The Artful Teacher: A Conceptual Model for Arts Integration in Schools

Abstract

This article addresses specific issues within arts-integration experiences in schools. Focusing on the relationship between positive emotions, learning, and the Arts, the article discusses empirical data that has been drawn from a research study, Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: Adopting Artfulness in Danish Schools. When schools integrate the Arts into teaching routines or strategies, what happens to their learning culture? When this involves a professional artist, how does a school’s learning culture and an artist’s mindset come together? And how do schools foster good learning and teaching using artistic, aesthetic, creative learning and teaching methods? By illustrating some of the schools’ strategies in their meeting with the Arts, the article develops a conceptual model for arts-integration activities and understanding in schools, which can be used as hermeneutic or normative tool for future experimentation in this field.