Blackboard Singing in the Dead of Night: Object Lessons in the Art Room

Abstract

The art classroom is a collaborative pedagogic space where objects compete for attention alongside student and teacher. The nature of the collaboration is determined by the wider social and cultural context in which the school operates. The creative space of the art classroom is layered; it is a palimpsest that holds within itself all that has taken place prior to the pedagogic present. The blackboard was traditionally at the heart of this embodiment. Steiner’s blackboards did not operate in this way. They began where they began …