Balancing the narrative and the normative: Pedagogical implications for early childhood art education

This practice-based dissertation is a study of narrative pedagogy in the context of my early childhood art classes. I define narrative pedagogy as a pedagogy that seeks to balance the narrative and normative. The narrative represents what is happening in the classroom---the children's ideas, interests, experiences. The normative represents what I believe ought to be happening---my curricular aims, lessons, values. The two exist in a dynamic relationship.; In Chapter 1, I introduce the mobile as a metaphor for conceptualizing narrative pedagogy. The narrative and normative shapes exist in a dynamic state of tension, balanced on delicate wires. The constant and unpredictable pressures of schooling are the air currents that keep the mobile in constant flux. The artist-teacher relies on embodied sensibilities to balance the narrative and normative shapes. These sensibilities I call a narrative frame of mind.; In Chapter 2, A Call for Balance, I discuss the current tensions and imbalances between child and subject in early childhood art education. In Chapter 3, A Search for Balance, I delineate how I used narrative inquiry as a research genre to portray and explicate my understandings of the relationship between the narrative and normative. In Chapter 4, I create narrative portrayals of pedagogical situations that explore the tensions between the narrative and normative in five early childhood art classroom contexts: Art Classroom as Museum Gallery, as Studio, as Haven, as Stage, and as Laboratory. Each portrayal concludes with "Balancing Lessons." In Chapter 5, A Delicate Balance, I explicate the aesthetic dimension of the sensibilities of a narrative frame of mind, using the lenses of aesthetic knowing and teacher as artist. I arrived at six categories: Aesthetic Vision, The Rightness of Fit, Improvising the Dance of Shapes, Holding the Tension of Opposites, Imagining and Playing with Possibilities, and Experiencing Aesthetic Satisfaction. I conclude with implications that discuss the lessons learned in cultivating these aesthetic sensibilities.