Learning to navigate in the unknown: attuning to affordances in artist visits in schools

Abstract

Artist visits have become a common means of delivering arts education in schools; however, teacher education insufficiently prepares student teachers to use the benefits of art projects for teaching and learning. In this conceptual paper, I contribute to an understanding of what capacities are necessary for future teachers to engage in artist visits. I shed light on the fundamental capacity to recognise the affordances that arise in the sociomaterial environment produced through artist visits. By elucidating how affordances are perceived, I illustrate how teacher education can design educational encounters that enable student teachers to attune and attend to affordances through embodied experiences with the ‘unknown’. This approach involves a shift from generic knowledge and skills to ways of being, a shift that is valuable not only for teacher–artist collaborations but also for interprofessional collaboration and professional practice in general.