’ education,” Dr Lindsay said. “They spent much of their days creating artworks, but the educators would often say ‘Oh I’m not very artistic’, ‘I’m not good at art’, so the children’s experiences were limited by this lack of confidence or knowledge.

Dr Lindsay’s journey to her PhD began six years ago. After more than two decades in the sector, she was searching for a change from early childhood teaching. She had not lost her interest in education and children, but rather was searching for a new way to put these skills to use.

In 2008, she received a scholarship to the Reggio Emilia international conference in Italy, which required her to share her post-conference experiences in an early childhood magazine. An academic mentor saw the potential in her writing and her interests and encouraged her to pursue a future in academia.

Dr Lindsay was drawn to the practice of Reggio Emilia, which is world-renowned for their focus on arts in the pursuit of holistic, child-centred learning, and decided to include this in her research. In essence, her work found that unless early childhood educators receive intentional visual arts training, preschools could miss a vital opportunity to incorporate these skills into a child’s learning.

Early childhood educators play an integral role in sparking a child’s creative fire; they lay the foundation for all future learning and development across the curriculum. But first, Dr Lindsay said, we need to give them the confidence and knowledge to feel comfortable guiding children’s artistic abilities.

“Once we enter primary school and then high school, arts seems to come second to the basic tenets of education, in literacy, numeracy, and focusing on NAPLAN tests,” said Dr Lindsay, who is now an early childhood lecturer in the School of Education. “My research found that early childhood educators often had a bad experience in the art classroom, like a teacher who told them the house they had painted did not look like a house, or they were so daunted by the theoretical side, that they lost their joy for art.

“If preschool educators lack the visual art knowledge and confidence to provide valuable art experiences, children’s potential to creatively express their ideas using visual symbols may be restricted.”

When asked what inspires her love of children and the arts, Dr Lindsay is passionate about the importance of arts to young minds, and to society as a whole.

“If you think of movies, books, or visual arts, the arts delight us every day in so many different ways,” she said. “Art is essential to our humanity. It is our heart and soul. It is the centre of what makes life worth living, and we need to nurture that in young children and in the people who teach them.”