The need for increased care in today’s classrooms is becoming undeniable. Yet, teacher shortages, budget cutbacks, and mental health crises makes injecting care into our field feel evermore demanding and depleting. What if abundant and systemic care was at our fingertips? This article shares the voices and processes of six seasoned, “non-artist” educators as they co-created a learning space that prioritized a relational, social-based, caring sensibility through art-care practices. The author brings the lens of Ettinger's Matrixial Theory to her practitioner inquiry into caring affect through Spontaneous Creation-Making (Bickel & Fisher, 2023) with promising and pragmatic implications for teacher educators.
Author Biography
Misty Paterson is a mother, PhD Candidate in Arts Education at Simon Fraser University, teacher mentor with a public school district in Western Canada, and an independent pedagogical consultant serving teachers in inquiry-based contexts locally and internationally. Previous positions include Adjunct Teaching Professor, Coordinator with the Community of Inquiry in Teacher Education Cohort, and Vice Principal of the first public school in Western Canada to offer the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program. With a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction, within the Center for Cross-Faculty Inquiry at the University of British Columbia, Misty is interested in the many ways inquiry can be understood and practiced in educational settings. Her PhD research is a participatory, art-based response to accumulating stress in schools, drawing upon her experience with Living Inquiry, Performative Inquiry, Embodied Inquiry, and most recently,
Art-Care.
Recommended Citation
Paterson, Misty
(2024)
"Weaving Care Threads: Matrixial Encounters in Teacher Professional Learning,"
Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal: Vol. 9:
Iss.
1, Article 11.
Available at:
https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/atj/vol9/iss1/11
