Abstract :
The Artist-Teacher scheme has been established
in recent years to encourage, revive and maintain
the creative practice of visual arts teachers.
Higher education institutions providing postgraduate
qualifications have completed their
pilot phases of the scheme, and the first postgraduate
certificates and degrees have been
awarded. This paper describes and illustrates
work of students on these courses, and the relationship
of their renewed creativity to their
experience as professional teachers. The information
was drawn from interviews with students,
staff and initiators of the scheme, as well as
student evaluations. There is a summary of the
history of the scheme and a description of its
recent manifestation in the pilot postgraduate
programmes. The paper also includes a discussion
and analysis of features of the Artist-Teacher
scheme: the gallery collaborations, the relationship
of theory to practice and to pedagogy.
Students’ responses to the scheme are
discussed and, finally, emerging evidence of the
positive impact that the Artist-Teacher scheme is
having on classroom performance is considered.
Although ATS continues to exist in a number of
forms, such as summer schools and day/
evening classes and part-time postgraduate
certificate/Masters degrees, it is the mainly latter
that is the focus of this paper.
