Using Arts-Based Methods to Explore Learning in an Individual with Systemizing Bias

Abstract

Arts-based learning is applied in a personal, autoethnographic account to support professional learning. The author uses Baron-Cohen’s empathizing–systemizing theory to describe a novel approach to using art forms (writing, drawing, photography and music) to explore a broader definition of knowledge and how this has an impact on his professional practice. Drawing on his experience writing a doctoral thesis, while leading a consulting firm, he explores the process of attraction that led to a deeper understanding of how he reacted to art, how the learning process was affected by it, how this might shed light on his own meaning-making. In a second step, he shows how this led to applying each of the four art forms in a process of deep immersion, being open to where the experience would lead and recording how his style of learning adapted itself. Lastly, he reflects on how engaging in art affected his professional practice, and the way it flowed into everyday life. In conclusion, he proposes a “systemizing alternative method” to the upward hierarchy described in the extended epistemology of Heron & Reason, which may be more appropriate to those who share his systemizing bias.