This research was designed to study the way in which the construct of using text within an esthetical educational framework highlights the artistic dimensions of learning itself. At the core of this inquiry was to identify how phenomenology can help reframe the relations within English educators, learners, and the aids that teachers use in the instructional context. From a positioning perspective, both writers addressed this question with their backgrounds in English teaching and their previous research from a phenomenological stance. The investigators used these positioning throughout the entire monograph, using the votes gathered from the classroom survey as a way to examine the experience of teachers in artsy, pedagogical reactions to particular apparitions.
The study worked with five educators over a two-month period that used films to teach delivery and composition skills to teenagers in local Appalachian neighborhoods. The film served as a type of text that was used by teachers in this exploration to meditate on their literacy teaching experiences (DeHart & Dunn, 2020). The phenomenological hermeneutic method was used as the basis for the study. Collecting data comprised semi-structured interviews, artifact gathering, including teachers’ produced videos and handouts, and transcribed reflections on their classroom practices. The information was then analyzed using transcript coding techniques. In the interpretation of this study, the authors used a phenomenological position (DeHart & Dunn, 2020). Initial data comprised interviews along with written narratives of teachers’ reflections. The interview sequence in this study was constructed to obtain vivid accounts of the educators’ experiences via storytelling.
Researchers identified the immense capacity of phenomenology to address the life experiences of English teachers as an outcome of this study. They also concluded that in examining how classrooms work, looking at teachers’ lived experiences as text-centered opens up an understanding of teaching and being through an aesthetic pedagogy. The teachers in the study brought their personalities and life experiences to their pedagogy through artistry. Truly, eliminating individual input from this vocational work might be an arbitrary process, posing a multitude of complexities. After all, the process of teaching involves, first and foremost, the sharing of life experiences on the part of the educator. In this context, researchers have concluded that the use of teaching through the arts greatly facilitates the process of sharing experiences.
Teaching through art techniques also pervades the forms of creative writing activities that students are assigned or have chosen independently. What this investigation reveals to the reader is also the insight of educators and how they orient themselves in the classroom in relation to pupils, texts, and their personal life experiences. From a phenomenological perspective, pedagogy is guided by lived personal experiences that give teaching methods a whole new meaning (DeHart & Dunn, 2020). First and foremost, it is the meaning of the sensual exchange between teacher and students through the medium of teaching by means of art.
Based on the findings of this study, the field for further research on this topic is quite extensive. Art has a crucial function in the provision of quality education. The specific nature and variety of its functions make art an inseparable piece of the world’s cultural inheritance, a vital and invaluable part of contemporary schooling content. The arts take a central place in the formation of the modern individual (DeHart & Dunn, 2020). This education starts as early as the mother’s womb. The subjects within this developmental area awaken the capacity to observe, value, produce, and, very importantly, perceive beauty. A teacher should aspire to fulfill the major task in this area – the realization of the integrity, consistency, imagery principles in the classroom practice (DeHart & Dunn, 2020). In this context, a number of additional studies can be conducted. For example, it is possible to study the students’ own attitudes toward teaching through art. This method of teaching can potentially help not only teachers but also students feel more comfortable with the learning process.
Regarding possible biases on the part of the authors of the study, it is safe to say that they are ruled out. First, both authors are authoritative in scientific circles and already have several articles on similar topics in their arsenal. Second, the study itself had a solid and well-founded theoretical basis. This includes the authors’ use of scholarly and peer-reviewed publications as references for the study. On the other hand, the article includes the personal opinion of the authors, which can be used as a piece of evidence in favor of the study’s bias. However, these opinions are based on relevant experience in the field of education. In addition, fragments containing personal experience draw conclusions that correlate with the rest of the article’s theoretical framework. To summarize, the importance of the results of this study is hard to overestimate. The article emphasizes the importance of sharing the teacher’s life experiences with students and explores ways to do so. The research offers the reader a new perspective on the art of learning. In addition, it rethinks the traditional approach to teaching and opens the field for further investigation.
Reference
DeHart, J. D. & Dunn, M. B. (2020). Shared viewing from phenomenological perspectives: English teachers and lived experience as text. Qualitative Social Research, 21(3), 14-47.