The Art of Education and the Work(ing) of Art: Theorizing Museum Educator Pedagogies

Abstract

Abstract:Museum education is a complex and specialized endeavour, even more so when involving partnerships with schools. In this paper, we engage with theories that support understanding of museumeducator pedagogies. Dewey's notion of occupations is explored as offering a better theorization of pedagogical possibilities than that available through ideas associated with identity. Museum-educator pedagogies shape occupations, as the coherence of interest-purpose-meaning. Such shaping is not a purely individual human action, as occupations are social and material, as being-in-the-world. Heidegger's phenomenological understanding of the working of art, critiqued by Schapiro, enables further comprehension of this pedagogical working. Both theories together provide insights into museum-educator pedagogies as expressive of the always challenging art of education.