Service Learning as the New Lab School: Engaging Pre-service Art Educators Within Local Communities of Art and Knowledge

Abstract

In this chapter, I share two service-learning collaborations between pre-service art educators and young children within their local community at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Pre-service art educators were not only provided with the opportunity to work with a variety of educational approaches, including the Reggio Emilia approach and choice-based art education, but also to make meaningful connections with the local aesthetic and artistic communities. I will describe each aspect of the collaborations: (1) their structures and how they were integrated in our elementary methods and community-based and museum course, (2) the service-learning components, and (3) the pre-service art educators' curriculum designs. Those designs included an emphasis on both local artists and art sites. The pre-service educators used the process of pedagogical documentation to document and to reflect upon these experiences and how they might shape their understandings of themselves, learners, and their future educational practice. The benefits of these collaborations for both pre-service art educators and the community include strengthened relationships with community members and stakeholders, increased sense of connection to the local community, awareness of artists and local art forms that might go unnoticed or are not typically included in curriculum, and enriched professional networks. In conclusion, the service-learning experiences have shifted students' foci from campus-based experiences to the wider communities surrounding them, a necessary and useful movement in their professional preparation.