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Full-Text Articles in Education

Creative Arts: An Essential Element In The Teacher’S Toolkit When Developing Critical Thinking In Children, Caroline Nilson, Catherine M. Fetherston, Anne Mcmurray, Tony Fetherston Sep 2013

Creative Arts: An Essential Element In The Teacher’S Toolkit When Developing Critical Thinking In Children, Caroline Nilson, Catherine M. Fetherston, Anne Mcmurray, Tony Fetherston

Tony Fetherston

This paper is a position paper, which argues the position that critical thinking is a crucial skill, which needs to be developed in the school curriculum and that the creative arts can do this. The paper explores the states of the Arts in the present curriculum and goes on to argue that knowing how to develop critical thinking is an important pedagogical skill that needs to be developed in our pre-service teachers. This position is supported through data gathered from an innovative project that explored teachers’ and mothers’ perceptions of children’s critical thinking.


Visual Culture In The Classroom, Tony Fetherston Sep 2013

Visual Culture In The Classroom, Tony Fetherston

Tony Fetherston

The visual aspect of classroom culture is becoming more important because students now have much greater access to the means of producing, viewing and manipulating images. Using a framework adapted from Foucault and taking a myth-making position, this paper puts forward six propositions as means of explaining how images in the classroom might be read. Theory relating to this emerging literacy is further explained through reference to three dominant classroom narratives. It is argued that the interesting elements of an image are often those that link the classroom metanarratives to wider, hegemonic concerns. Interesting research directions are proposed throughout the …


Why Western Australian Secondary Teachers Resign, Tony Fetherston, Geoff Lummis Sep 2013

Why Western Australian Secondary Teachers Resign, Tony Fetherston, Geoff Lummis

Tony Fetherston

In recent years, Western Australian school have faced a significant increase in the number of secondary school teacher resignations. By analysing qualitative data gathered from interviews of 11 recently resigned secondary teachers, and three senior level administrators, the researchers sought to begin to understand the reasons behind a teacher attrition rate that has increased markedly since 2003. By placing the teachers’ experiences within a framework of critical social theory, the paper outlines how collisions with power and the negative discourse encountered by teachers established their subsequent pathway to resignation. In outlining these pathways, we have provided an anthology of their …