What motivated you to apply to the Master of Arts in Art Education? 

I thought of the MAAE program because its pedagogy stream is well-suited to my research and I am very interested in research-creation opportunities. I’m hoping to do a practice-based thesis, which would combine painting with classroom-based research.

While I was in the second practicum of my B.Ed. program, I noticed how students seemed to thrive in one or two subjects but not all. I wanted to learn how to construct a curriculum where students could use inquiry-based learning where they use multiple subject areas or forms of knowledge to solve problems. I believe this approach would help them in real-world scenarios. I want to use art as a pathway to learning in all the other subjects because art is in everything we do and see.

What are you doing now? How does your present work related to art and education?

I am still teaching full-time. I study part-time here and it works out really well. Whatever I learn here I fit it into my teaching methods right away. I see if it works for me, listen to what the kids think, then I keep it or don’t. It’s very practical.

Regarding my research, I am working on a research-creation project on the concept of obliqueness. I mean oblique in the sense of having an idea for a work of art, but it isn’t clear in your mind yet. I am researching what happens in the brain when students hit that oblique point so teachers can help them move through it.

So I am working on a painting: I started with text, writing down questions, like “how do you find a solution when you don’t know the problem?” Then I painted a layer of awful purple, then covered it in charcoal, then added more words and then covered them in colour again. It’s all about finding the answer through the fog of paint and process. You know you will find the answer, but you don’t know how yet. That is my investigation – trying to define this concept through the construction of a work of art.

And if I can work through it, then I can help kids work through similar conceptual and applied problems. I see this in class all the time. Kids either love art or hate it – and I love it when they hate it because I get to push them. When they end up making something they really like, they are amazed with themselves, and what they have accomplished.   

How did the MAAE program prepare you for your future?

Ultimately, I really want to do PhD; my ambition is to rewrite the art curriculum for Nova Scotia. I want to integrate cross-curricular learning into the outcome of art education Nova Scotia. This program is preparing me to understand how the curriculum works so that when I am qualified to change it, I have the skills and the knowledge to do so.

Describe one of your favourite experiences studying at NSCAD.

I love being back at NSCAD. You forget how much you miss a place. I like having a shared studio space again, too. Recently, I was in class on a break reading Teacher as Artist-in-Residence: The Most Radical Form of Expression Ever to Exist by Jorge Lucero. I was having one of those oblique moments where I was reading but I wasn’t understanding, when all of a sudden, it all just clicked. That moment felt terrific, and I knew I needed to figure out how that click happened so that I could help struggling students think about that click – and that’s what I am working on now!

Learn more about the Master of Arts in Art Education program at NSCAD.