Looking to Understand Inclusion with Children and Young People
Looking to Understand Inclusion is a European partnership project that aims to support educators from local communities to use the Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) methodology and training pathway to promote social inclusion with seldom heard children and young people. The partnership in the project is a mix of organisations with teaching and art museum backgrounds from across Europe. VTS is an art facilitation methodology that supports viewers to build critical thinking skills.
Cross-border/international
Ireland
Spain
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Denmark
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Finland
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Netherlands
Dublin City Council was responsible for leading and delivering two large scale, complex and artistically ambitious EU projects in the field of arts, inclusion and Visual Thinking Strategies. These projects followed the loca development of the first Arts, Education and Learning Policy for Dublin City Council, which, following extensive consultation with stakeholders, was passed by Council in 2016. This Policy was a significant step in demonstrating the legitimacy of the local authority’s role in the development of the arts, education and learning community in Dublin City in response to local needs and communities.
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
Yes
ERASMUS
Erasmus+ Programme - KA2 - 201 - Co-operation for Innovation and the exchange of good practices in the field of strategic partnership for school education
Two successful projects have been completed over the timeframe of 2017-2023 targeting children, age 2-16, within early childhood education settings, elementary and secondary school education and to support key competencies in aesthetic development, literacy, multilingual literacy, citizenship, cultural awareness and expression.
Erasmus+ Permission to Wonder - Supporting Educators to Test the Visual Thinking Strategies Method in local schools and art museums
www.permissiontowonder.com
Erasmus+ Looking to Understand Inclusion - supporting educators to push their VTS facilitation skills further to support social inclusion while thinking about What does social inclusion mean? What does social inclusion look like between an educator and their students? How do we address the challenges of implicit bias, institutional power and historic patterns of marginalisation in schools and art museums.
www.lookingtounderstand.com
No
Yes
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): Dublin City Council Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Liz Last name of representative: Coman Gender: Female Nationality: Ireland If relevant, please select your other nationality: Ireland Function: Assistant Arts Officer for Dublin City Council Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: The LAB, Foley Street Town: Dublin Postal code: D1 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 87 998 1909 E-mail:liz.coman@dublincity.ie Website:http://www.dublincityartsoffice.ie
Dublin City Council championed the introduction and testing of the Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) over a five-year period in response to DCC Policy identifying a need for the local authority to deepen understanding of its role in arts in education in a changing context nationally and internationally. VTS is a research-based teaching methodology, co-created by cognitive psychologist, Abigail Housen and museum educator, Philip Yenawine. A VTS image discussion is facilitated with the specific aim - to support (beginner) viewers in their thinking and feeling when looking at art and architecture. VTS is underpinned by the research of Abigail Housen who was convinced that understanding the thoughts of the beginner viewer was essential to understanding aesthetic experience. Drawing on her knowledge and awareness of educational theorists, Lev Vygotsgy and Jean Piaget, she developed a system in order to understand the complex thinking and learning that happens when we look at a work of art. Yenawine was also interested in developmental psychologist, Jean Piaget, and his research into how we learn from our interactions with our physical environment, and from representations in everyday images and signs. Yenawine linked how we use pictures to help us learn language and our encounters with images in media that go beyond simple representation and are open to interpretation. Yenawine believed that art is the most complex form of object and imagery. To construct insightful meaning from art required more time, focus, effort, thought, and information than is required for the less complicated visual material encountered in the everyday world. Dublin City Council, in partnership with key local, national and European partners has led an investigation into the efficacy of Visual Thinking Strategies in art, education and community settings over the last five years, 2017-2022.
Children and Young People
Art and Architecture
Social Inclusion
Schools and Arts Museums
Local Communities of Practice
Dublin City Council grew support and sustainability for Visual Thinking Strategies and its benefits through a range of strategic partnerships, starting with The LAB Gallery and its local school, Central Model Senior school. In order to support colleagues and individuals to investigate, train and test in this new methodology, Dublin City Council accessed seed funding, national agency funding and European funding to test the VTS methodology and training pathway through a range of arts, education and community strategic partnerships. Dublin City Council initiated a Strategic Partnership with the Central Model Senior School and The LAB Gallery, and built local ownership, making the learning visible through videography describing how VTS enabled a student-centred approach for children in the north-east inner city, a designated disadvantaged area of Dublin City. Then Dublin City Council formed a strategic partnership with the Department of Education’s agency for curriculum reform, The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) and set up a pilot a training programme test the VTS training locally, inviting a trainer from the USA non-profit organisation, Visual Understanding in Education. Following this Dublin City Council led on designing and implementing two European projects for the Erasmus+ programme. This purpose of this was to further assess the value of training in VTS facilitation with the USA trainers, for educators and test its efficacy in community settings and to pursue social inclusion values.
Five years of practicing VTS with children in galleries and museums has yielded the following insights.
1. Slowing Down & Listening
Through VTS' rigorous ‘group problem-solving' process, students cultivate a willingness and ability to present their own ideas, learning to listen to and respect the opinions of others and learn from their peers. The slow process of looking and taking time to react, encourages, usually quieter, participants to speak. Students learned how to incorporate others’ ideas and begin, after a few months, to say things such as “ I agree with__ and I think that” or “I can see what _is saying, but I think this as well”. Students are learning that there are multiple ways to see any given situation. Visual and cognitive skills become habitual, transferring from lesson to lesson benefiting from the opportunity to have a series of sessions to build up confidence and experience. This implies that consistent and regular practice is significant.
2. Enjoyment & Confidence
Both artists and teachers were impressed by how highly motivated the children were to look and enjoy discussing art together on a regular basis. They noticed students’ growth in meaning making and sense of belonging through building flexible and rigorous thinking skills, including observing, brainstorming, reasoning with evidence, speculating, cultivating a point of view, and revising.
“Before when I looked at art I just thought it was like, random, but now I know there is loads of different meanings to art. I remember when you introduced the art in second class how I was fascinated by it. In VTS like you really get into the artwork, you have to describe it, I find that very interesting. What does this make me think about? That is the kind of thing I think about now when I look at art” (Student)
The art gallery has become an everyday local gallery and classroom space for this community of children and their families.
Looking to Understand Inclusion, the second Erasmus+ project is composed of 5 European partners: Muserum, Denmark, Dublin City Council, Dublin, The Museum of Photography, Finland, VTS Nederland, Netherlands and Crea360, Spain; all of whom had finished the 36-month Erasmus+ KA2 project ‘Permission to Wonder’. Looking to Understand responded to the research findings and needs of partners and educators involved in Erasmus+ Permission to Wonder when educators testimonies reveal that they witness students verbal skills increases as does their critical thinking skills and confidence in speaking. While ‘Looking to Understand’ is followed the needs emerging from the research carried on in Permission to Wonder, Looking to Understand took a completely new approach by focusing on how the VTS facilitator can support social inclusion: What does social inclusion mean? What does social inclusion look like between an educator and their students? How do we address the challenges of implicit bias, institutional power in school and museum. Access for educators to training was achieved by offering an affordable and accessible mode of engaging, by contrast to the mainstream approach which educators paid directly and personally for. This approach opened up the idea for a new societal model that is inclusive of public governing systems.
As a local authority, there is emphasis on building community under-pinning the development of this work. The drive at the core Dublin City Council’s work with VTS was around building relationships. Developing a shared commitment with a range of stakeholders in order to create a new community space for active knowledge and exchange to enhance professional capacity to listen and respect each young person’s voice. Access to training in Ireland and Europe in art facilitation was, and is, limited for art educators, artists, teachers and community workers. A profound absence exists in teacher engagement with the artwork of contemporary artists in looking and responding and an overwhelming majority in published research confirm they have not facilitated a visit to a gallery or museum within the academic year. The purpose of both Erasmus+ projects was to deepen understanding of the barriers for educators in accessing training in effective art facilitation. The Erasmus+ projects offered a unique opportunity, to work on a European scale, bringing different education disciplines together to train and learn about VTS and therefore, within the project the term ‘educator’ was defined as primary, secondary, early childhood teachers artists and art educators working in museums and galleries. Thirty five three educators, from six European countries, took part in six intensive VTS practicum, learning the skills of VTS facilitation with an experienced VTA trainer from the USA organisation, Visual Understanding in Education. Six hundred and sixty four VTS sessions happened across one hundred and fifty five classrooms with two thousand two hundred and five students. The Erasmus+ project research findings have discovered that with training and practice, educators became more competent and confident in engaging students in opened ended discussions. There was a notable increase in number of open ended discussions and VTS discussions happening in classrooms and museums.
Practicing VTS in the field of art, formal and informal education and local authority community development, revealed that access to training in cross-disciplinary peer to peer learning opportunities is critical. Here are some examples of why partners and educators want to continue to work on VTS and social inclusion -
- VTS NEDERLAND, NETHERLANDS
"In the Netherlands, children from mixed cultural backgrounds and/or less educated parents suffer from systemic inequality. VTS Nederland wants to engage with schools that have a large population of children encountering these kind of obstacles. Through careful and conscientious selection of images students will feel recognised, represented and more engaged. An awareness of bias in the role of facilitator will contribute to the learning of the students and empower them."
- NATIONAL MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRPAHY, FINLAND
“Looking to Understand has huge value inside The National Museum of Photography in Helsinki, Finland, as it unites departments Learning and Collections and their teams. The aim of the project for the museum is to introduce new set of images which are deliberately chosen and tested to foster social inclusion among Upper comprehensive and secondary schools nationally . The project represents a new form of cooperation between museums and teachers, in which museums educational practices are developed as a collaborative effort, through networking, and new working methods are developed and tested in
practice. This new set of images will be published as part of the museum's open, free-to-use, digital photographic materials from collections on-line.”
- MUSERUM, DENMARK
“For Muserum in Denmark, When asked why, students express that VTS makes them feel more confident in expressing their opinions. To make people feel confident in participating and sharing their voice in a setting where people listen actively to what they say, is - we think - key to social inclusion”
Within the project the term ‘educator’ was defined as primary, secondary, early childhood teachers artists, art educators and community workers working in museums and galleries. Systemic barriers exist in classrooms and museums around the delivery of good art facilitation practice, and in turn VTS. These are - time and space to practice with students; access to good quality training; funding and financial commitment from schools, museums and local government; ongoing peer to peer coaching to support a community of practice, Our projects brought the potential of the VTS method and training pathway into the public funding space. VTS originally came into being through iterative research processes that, though hugely significant, were largely under-resourced or resourced by the fuel of good will of its creators and their predecessors. Dublin City Council and its partner the NCCA accessed public funding to support a pilot training initiative its’ development approach has been by stealth rather than explicit. In Ireland, while VTS is not named as a methodology in the curriculum, the principles of its practice are loosely described there. DCC, as a local authority, has no responsibility in the field of education or for educator training and limited resources for the arts and young people. Therefore accessing the Erasmus+ programme was the only public channel available that was flexible enough to offer a cross
disciplinary group of ‘educators’ the opportunity together break away from their specific settings, and train together as professionals. While critical
questions remain around the role and responsibility of the VTS facilitator, the projects provided a platform to tease this out rather than keep questions and challenges under the surface.
Educators participating in VTS training pathways noted that students expressed their thoughts more freely in open-ended discussions because of changed educator behaviour. Some key innovations emerged about VTS practice from the local and European educators –
Slowing Down & Listening- Educators enjoyed more time and space for the pleasure of looking at artwork for a long time with groups and having a social discussion that can hold individual perspectives and opinions.
“First someone might ask – what is this, why are we doing this – but then once the process starts, there has been no more of these questions, but eager participation. I think confusion is normal, pupils are not necessarily used to this, that their ideas are given such power” (Educator)
Supporting Inclusion & Diversity- Educators were thinking about the neutral stance of the facilitator in order keep the discussion from getting competitive, but also to understand more about the role of neutrality in facilitation and where a discussion may get pushed. Also educators developed a better understanding of the role of the facilitator in managing difficult comments coming from members of a group. Deeper questions were considered around the classroom/museum as an environment for VTS discussions offering a safe space for addressing sensitive issues with students, especially in relation to gender, sexuality, cultural tradition, race, social and economic issues.
Educators found out more about examples for language development and critical thinking, and how VTS might be applicable to other subject areas such as science, geography, history, music. “I now find it hard to find motivation for old-style informative guided tours in museum context. VTS is beautifully aligned with many things that I appreciate in learning and teaching alike: sharing, listening, giving multiple perspectives instead of just one, non-hierarchy, the precise and innovative use of language, concentration and visual sensibility”
The exciting aspect of VTS and its training pathway, is it has the potential to offer a valuable framework for working, collaboration and co-learning in other contexts. Outside of Dublin City Council's projects to date, exemplars of the use of VTS exist in medical teaching, learning programmes in natural history museums, science innovation programmes and business development for corporate companies. Many of the European partners are beginning to explore art facilitation methodologies in these types of contexts.
Aspects of our project that could be replicated in other places, groups of beneficiaries and contexts are -
1. The VTS methodology and training pathway
2. The Dublin City Council / Erasmus+ framework for building co-operation and sharing good practices by developing physical and virtual spaces for learning and exchange of knowledge.
3. The Dublin City Council emphasis on building relationship as a core focus underpinning all of the project and strategic partnerships.
1. Sustainability
VTS and the VTS training pathway would remain as a core methodology as it is intended as a methodology for sustained practice in order to achieve aesthetic growth. However, as a result of these awards, we have been able to build on new learnings around social inclusion and push the practice further in its work with hard to reach, seldom heard communities.
2. Participatory Process
VTS as a methodology, is a tool for sharing thinking and feeling, while respecting the value of the individual voice and perspective. Increasing our capacity to deliver spaces for open-ended constructive dialogue about difficult issues, is a key societal need.
3. Multi-level engagement
Our projects to date are built around strategic partners who span the reach of local government, national curriculum design, non-profit organisations, museums and art galleries, schools (pre-school, primary and secondary) and European funding agencies. Our initiative pushes into targeted communities of need in local neighbourhoods to address tensions and racial unrest emerging as a result of the housing and migrant crises.
4. Transdisciplinary approach / diversity of knowledge fields
With demonstrated track record in working across different sectors and developing strategic partnerships to bring focus and action to working together, Dublin City Council would seek to use this award to extend its reach beyond the art, museum and education sector to work more closely with the community sector in order to work with seldom heard, hard to reach communities.
1. UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 - Quality Education
2. UN Rights of the Child / Access to Culture, Recreation and the Arts
Dublin City Council, through its interim Arts Plan 2022-2025 recognises that arts experiences contribute to children and young people’s sense of self, wellbeing, friendships, enjoyment and fun. They experience the arts in their lives and lived experiences, through their neighbourhoods in Dublin City. They also provide valuable ways to learn and understand the world. They access arts experiences where it is appropriate and convenient for them, whether this be in family, personal and peer encounters, school, early years and youth work settings, open invitation projects, libraries or other amenities. through working with a range of artists, organisations and programmes.
We play our part in advancing children and young people’s right to art and culture as set out in Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in partnership with other like-minded organisations in Dublin City.
(Could this be cited in design by graphic designer in some way?)
“States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts…….However, based on its reviews of the implementation of the
rights of the child under the Convention, the Committee is concerned by the poor recognition given by States to the rights contained in article 31. Poor recognition of their significance in
the lives of children results in lack of investment in appropriate provisions, weak or non-existent protective legislation and the invisibility of children in national and local-level planning….”
United Nations Rights of the Child / Article 31
General comment No. 17 (2013) on the right of the child to rest, leisure, play, recreational activities,
cultural life and the arts (art. 31)
The impacts that we have achieved through are projects are -
Support children and young people to access to opportunity for critical thinking & thoughtful citizenship.
Support children and young people to trust their own perceptions & be open to the thoughts of others.
Support children and young people to feel their observations are valued and valuable when dealing with visual expression.
Assist educators to access new teaching and learning approaches.
Build museum and school connectivity and co-operation in developing programming.
Develop co-operation and exchange of VTS practice in Europe.
Build capacity for VTS practice in schools and art galleries/museums.
Improve and enhance Art Education status and attention in schools & widen pedagogical knowledge in arts in education.
Sustainability is one of the European Commission’s key priorities in education and training for 2019 – 2024. Shared understandings can act as a catalyst for learning for environmental sustainability by supporting education and training institutions to develop, review and adapt their vision and practices with regard to teaching and learning for sustainability. VTS can be a common reference basis for dialogue, exchange of practices and peer learning among educators involved in lifelong learning across the EU.
Our projects with VTS
Value sustainability
Support fairness
Promote nature
Adopt systems thinking
Foster critical thinking and Problem framing
Encourages futures literacy
Are Adaptable
Promote collective action and individual initiative
