Literature: Reflection and Analysis of the Cross-Curriculum

When reading the literature, I was prompted to think about our own Curriculum, questioning why Music was not an exam-based subject with the mainstream Primary framework. I do know, however, of children that have a personal music teacher who visits my school to teach piano and brass lessons to the pupils. This made me consider that there may be places where children do not always have access to the arts because of their social surroundings and priorities. I know that in my own school, lessons in Maths and English are paramount and are viewed as top priorities within the school. They are the ‘core’ subjects closely followed by Science.

After analysing Grainger’s quotes about using multi-pedagogical processes, I noted down the times that I had taught in some creative form or another. This included the use of freeze frames, role-play scenarios, storytelling, audio-visual PowerPoints, videos and resources. Using creative methods during maths, such as drawing to create mathematical tables has shown me the everyday occurrence of cross-curricular links. After undertaking my literature review, I then had a discussion with the head of Wider Curriculum about my Religious Educational work. He was impressed with the way that I had incorporated Drama into my lessons and told me that I could make use of the cross-curricular opportunities given to me in the Not As We Know It Curriculum (below) for Religious Education. Within the curriculum, the cross-curricular links allow me to undertake tasks that might be seen in other lessons such as drawing tables and collecting data, which makes me reflect on the notion again of learning through an area or subject, because children are using maths within the Religious Education and therefore not just learning how to undertake mathematical tasks in just one lesson, but to continue putting their skills into practice. This is something that I recently used in my own lessons this upcoming term, including creating tally charts about each other’s religious beliefs within the class. By enabling them to undertake a data collection task, they are also learning about their own classroom community and perhaps learning more about themselves and their environment because of the process. 

Literature Further Reading: Classroom Observations

Personal Study of Classroom Observations

The way in which the arts can affect personal motivation and drive within a child and inspiring them to continue learning is also brought into question.

The significance of regular feedback in quality teaching is highlighted in Quality Teaching: A Sample of Cases.

‘The key point is that learners should be provided with precise information about the results of their actions so as to enable them to adjust their next responses if necessary to solve the problem they are currently tackling.’ (Stones, E. 1992, pg.97.)

Within my own school there are constant reminders by our leadership teams to praise and feedback to children when they are putting in effort and making the right choices. As a result, feedback is vital in being able to inspire young people and to help them grow. This helps us to reflect on the benefit of sharing opinions and encouraging open thinking within lessons. This can in turn let the child have knowledge of what they are accomplishing within each lesson and therefore making them take control of their own behaviour and learning. They consequently have a good knowledge of what is expected of them by the teacher. It provides a power to motivate students and inspire them to be more much self-aware and more able to think for themselves. It interests me that ‘solving problems’ comes into question and as a teacher I often see a link between a child not understanding a concept and not behaving in a manner that the school expects. This makes me think about the behaviour systems that we use within school and how the children move along a ‘traffic light’ system. The visual image of travelling from the ‘good green’ to the ‘bad red’ colours is a very clear image for the children to see when they choose to behave a certain way and is a constant colourful and visual reminder.

I now feel as though I now have a deeper insight into views of the United Kingdom and where it stands within its own creative teaching terms as a result of reviewing different types of literature. It makes me question not just what Creativity means, but also what teaching means. Is the role of a teacher to help someone learn something or is it facilitate something that already lies within them? Or is it both? It reminds me of one visual quote by Socrates that my English teacher had displayed on her wall, which said, “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.”

In an observation within ‘Investigations and Inquiry-Based Learning in the Curriculums of Preschool Education’, there is a prominent need for the teacher.

“Nevertheless, curiosity does not automatically lead to learning. Children’s spontaneous desire to explore is reinforced by the teacher when she encourages the children to ask questions and think, providing them with opportunities to plan, observe, collect, process and interpret data, to reach and present conclusions.” (Michalopoulou, A. 2012, Pg.1-6)

This leads me to believe that for someone to truly be taught anything, they need to have access to a facilitator as well as explore independently. It is viewing a teacher as someone who encourages yet channels the child's curiosity and encourages the belief in the need for both independence and guidance. In other words, it is one thing to wonder, bit it is another thing to learn. Not only do I feel it beneficial to look at lesson plans themselves, but I also think it beneficial to consider the way in which teachers present a topic through their own instrument in my observations. 

“In the category of teaching style, multi modal pedagogic practices, pace, tutor’s confidence and the ability to inspire and value students were identified as core themes. In relation to the learning experience, the emerging themes included, involving the students affectively and physically and challenging them to engage and reflect. Taken together, it is argued these represent some of the critical features of creative teaching which combine to support new thinking” (Grainger, T, Barnes. J, & Scoffham, S , A creative cocktail: creative teaching in initial teacher education, 2004, pg.7.)

‘Support’ is one word used to describe the role of a teacher. The facilitating of ideas in which a pupil has will enable them grow and have the courage to inquire further. The fact that the use of multi-modal approaches was considered a core them of teaching style, as well as the pace and tutor’s confidence to inspire makes me reflect on the importance of HOW you present a lesson. This encourages me now to really look at the opportunities teachers give pupils within their classes to access as many creative elements within a lesson as possible. There are elements such as pace, timing, vocal use and self-confidence that would be elements to consider in this inquiry and I would be interested to see how different teachers use these elements to affect and influence their pupils. Consequently, one of my main sources of investigation would involve the consideration of the structure of lessons and the time taken in teacher planning to ensure that pupils receive as many creative opportunities as possible within the compulsory mainstream framework.

Bibliography

Grainger, T, Barnes. J, & Scoffham, S , A creative cocktail: creative teaching in initial teacher education, 2004, pg.7.

Stones, E. (1992), Pg. 97, Quality Teaching: A sample of cases (London: Routledge)

Michalopoulou, A. (2-4 July 2012) Investigations and Inquiry-Based Learning in the Curriculums of Preschool Education. Proceedings of EDULEARN12 Conference, Barcelona, Pg.1-6.

Possible Interview Questions for Teachers

What are the ways you are creative within your lessons?

Do you find any creative methods that really work well or engage the children you teach?

What is the process you undertake when you plan lessons? (Is it a collaborative process or individual? Are you given a set structure?)

What would you say is important for teachers to remember when they are teaching?

What skills are important to have as a teacher?

How do you feel about the National Curriculum and is there anything you would change about it?

Would you say schools are killing creativity?

I would really like to know more about the creative process in terms of lesson planning and how teachers go about creative such plans. As a result, I have compiled these questions which I plan to possibly ask teachers of a 'creative' background as well as teachers who specialise in more academic subjects. 

Skype with Helen, Adesola and course members

Today we had a Skype conversation about where we were all at in the course.

I wanted to talk about the way in which people were going about their investigation including how they were going about creating the documents for observations and how they were going about the methods of collecting and analysing their data. 

I spoke to Jen about how she was going about her interviews and observations and she told me that her 'web-based interviews' were also on Survey Hero, which is the survey I had used. 

Jen reiterated the use she had from making a triangle considering three important aspects of analysing elements of her practice.

Experience

Literature

Data

Matt spoke about the views of Michael Gove and Nikki Morgan within our current government with some articles in the Independent that would highlight their views on the Arts within our mainstream schools, as determining current attitudes within Education can inform me even more about my current educational practice within a UK mainstream school.

Matt also mentioned looking into Steiner Schools and how they provide a very specialist Education. Helen then mentioned Finland and the holistic learning that Finnish schools provide. These educational opportunities are aspects that I believe would help inform me of the other opportunities out there, other than mainstream schools.

Jen mentioned the Human element and told us that when undertaking our inquiry, we should remember that elements can affect the data that we have ie. people not being in the best of moods when undertaking an interview.

The question we asked was 'is it about the method of learning rather than having subjects of dance and drama? Is it more about learning through dance and drama?'

This is something I have been analysing recently too and asking constantly since looking at different literature and what teachers use within their lessons already. 

This Skype was more food for thought.

Saturday Skype with Jennifer and Lauren

Last Saturday I had a Skype with Jen and Lauren who are also undertaking Module Three.

We had a really honest, in-depth discussion about our findings so far and what stages we were at. 

We discussed literature that had really helped us look deeper into the analysis of our practice and seeing as we were all teaching in a creative field, it was useful for us to share our findings in a truly 'Special Interest Group.'

We also ended up discussing teaching the Creative Arts, as Lauren wanted to run a few questions past us about the importance of the arts, something that I had included within my own survey questions.

This led us to talk about performing and how the Creative Arts can be an escape for someone and an outlet for somebody to learn. We discussed a video that I had shared to the group before on the Facebook group, where Irish actor, John Connors, had been saved literally by acting and performing (below.) 

However, Jen also shared a story about a performer she knew of who became someone completely different when they appeared on stage, but who would rush to escape being greeted by people at the stage door, because in the real world they would shy away. It made us questions whether the Arts is always beneficial, or whether it sometimes helps people to not confront how they really feel.

This was a great chat encouraging us to look at both sides of the Arts, which is what we should be doing with our literature. Weighing up the pros and cons with each other enables us all to have a deeper understanding of what our practice entails. I think it was beneficial that we were considering both points of view, despite us all naturally being biased because we are all from a creative background. These are skills that I am developing throughout this process, seeing all different viewpoints and weighing up everything.

Data Collection Methods - What am I using and what am I planning to use?

Questionnaires

I have already sent out my survey to teachers within my practice in order to establish their views on Creativity and what it means to them. When undertaking the formation process of my survey, I decided to use both open and closed questions to do this. From my research, it appeared that a balance of these types of questions was a much more productive way of approaching the survey, mainly due to the fact that if every answer is closed, the answers may not mean as much as a teacher's opinion and if all the questions are open there may be a point where teachers feel slightly intimidates by blank boxes and my research will then not be very specific.

There was also a lot of thought that I had to put into creating the questions, because the whole way through I was thinking 'am I putting my bias into the questions?' 'Does this sound neutral?' Just like we mentioned in the Skype chat, you have to be creative and open even in a data collection process!

Observations

At this moment, I am planning to research and then collate an observation sheet so I can note down specifically what I see within lessons that I observe. I have realised that one of my main points of interest is the creative methods that teachers use within their lessons and I want to find this out through surveys, noting down on my observation sheet each time I observe a creative element and also use teacher's lesson plans to analyse so I can highlight the times in which they have scheduled in a creative task. 

Interviews and Focus Groups 

I also want to interview particular teachers that have a Creative Arts background or specialism (eg. Drama Club Assistant, Art Teacher etc) compared to teachers that may not have have a Creative or Theatre Arts specialism (Eg. Geography Teacher) and see what their views are on creativity within the classroom and their creative teaching methods. I am still deciding whether to do this all through individual interviews or whether to look at using a focus group to gather viewpoints so that I gather a variety of viewpoints through discussion rather than just simply one viewpoint from one person at a time. 

Reflective Journal and Blogging

I always write in my reflective journal whenever I can to write down things that I haven't before realised and to reflect on what skills I am developing. This is a great way to track progress. I will continue to write in this throughout the process. 

"Don't Look for the Answers, look for the Meaning."

Write as you see it...

On this Snowy day, I decided to look back through my Literature Review and start researching books to note down interesting quotes and ideas that might shed some more light on my inquiry. 

I really enjoyed this quoting exercise, because it consolidated all other people's thoughts about teaching in a broken-down and selective manner, which meant I could then reflect on the main points of a particular book.

This helped me edit my Literature Review so that I could really pinpoint the points of interest within my practice.

My Pen and Notebook. Highlighting the word 'connection.'

I then decided to look back at Sir Ken Robinson's definition of Creativity so I could compare it to what other literary scholars have been saying, as well as the definitions that teachers have been giving me within their surveys. 

 

As a result of this, I came up with a quote to summarise my inquiry process so far:

"Don't look for the answers, look for the meaning."

Tuesday 27th February Skype Session Module 3 at 12:30pm

Today was a Skype session that was very beneficial to the attendees in Module Three. 

We began by sharing what stage we were all at and I found myself discussing the fact that the Literature Review had helped me incredibly. This was extremely useful particularly for Emily to hear, as as she had many questions about how to progress with her inquiry. 

I talked about how literature had opened new doors for me and that I had already began creating and distributing a survey that current teaching and educational professionals could fill in. I explained that after receiving feedback from Adesola, I was thinking more about how I could 'reach out' more in terms of finding out about my topic in the world and what it shows for us within the UK. 

As a result, I feel as if I'm climbing over a hurdle that has been stopping me recently from progressing. I have found the literature freeing in the fact that I'm now wondering about things as a result of things that I have read and am now not trying to predict or preempt answers to questions. I have to remind myself to explore and not try to answer any questions. But to instead have the mindset that I want to look at everything and see what this could potentially say about my practice. 

I used an example of a book I had read about the Arts culturally within Greater China, sharing the fact that we are actually very lucky to have the Creative Arts that we have within the UK, because there are some rural areas in China who do not even teach Art. Adesola, elaborated on this, explaining that we should not just take this as 'fact' but instead use pieces of information like this to ask questions about our practice and see what they might inform us of.

Eleanor extended this conversation to talk about how she herself had looked at literature and in particular historical literature in order to inform her of attitudes and opinions of appearance within the acting industry. Henry also mentioned that he has done the same in order to give context to his inquiry. Eleanor made it clear that she wasn't trying to find literature that was just about her specific practice or topic of inquiry, but that it was more about finding what RELATES to her practice and to see if their were common themes or ideas coming through that could help her assess her practice. 

I then discussed things that I had noticed from my surveys already and how I had made sure that there were opportunities to answer freely in open boxes, rather than just 'tick the box' answers. I discussed how the open answers told me much more about my practice than the closed questions and answers did and this was interesting for the likes of Emily and Henry to hear, because they had reservations about analysing both quantitative and quantitative data. Jess mentioned that she had been looking into data techniques within inquiry making and these are things I want to look more into myself.

Just from looking at Henry's blog from the previous Skype session which I could not attend, I can see that they had discussed this type of data already together and had noted that qualitative data provided more of a deeper understanding about practices, which I can see very clearly from my own research already. It's almost as if I care about qualitative data more? Because the opinions of experienced professionals can assist me in practice methods!

Adesola said something along the lines of, "If you don't care about the data, then what's the point of it within your inquiry?!"

Helen also talked about this and the importance of trying to make things as open as possible. This led me to encourage Eleanor to go even further with being an absent interviewer where she only lets interviewees read the questions that she sets, answering them to a camera in a self-type style. I told her that instead of questions, she could think about writing open statements instead, like "Tell me your thoughts on Appearance in the Acting Industry."

This would leave the person open to discuss whatever they wanted to without 'questioning' with Eleanor not asking for specifics which could make the answers more closed. I guess it's seeing how far you can push the openness of the entire process?

Data methods are something that I haven't looked into as much as I would like to yet, so I am going to keep on researching the best ways to gather evidence that enables me to understand my practice.

Helen and I even talked about how allowing answers to be open gives you more of an insight and is incredibly creative in itself! I keep asking questions like 'how can I be more open?' and 'how can I let people have more of a say?' This means I'm being creative myself with survey making. 

Henry also asked about the Artefact and there was a clear response from the course leaders that this is not something we should be thinking about just yet! The Artefact is something that comes after you have made your inquiry and is influenced by your findings. In an essence, reflecting what you've found from your inquiry. Therefore, we should not be reflecting on this yet, because we have not yet explored all of our practice!

All in all, this was a very useful Skype. People could share and consolidate thoughts and make decisions of the next actions to take the inquiry forward. 

Successful Skype!

Literature Review Reflection and Beginning Data Collection

Today was the day in which Eleanor added me to the Special Interest Group that is the BAPP Arts Facebook Group. People had already begun sharing their thoughts about their inquires, as well as sharing the start of their data collection processes. I saw that Jess had created a survey that she started handing out, so I thought that I would begin questioning various teachers on their thoughts about the Creative Arts within mainstream Education.

I have recently been writing my Literature Review and I cannot believe how much this has helped me and enabled me to discover more about this field. I strongly believe that the reviewing process has actually enabled me to realise the questions I want to ask and find out exactly what I would really like to know. It amazes me how just reading other people's thoughts can open you up to more questions about your own practice!

As a result, I have used the questions that cropped up in my thought process to create a survey that teaching staff, whether in mainstream Education or in Performing Arts Education outside of the school setting can share their thoughts on Creativity and also share some Creative methods that I have not used before.

I am incredibly intrigued and excited to find out what teachers across the country and the world believe about Creative teaching!

The survey can be accessed here:

https://surveyhero.com/c/1487a33c

Inquiry Areas of Creative Interest - what are the things I am already curious about? What creative opportunities exist?

Following from our recent Skype I decided to simplify things (as there is so much you can explore!) I decided to start by coming up with 5 areas I want to look at within my school that are all opportunities for the use of Creativity. You talked about exploring what 'already exists' in mainstream Education, so I thought today, 'when are the moments that there are profound creative opportunities in school at the moment?'

These are all moments that I haven't yet analysed, particularly the creativity within teacher planning! (This would be a topic that would help me massively in developing as a teacher!) Maybe I could use some lesson plans as evidence and data to analyse?

Title: An exploration of the Creative Arts in mainstream Education

Main Areas to look at in my Inquiry that already exist

Creativity in English Lessons

·         When are the arts used in lessons?

·         How often are the creative arts used within lessons?

·         What dramatic and artistic techniques to teachers use in their lessons?

·         What effect does it have?

Using Creativity in Teacher Planning

·         Why do primary teachers feel the need to schedule in drama within their lessons?

·         Are creative techniques used sufficiently in teacher planning?

·         How do teachers create their lesson plans together in their teaching planning meetings? What works? How do they create something they all agree on?

Creativity Opportunities in Wider Curriculum Subjects

·         What are the opportunities for creative development within wider curriculum?

·         What are teacher’s viewpoints on the wider curriculum?

·         How do various teachers teach wider curriculum subjects? Such as Art? PE? Science? History?

Creativity in Assemblies

·         What different artistic stimuli are included within assemblies by teachers?

·         How do leaders and teachers of assemblies use the arts to their advantage throughout assemblies?

·         How do external educational companies, such as The Family Trust use dramatic and performance techniques effectively?

Creativity in Religious Education

·         How have I been using the arts in my religious education lessons?

·         How are the children responding to the use of arts in my lessons?

·         What are the ways I haven’t used the arts in my lessons yet?

·         In what ways have the children been able to be creative within religious education lessons so far?

·         How can I be more creative in my teaching methods? 


I sent these ideas to Adesola and she told me that these looked like some good ideas, however it's important to remember that I try not to tie ideas down. It is all a reflective process, not necessarily a structured one. She advised me to look into literature that follows up these questions and then collect the data from what I read. This looks like a good starting point - reading up on all current ideas and working out for myself what this tells me about my school, the UK, my practice, my topic etc. This is my next plan...better get reading!  

Skype Chat with Adesola - Refining and Looking into what already exists

I've just come off a Skype call with Adesola and there were some interesting points we discussed.

General thoughts and how I will explore what I do not already know...

After working out the things I would like to know, we discussed the fact that as much as it would be interesting to find these things out within a lesson, it's important to remember that the school is not there to accommodate my BA course.

I of course can use creative elements within my lessons, but to go as far as letting the children decide what they learn is not something that I will be able to do, due to the fact that I have to stick to the school curriculum structure and ethos. I myself know that the same form of work, although differentiated, still needs to be shown in their books as evidence. 

Adesola did, however, encourage me to look at other teachers and practitioners who had already attempted these inquires and have asked the same questions that I have recently asked and encouraged me to look at the things that are already happening around me. 

I also talked about my idea of getting the children writing and commenting on their learning throughout the process but wasn't sure what the point of it was. Adesola was of the opinion that what it would show me what the children thought they knew about their learning and what they would think I would perhaps want them to write or respond with, so it is now making me question whether or not this would be of much use.

Religious Education - the new topic I am teaching

I discussed with Adesola my new role from teaching music to teaching Religious Education and how the switch from the two topics itself is incredibly vast! 

I started off by talking about my idea of a lesson on a story such as The Good Samaritan, splitting the children into groups and getting them to create their own freeze frames of the story. 

However, Adesola mentioned the possibility of looking at some Religious dances, paintings and even portrayals of God through various artwork. 

This made me reflect on the current lesson I undertook with the Year 5 classes creating Islamic prayer mats and how the entire class worked as a team to produce their own Islamic Artwork, using Google images in order to assist them and inspire them with their creations. At the time, we made this a competition, which Adesola advised maybe isn't an element I should continue with, seeing as everyone's interpretation is creatively different and should be respected for what it is, but the ethos of these types of lessons can enable me to see how the creative arts is used within lessons to educate pupils. 

Organising my Thoughts...

There have been some useful points of discussion from this Skype and now it is set for me to start organising my thoughts and putting together what I feel will be of interest and use. I have created a draft schedule which I have sent to Adesola to look at, but after this Skype it's now making me ask questions like:

What is it I really want to know? What already exists that I can learn more about? What are people currently doing out there? 

"The Darkest Nights Produce the Brightest Stars" - My Revelation

Yesterday saw me in a complete and utter panic. I was in such a panic, in fact, that I ended up emailing Adesola to ask her to help me with my Inquiry and where I went from here.

This was, because, I had just received my Module Two feedback and in particular, feedback that suddenly made me rethink EVERYTHING. When looking at Adesola's feeback, I could see that she had advised me to completely disregard any idea of involving children in the interview process and instead focus on the creative teaching aspect. 

I looked at her feedback on my original ethics form and saw that every single time I had included the direct use of children in my study was NOT ALLOWED. 

So this got me thinking (and panicking,) HOW I am meant to carry out an inquiry without having contact with the children. Am I not allowed to mention them AT ALL in this entire process?!?!

Luckily, Adesola has replied to me today, stating that the feedback does not mean that I cannot use the experience of the children within my observational study, but that I should respect the wishes of the University NOT to directly interview the children or engage with them in any way OUTSIDE the usual school parameters. This was a relieving moment for me, seeing as I was aiming for my inquiry to be based around the impact of the children and to identify their responses to the creative elements. 

Pinnacle Moment

However, through the panic and uncertainty of my future inquiry came a light-bulb moment. It made me think OUTSIDE THE BOX. It made me question all of these doubts that I had been having, therefore making me completely rethink and consider the lasting line of Adesola's feedback.

Adesola's ending line in my feedback states, 'It is important you go into this inquiry wondering not just looking for proof of something you already believe. One of the best out comes you could have would be to be surprised by the inquiry.'

I really felt that I needed some inspiration, so I ended up going back and looking at Ken Robinson's seminar videos again, which I also did because Adesola reminded me of the fact that Creativity is still not yet defined and that it is an education in itself. And as I was watching his videos, it suddenly dawned on me. Ken Robinson talks about how EVERY child is DIFFERENT. So it got me thinking, 'what if I use Creativity in the classroom by finding out how different children respond to different types of lessons?'

I then thought, what are the things I HAVE NEVER DONE BEFORE in my lessons?

Here were my thoughts and findings that I sent to Adesola. 

What have I not done yet? What do I not know but would like to know?

I haven’t yet let the children choose what work they do

I haven’t assessed what type of learning they prefer

I haven’t yet seen what creative formats and methods teachers use

I have never let a child be a teacher or leader to the class on a subject

I haven’t let children in the lesson give feedback on their learning and what they liked and didn’t like, found hard or easy or what they learned.

Ideas to go about this

• Provide a book that children can leave comments and pictures in about the lesson
• Create a lesson where children choose what activity they do in order to learn about a particular subject.
• Observe lessons and interview teachers on how they go about creativity and how they use the arts to enhance their lessons.
• Give each child a fact on a piece of paper and they have only two minutes to tell as many people in their class what that fact is.
• Get the children to put parts of a story in order and then share the story to the class telling them what happened. 

These are all things that I truly wonder about and I hope I am going to be able to find out. I'm hoping that all these potential options will be ones in which Adesola will shed some light on before I begin making and shaping my inquiry. 

The Troublesome Tweed Twosome - My Coffee Catch Up with my Drama School and BAPP colleague, Matt.

First thing's first, I couldn't believe it. We had both attended the same Drama School at 19 years old, both embarked on the BA Hons Professional Practice in Arts degree and NOW we were both meeting up after years apart in similar Tweed outfits like we were farmers....

Talk about a connection!

I decided to meet with Matt a few days ago, because we had so much to discuss. Not just about University and what we were finding, but also about that thing that everyone never has the answers to...

LIFE.

Some might say that it's just a self indulgent thing, to meet up for a coffee and just chat rubbish. But I always believe that meeting up with someone to discuss your hopes, dreams, fears, problems etc, is all a therapeutic process where you actually discover so much more about yourself. It makes you sane again! (or insane, depending on the company you're with...)

What we both found hilarious was the fact that starting a new module is like starting all over again. You can often feel lost! The benefit, however, for Matt, is that he has me to guide him because I am one step ahead of it all, so he is really able to gain an insight into what to expect from me. I, however, can only go by what I have learned and gained so far and I have seen so far that this inquiry is becoming more and more real. It's one thing being reflective of a process that interests you, but it's another thing actually putting things 'into practice.' This is something that scares me. I have all these questions travelling through my head. How am I going to make this inquiry happen? What do I need from everyone I work with in order to make this happen? What questions should I be asking? 

Since I last wrote my blog and finished writing and submitting my Module Two Essay, I have been given the responsibility of teaching children Religious Education and despite wondering whether not teaching Music anymore may affect my inquiry into the Creative Arts slightly, I have now realised that Religious Education provides amazing scope for so many Creative Elements! 

This is something I discussed with Matt. A woman visited the school the other day from a University and wished to speak to myself and the leader of the school's Wider Curriculum. We honestly had no idea what for, we were just told that we had to meet her. It appeared after sitting down with her in the school meeting room that she was making her very own inquiry - to find out whether the Religion of Islam was still being taught and represented within schools. 

According to her, there are many Muslims who currently feel as if Islam is being phased out of Education and she wanted to see how I taught this within schools. There was only a few things I could tell her, seeing as I had only been acting as the RE teacher for two weeks! I informed her that I was currently teaching Year 2 and Year 5 about Islam and that I never give opinions, only facts. We also talked to her about the fact that when teaching Religion to young people, you also have to think about that commonly occurring word...ETHICS.

This made me realise that now more so than ever, I am now thinking about how I can show respect to everyone within my classroom, regardless of what religion the follow. It is about remembering everyone has their own decisions to make, which I feel is going to be incredibly useful when it comes to carrying out my professional inquiry. 

I would also like to add that since then, I have undertaken an extremely fun and creative lesson in regards to Islam, which involved the children creating their own actions to remind them of the Five Pillars, as well as creating their own Islamic prayer mats! 

These lessons were so successful that one Muslim boy in my class brought in his own prayer mat to show everyone what his looked like before they designed their own. He went the extra mile, because he appeared proud in the fact that everyone was willing to learn about what he believed in. He simply felt he was part of his classroom community. 

This is a perfect example of how the Creative Arts can bring people together, just like how first Drama School and then this University course has brought Matt and I together again. Establishing that common ground. Listening to each other after all this time apart. Communicating. 

Sipping lattes in our Green Tweed. 

Matt and Me, in our Tweed. (We got 22 likes and 4 comments on Facebook for this picture!)