ETBI Journal of Education - Vol 3 Issue 1 - June 2021 (Creativity: Learning Through the Arts)

ETBI Journal of Education June 2021 

Journal of Education 

Volume 3 Issue 1 June 2021 

Creativity: Learning Through the Arts 

Published by Education and Training Boards Ireland 

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© 2021 Education and Training Boards Ireland. 

Education and Training Boards Ireland (ETBI) is a national association established to collectively 

represent and promote the interests of the sixteen education and training boards 

The views and opinions expressed in this journal are those of the authors and do not 

necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Education and Training Boards Ireland 

Produced, designed and edited by - Valerie Lewis (ETBI) 

Published by Education and Training Boards Ireland, Piper’s Hill, Kilcullen Road, Naas, Co. Kildare. 

This publication may be accessed at www.etbi.ie 

ABOUT THE EDITOR 

Valerie Lewis is an Educational Policy and Development Officer at Education and 

Training Boards Ireland. She has over twenty years of experience in the Irish Education 

arena at post-primary and tertiary level, working across a range of sectors. She has 

previously worked in the Public Information and Communication and, Development 

Education sections of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, supporting their 

formal education programmes and Strategic Education Partnerships. Valerie also has 

also written and designed a range of citizenship education and training materials, 

distributed both in Ireland and at European level. 

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Contents 

Volume 3 : Issue 1 June 2021 

Foreword 

Creativity: Learning through the arts - Past, Present and Future 5 

Di Fisher-Naylor - Director, Creativity, Culture and Education 

‘The Artist is Present’: Chaos and Creativity in Education 11 

Gary Granville - Professor Emeritus, School of Education, National College of Art and Design 

Creative Engagement ‘Towards a More Creative Education System’ 19 

Martin Hawkes - Trustee of the Burren College of Art 

Creative Arts, Discovery and Empathy: Sharing Creativity and Exploration in Education 27 

Dr Daithí Kearney - Co-Director of the Centre for Creative Arts Research, Dundalk Institute of Technology 

National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals Creative Engagement Programme. 33 

Dermot Carney - Arts Officer, National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals 

Arts and Creativity in Education 41 

Dr Katie Sweeney National - Director for the Integration of the Arts in Education, Department of Education 

The Power of Creative Dance in the Classroom 49 

Monica Muñoz Dancer - Choreographer, educator and John Coolahan Early Years Artist in Residence at The Ark 

Experiencing the Power of Change in Education: 

Innovation, creativity and collaboration - the future of education 55 

Alan Morgan - University College Dublin Innovation Academy 

Cecilia Travers - St. Andrew's College, Dublin 

Creative Engagement in Education and Being Fully Human. 63 

Máire O Higgins - Assistant Principal and Chaplain, Larkin Community College, Dublin 

Transforming Junior Cycle: The Arts in Junior Cycle Initiative 69 

Margaret O'Shea - Junior Cycle for Teachers Support Service 

Ann Ryan - Junior Cycle for Teachers Support Service 

The Arts and Education 77 

Dr Jane O'Hanlon - Poetry Ireland 

Biographies 86 

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Creativity: Learning through the arts - Past, 

Present and Future. 

Di Fisher-Naylor Director, Creativity, Culture and Education 

The personal value I place on learning through 

the arts began in my very distant past, some 

40 years ago when my school education ended 

abruptly at the age of 14. At that point in my life, 

I was frequently informed by educated adults that 

I would amount to nothing. Had it not been for 

an opportunity to engage with the arts and to be 

challenged about the choices I was making; my 

life would have taken a very different path. The 

artists I worked with confronted me, noticed me, 

listened, and respected me. They gave me agency 

and developed what I now understand were my 

creative skills. Fundamentally, they supported me 

to imagine an alternative vision of myself - they 

made me feel a valued human being. 

And to the present and future. As Director of 

the international creative learning foundation 

Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE) I have 

a clear vision for education. A one where every 

child and young person, regardless of their 

background, reaches their full potential to achieve 

as learners, equipped with a set of creative 

skills which support them to thrive in school 

and beyond. We work across four continents 

including supporting a range of arts and creative 

learning programmes across schools in Ireland. 

The approach in all of our work recognises 

that changes in practice are embedded more 

frequently when schools are able to take an 

individual journey based on the needs of their 

THE APPROACH IN ALL OF OUR 

WORK RECOGNISES THAT CHANGES 

IN PRACTICE ARE EMBEDDED MORE 

FREQUENTLY WHEN SCHOOLS ARE 

ABLE TO TAKE AN INDIVIDUAL 

JOURNEY BASED ON THE NEEDS OF 

THEIR COMMUNITY. 

community. Artists and other practitioners work 

in collaboration with them to develop “high 

functioning” learning environments (CCE 2012, 

Spencer, Lucas and Claxton 2012) which nurture 

the creativity of learners and educators alike. In 

this way they are empowered to realise their own 

vision for education and develop a programme of 

work to develop creative approaches to teaching 

all aspects of the curriculum. 

This 3rd Volume of the ETBI Education Journal 

has creativity as the central theme and debate 

about what creativity actually is has resulted in a 

multitude of definitions (Dune 2019). There are 

many different views and creativity is “seldom 

precisely defined” in many national curricula 

(Lucas, Claxton and Spencer 2013). At CCE we 

have been working with a clear definition for over 

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a decade which is that creativity is a set of skills 

or habits which support children, young people 

and those that work with them to be inquisitive, 

imaginative, persistent, disciplined and 

collaborative (Spencer, Lucas and Claxton 2012). 

Education systems in Europe (Wyse and Ferrari 

2015) and beyond have increasingly been 

recognising that creative skills development as 

part of young people’s education should be an 

important outcome of school (OECD 2018, Lucas 

and Venckute 2020). In looking at the vision, 

mission, and aspirations of 120 education systems 

around the world, alongside strong academic 

achievement, 86% of them cited creativity, critical 

thinking and other skills such as collaboration as 

important. However, despite many bold policy 

aspirations only 10% had current plans in place 

(Care, Kim, Anders and Gustafsson-Wright 2017). 

This represents a colossal gap between intent and 

action but the picture in Ireland is far removed 

from this and is gaining increasing international 

attention. In the very first county focussed OECD 

webinar on embedding creativity in education, 

almost 500 participants from 76 different 

countries around the world attended to learn 

about Ireland’s whole-of government approach. 

The contributions in this journal provide an 

opportunity to reflect on this important agenda, 

its past and present from a rich variety of lenses 

and experiences. It explores the process of 

the artist and teacher, highlights the need for 

ongoing national debate on the value of education 

in Ireland and the important social role of the 

arts and creativity in developing community 

engagement and wellbeing. It investigates the 

value of arts in education, showcasing the many 

opportunities presently available for young 

people to engage in the arts and creativity both in 

and out of the formal education space. 

Contributors value the arts as a powerful conduit 

for developing creativity, but also acknowledge 

they are not the only space where these skills 

can be nurtured. Subject knowledge remains 

an essential part of the everyday experiences 

of young people in post primary education but 

“The world no longer rewards us just for what 

we know (Google knows everything), but for 

what we can do with what we know” (Schleicher 

2017). Striving to afford equal status to the value 

of knowledge and creativity is at the forefront of 

the Creative Youth programme and seen as critical 

in the formation of the countries young people, 

“giving them an opportunity to become creative, 

active citizens” (Creative Youth). If Ireland is to 

deliver on this aspiration, then “Creativity is not 

an option, it’s an absolute necessity” (Robinson 

2020). 

In reading these articles I was again reminded 

of Ireland’s long and rich history in examining 

its own commitment to arts education which 

began with The Benson Report (1979) some 40 

years ago. The journal also explores the more 

recent past, The Arts in Education Charter (2012), 

important curriculum reforms in the Junior Cycle 

and its many professional learning opportunities 

for post primary teachers to support engagement 

with the arts and learning. Reforms in early 

education, the new Standards for Initial Teacher 

Education (2020), the consultation on the draft 

Primary Curriculum Framework (2021) and plans 

for updating the Aistear all point to a system 

deeply concerned with improvement and on 

making progress in embedding creativity within 

the formal education system at a policy level and 

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“OUR FUTURE WILL DEPEND ON 

OUR ABILITY TO BE CREATIVE AND 

INVENTIVE, TO SOLVE PROBLEMS, 

TO WORK COLLABORATIVELY AND 

EXPERIMENTALLY, AND TO THINK 

CONCEPTUALLY” 

Micheál Martin (2021) 

in day-to-day teacher and learning pedagogy. 

Important partnerships such as the one between 

the Department of Education, the Department 

of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and 

Youth, the Department of Tourism, Culture, 

Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and the Arts 

Council continue to deliver on long standing 

ambitions in the Charter (2012), and bring new 

opportunities to embed the arts and creativity at 

the heart of school life with new initiatives such 

as the Creative Schools programme and Creative 

Clusters. 

And to the future - the core proposition of the 

entire Creative Ireland Programme (2017-2022) 

is that participation in cultural and creative 

activity promotes individual, community and 

national wellbeing. The Creative Youth Plan 

(2017) is about realising this proposition and 

securing an opportunity for Ireland’s children 

and young people to become creative citizens. 

Without question there are clearly pockets of 

this future in the present - with some young 

people engaging in learning through the arts 

and developing their creative skills in rich ways 

across the curriculum. But these opportunities 

are not available to all. Drawing on the words of 

science fiction writer William Gibson, “The future 

is already here”, however “it’s just not very evenly 

distributed”. Therefore, more work is essential 

to ensure that all children and young people are 

provided with equitable access to the arts, are 

given the opportunity to develop their creativity 

if they are to reach their full potential as creative 

contributors now and into the future. 

To conclude, the arts matter and developing 

creativity matters. In the face of the global 

pandemic, they matter more than ever as was 

expressed by the Taoiseach in the opening 

address to the recent Creative Youth Conference, 

Creativity: the connection to our future now, 

“Our future will depend on our ability to be 

creative and inventive, to solve problems, to 

work collaboratively and experimentally, and 

to think conceptually” (Martin 2021). As the 

Taoiseach was addressing the conference from 

Dublin Castle, children and young people across 

Ireland were celebrating their courage in the 

face of a tough year as part of the week-long 

Creative Schools Celebration. As part of the 

consultation process young people selected 

BRAVE NEW FUTURE as its title. Education has 

been transformed as a result of COVID-19, and 

more is needed. We need to continue our efforts 

to put in place the policies, strategies, structures 

and systems required to truly deliver positive and 

sustainable outcomes. Young people are looking 

forward to a brave new future and it rests in our 

hands, listening to them to deliver the future they 

deserve 

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REFERENCES 

Care, E.; Kim, H.; Anderson, K.; and Gustafsson-Wright, E (2017). Skills for a Changing World: National 

Perspectives and the Global Movement. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED583031.pdf 

Creative Ireland Programme (2017-2022). Dublin: Creative Ireland. https://www.creativeireland.gov.ie/en/ 

Creative Youth (2017). A plan to enable the creative potential of every child and young person. Viewed 23 June 

2021. https://www.creativeireland.gov.ie/en/creative-youth/ 

Creativity, Culture and Education (2012). Changing Young Lives. Newcastle: CCE. 

https://www.creativitycultureeducation.org//wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Changing-Young-Lives-2012.pdf 

Dune, Ciarán T (2019). ‘Creativity and Culture: An Inseparable Symbiosis’ ‘in’ Cuadra, Roger L: Understanding 

Creativity: Past, Present and Future Perspectives. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Chapter 1, Understanding 

Culture. 

Gibson, W (1984). Neuromancer. New York: Ace. 

Lucas, B., Claxton, G.; and Spencer. E (2013). Progression in Student Creativity in School: First Steps Towards 

New Forms of Formative Assessments (pp 4). OECD Education Working Papers, No. 86, OECD Publishing. 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5k4dp59msdwk-en 

Lucas, B (2021). Creative School Leadership. Perth: FORM. 

Martin, M. (2021). Creative Youth Conference, Creativity: the connection to our future now. 13 May 2021, Dublin 

Castle, Dublin. 

OECD (2018). The Future of Education and Skills: Education 2030 – The Future We Want. Paris: OECD. 

Robinson, K (2020). Why is creativity important in education? Adobe for Education. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKx5SWVW3uA 

Schleicher, A (2017). OECD Centre for Education Research and Innovation and Durham University Conference: 

Fostering Creativity in Children and Young People Through Education and Culture. 4 September 2017. Durham: 

Durham University. 

Spencer, E., Lucas, B.; and Claxton, G (2012). Progression In Creativity: Developing New Forms of Assessment 

(pp 34-35). Newcastle: CCE. 

https://www.creativitycultureeducation.org//wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Progression-in-Creativity-Final- 

Report-April-2012.pdf 

Wyse, D., and Ferrari, A (2015). Creativity and Education: Comparing the National Curricula of the States of the 

European Union with the United Kingdom (pp 30-47). British Educational Research Journal, 41 (1). 

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‘The Artist is Present’: Chaos and Creativity 

in Education 

Gary Granville Professor Emeritus School of Education, National College of Art and Design 

This paper proposes that education policy in 

general, and curriculum policy in particular, 

should refrain from imposing restrictive 

prescriptions on schools and teachers. With 

particular reference to post-primary education, 

the article suggests that the working methods 

of artists in various disciplines provide an 

appropriate model for education practitioners. 

The professional capacity of teachers individually 

and collectively to address the varying needs of 

their students should be fostered and supported. 

While operating within a common national 

framework, les emphasis should be placed on 

mandatory requirements, on centralised exams 

and on specific learning outcomes. The paper lays 

emphasis on the need to prioritise the present 

needs of young people and other learners, as 

distinct from preparing them for some imagined 

future. 

In 2010, the artist Marina Abramovic performed 

a piece that she called ‘The Artist is Present’. It 

entailed her sitting at a table in the Museum of 

Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. Members of 

the public were invited to sit opposite her, for as 

long or as short as they wished. The encounter 

was unscripted and wordless: all the artist asked 

was that the sitter would maintain eye contact 

with her. 

The experience of the sitters was remarkable. 

THE EXPERIENCE OF THE SITTERS 

WAS REMARKABLE. THEY SPOKE 

OF A RANGE OF EMOTIONS AND 

FEELINGS, RANGING FROM LOVE TO 

RAGE, FROM EMPATHY TO GRIEF. 

They spoke of a range of emotions and feelings, 

ranging from love to rage, from empathy to 

grief. The intensity of ‘being present’, of simply 

being attentive to the other, was deeply affecting, 

despite the seeming banality, or apparent 

meaninglessness of the encounter. 

By contrast, the poet Paul Muldoon gives a 

recognisably Irish perspective on being present 

in a classroom, in his poem Anseo. Remembering 

the ritual roll-call of his primary school 

classroom in Armagh, where all the children 

would routinely call out ‘anseo’ as their name 

was called, he tells the story of one pupil, Joe 

Ward, who was frequently absent and regularly 

in trouble with the teacher. The young Ward 

would be physically punished, beaten with a 

sally rod. In the final lines of the poem, Muldoon 

recounts how after many years, he happened 

to meet his old classmate in a pub across the 

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border. Ward was now engaged in a paramilitary 

organisation, training and drilling in a camp on 

the hillside; having risen through the ranks, he 

now commanded a group of volunteers, and he 

proudly described – 

… How every morning at parade 

His volunteers would call back Anseo 

And raise their hands 

As their names occurred. 

The lessons Joe Ward had garnered from being 

present in that classroom were not those of the 

prescribed curriculum. The hidden curriculum 

of procedures, rituals and enacted values had a 

more visible impact on the older Ward than had 

the anticipated learning outcomes. 

Between these two examples – the fully attentive 

but formless experience of the performative art 

project, on the one hand, and the routine but 

alienating procedures of the classroom on the 

other – lies the zone of practice to which we 

might aspire. Being ‘present’ is always more than 

simply ‘being there’, and we also know that in 

any school system, there is a need for structure, 

for a programme, an agenda: in other words, a 

curriculum. 

At present in Ireland, the NCCA having reviewed 

and restructured junior cycle, are engaged 

with a similar review of primary education as 

well as a long awaited review of senior cycle. 

Simultaneously, single-issue pressure points 

are active: the introduction of modern foreign 

languages in the primary school has been 

signalled once again as an issue, education 

for sustainable development is a national 

commitment, the promotion of STEM subjects is 

currently a high-priority, well-funded initiative 

within the DES, and the Covid crisis has brought 

with it a tsunami of education issues ranging 

from on-line technology to assessment and 

certification. 

Trying to accommodate all these demands 

restricts our capacity to respond to any. We 

need to pay more attention to what we actually 

do in schools, and be less concerned with our 

intentions. And we also need to be more modest 

in what we expect our schools to achieve. 

STRONG OR WEAK EDUCATION? 

The educational philosopher Gert Biesta (2012, 

2009) warns educators not to be over ambitious 

in their aspirations. He advocates a concept 

of ‘weak education’, a strange and initially a 

slightly disconcerting concept for passionate and 

reforming educators. He proposes a more modest 

aspiration: rather than trying to change the world 

and solve all problems, education should be more 

concerned with the immediate impact it can have 

on the quality of our lives as we live them – in the 

present moment. 

From this viewpoint, ‘weakness’ is a virtue. It 

promotes a process that cannot be pre-defined 

or prescribed but rather demands of the 

teacher and student an open-ended curiosity 

and a risk-taking attitude. Tyson Lewis (2017, 

p. 231) supports such an understanding of 

education, one which promotes ‘a kind of weak 

educational logic that does not desire ends, 

prefers not to be quantified, and thus falls 

outside the standard approach to learning, 

learning outcomes, and learning assessments’. 

In a recent book (Guy, 2020) reflecting on a 

contemporary art engagement with Irish schools, 

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THE GREAT MYTH OF THE 

NATIONAL EXAMINATION SYSTEM 

AS A MODEL OF WISDOM AND 

FAIRNESS HAS BEEN ADOPTED 

UNCRITICALLY. 

the required culture-shift was described thus: 

‘the task is creating a space for uncertainty in an 

environment in which uncertainty is generally 

unwelcome’ (O’Donnell, p.40). 

From an Irish historical perspective, the 

education changes of the 1960s are rightly 

identified as being momentous. Most attention 

has been given to the introduction of free postprimary 

education but an equally significant 

initiative was the consequent liberation of the 

primary education system. The abolition of the 

old terminal Primary Certificate examination 

provided the freedom to introduce a radical new 

child-centred primary curriculum. Subsequent 

revisions of that curriculum have not departed 

from that educational philosophy. Unfortunately, 

the new post-primary landscape while adapting 

to the huge influx of students, retained the 

pre-existing (essentially 19th century British) 

curriculum structures which, far from being 

revised, have been calcified and frozen for 

generations since. 

It has been manifest in the very rigid curriculum 

frame we impose on all schools, with very 

little discretion allowed for schools to develop 

locally responsive strategies. This has been a 

‘command economy’ model, whereby everything 

is controlled and mandated from the centre. 

Thus a single curriculum model is mandated 

for all schools, consisting of a set of compulsory 

subjects within a larger set of pre-defined ‘full’ 

subjects, all of which are centrally constructed 

and overloaded with content to be ‘covered’ 

by the pressurised teacher and students in the 

curriculum race. A single experience of schooling 

is now ingrained in Irish society. The possibility 

of there being other ways of organising teaching 

and learning in school is almost never considered. 

The great myth of the national examination 

system as a model of wisdom and fairness 

has been adopted uncritically. The ‘black box’ 

of assessment, whereby nobody knows or 

understands exactly what goes on inside the box 

but everyone trusts what comes out, is a model 

that serves well to maintain the status quo. But 

it hides a multitude. In fact, like all assessment 

models, our public examination system has 

always operated on a pragmatic basis, assessing 

only a limited range of curriculum objectives, 

using internal adjustments and applying generic 

models to specific cases in order to maintain 

perceived consistency. 

Education planning and performance 

management operates within a generic model 

of public policy. Monitoring efficiency and 

effectiveness, this model lays out the inputs 

perceived to be necessary to achieve stated policy 

objectives, describes the process through which 

those inputs are expected to operate, specifies the 

anticipated outputs from that process, and finally 

records the anticipated outcomes of the process, 

which will serve as the basis of evaluation. This 

is a rational and sane model for most sectors, one 

that can be evaluated for both efficiency (the first 

two units of the model) and effectiveness (the 

latter two). 

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In terms of educational policy and practice, 

however, it may be time to consider a model that 

is less rigid and deterministic, one that draws 

inspiration from the creative arts. This paper is 

not making a pitch for greater provision of arts 

education (though that is greatly to be desired!). 

Rather the purpose is to suggest that a mode of 

working familiar to the artist might serve as a 

better model for policy planners and educators 

than the managerial frame that currently 

dominates public policy discourse. 

CHAOS AND THE CURRICULUM 

Chaos theory provides a useful frame of analysis 

which combines the sensitivity and nuance of 

the arts with the logic and rationality of science 

and mathematics. In this context, ‘chaos’ does not 

mean the absence of order or of planning. Rather 

it indicates a way of looking at and making sense 

of observable and seemingly random processes 

that occur within defined parameters and 

with defined resources, inputs and conditions. 

Chaos theory recognises predictive possibilities 

containing unpredictable tendencies, which is not 

a bad way of describing a good curriculum. The 

‘butterfly effect’ that restricts definitive weather 

forecasting beyond a limited timespan is a classic 

example of chaos theory at work, one that might 

serve as a more appropriate model for education 

planning than the currently dominant managerial 

model. 

The key feature of chaos theory is that it 

facilitates planning and predicts patterns 

of development and growth, while allowing 

for unpredictable and ‘chaotic’ short term 

occurrences. In terms of schooling, such a chaotic 

model would allow greater independence 

for the teacher to follow lines of enquiry and 

CHAOS THEORY PROVIDES A 

USEFUL FRAME OF ANALYSIS 

WHICH COMBINES THE SENSITIVITY 

AND NUANCE OF THE ARTS WITH 

THE LOGIC AND RATIONALITY OF 

SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS. 

interest that may not be specified in the national 

curriculum. The concept of the school as a 

loosely coupled system (Weick 2001, 1976) may 

be helpful here. ‘Loose coupling’ describes the 

relationship between two or more entities, a 

relationship that may at some points be quite 

tight and close, but at other times can be quite 

loose and remote. A loosely coupled school 

system is one that can move regularly from tight 

to loose relationships, be it in respect of exams, 

curriculum or any other aspect of teaching and 

learning. Like the characteristics of chaos theory, 

a loosely coupled system still operates within 

defined parameters. Within the boundaries of 

policy, discretion is afforded for local deviations 

but the broad parameters remain common to all. 

The work of the NCCA and the JCT in recent 

years has been I believe of great importance. 

The new Junior Cycle Framework (2015) 

presents a significant restructuring of how we 

think of curriculum, with a reduced reliance 

on compulsory subjects and a looser model of 

subject specification that can allow for greater 

initiative and inputs from schools at local level 

– short courses, integrated learning and crosscurricular 

interventions. The ongoing review 

of senior cycle will hopefully open up similar 

opportunities. Perhaps most significantly, the 

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trauma of Covid has opened up possibilities 

and opportunities that could not have been 

foreseen. The suspension of the Junior Certificate 

examination in 2020 and 2021 occurred without 

national trauma. Is it too much to hope that we 

will never reintroduce the full panoply of that 

exam again? The introduction of calculated 

grades as a substitute for the national Leaving 

Certificate examination in 2020 was not 

without its own difficulties but it has shown 

that the citadel can be breached. The belief that 

there is no alternative to the national terminal 

examination, one hopes, has been shaken. 

The current programme for Government includes 

a commitment to hold a Citizens Assembly for 

Education, to take a fundamental look at what we 

want from our education system and how best 

it might be presented. This welcome initiative 

provides an opportunity to consider some of 

these issues in a calm, dispassionate manner. 

CREATIVITY AND THE CURRICULUM 

Two recurring features of educational policy in 

recent years, in Ireland and internationally, are 

a generalised application of learning outcomes 

as a curriculum design frame, and a rhetorical 

commitment to fostering creativity. It may be that 

these aspirations are mutually incompatible. 

The more enlightened our insights on education, 

it seems, the greater our desire to map out the 

entire journey. The inevitable tendency, despite 

all best intentions, is to develop ‘teacher-proof’ 

and school-proof solutions: to programme the 

educational experience of school students to an 

excessively granular extent. The result is a steady 

erosion of the autonomy of the school, of the 

judicious discretion of school leaders and of the 

professional role of the teacher. 

I was struck by the range of tributes to the Irish 

athlete Jerry Kiernan on the sad occasion of his 

death recently. Perhaps the most moving tributes 

were given by his former primary school pupils. 

One former pupil noted: 

Jerry was a maverick. The curriculum didn’t 

always suit him, so he would go off-piste. For 

geography, he expounded on the Aegean and 

Adriatic seas, drawing in Greek mythology to 

bring imagery and drama to the lesson. He taught 

us bits of Greek and Latin so that we would better 

understand the etymology of words, and threw in 

some Italian along the way. He was always buying 

us bananas and kiwis, imploring us to eat these 

‘super foods’ before that term was ever known 

(Fergus O’Farrell, Irish Times 16 Jan 2021) 

This is of course an approach that is secondnature 

to the artist. The visual artist in a 

studio, the writer at her desk, the musician at 

the keyboard is frequently surprised by the 

unexpected turn that their work takes. That is 

part of the process of artistic work. And it is 

indeed work, it is not a lazy and casual process. 

As has often been said, the muse likes to find 

the artist at work, she is not inclined to call 

otherwise! 

The verbs we habitually use to describe the work 

of teaching often betray the underlying premises 

of our approach. Thus we hear references to 

teachers ‘delivering’, ‘implementing’ or ‘covering’ 

the curriculum: all these terms tend to belittle 

the role of the teacher as a mere purveyor of 

products designed elsewhere. Even the term 

‘teaching’ is sometimes used in this context: 

we do better to allow the teacher to interpret 

the curriculum or even better to enact the 

curriculum. Enactment, with its performative 

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and interpretive connotations is a more holistic 

recognition of the professional work of the 

teacher. As the socially engaged artist, Pablo 

Helguera wrote 

Traditional pedagogy fails to recognise three 

things: first, the creative performance of the 

act of education itself; second, the fact that the 

collective construction of an art milieu, with 

artworks and ideas, is a collective construction 

of knowledge; and third, the fact that knowledge 

of art does not end in knowing the artwork but 

is a tool for understanding the world (Helguera, 

2011, p. 80). 

The workshop process of the craftsperson, the 

rehearsal room of the music or drama group, the 

studio work of the visual artist are places where 

this process of growth and discovery takes place 

as a matter of course. But it also applies in other 

domains, nowhere more so than in education. In 

that context, the role of the teacher of any and all 

subjects can mirror the process of the artist in 

engaging with and enacting the curriculum. And 

both teacher and student become fully present 

in the classroom, actively engaging with and 

attending to the other. 

There is a tradition in rural Ireland, whereby a 

farmer out making hay, cutting with a scythe, 

would leave a corner of the field uncut: ‘cúinne 

an ghiorria’ (the hare’s corner) was left wild 

and untamed, so that wild life and nature could 

remain unscathed. We should try to ensure 

that that ‘cúinne an ghiorria’, that corner of 

growth, of chaos and creativity remains free in 

all our classrooms, all our schooling and all our 

programmes. 

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REFERENCES 

Biesta, G. (2009). On the weakness of education. Philosophy of Education Yearbook, pp. 354-362. Urbana Il: 

Philosophy of Education Society. 

Biesta, G. (2012). Giving teaching back to education: Responding to the disappearance of the teacher, 

Phenomenology & Practice, 6 (2), 35-49. 

DES/NCCA (2015) Junior Cycle Framework Dublin: DES 

Helguera, P. (2011) Education for Socially Engaged Art; A Materials and Techniques Handbook New York: Jorge 

Pinto Books 

Lewis, Tyson E. (2017). Study time: Heidegger and the temporality of education. Journal of Philosophy of 

Education, 51 (1), 230-247. 

O’Donnell, N. (2020) The Outline as Weapon, in Guy, J. (ed.) (2020) Curriculum; Contemporary Art Goes to School 

Bristol/Chicago: Intellect 

Weick, K. (1976) Educational Organisations as Loosely Coupled Systems Administrative Science Quarterly 21, 

1-19 

Weick, K. (2001) Making Sense of the Organization Oxford; Blackwell business 

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Creative Engagement 

‘Towards a More Creative Education System’ 

Martin Hawkes Trustee of the Burren College of Art 

This is the story of a process that is still a work 

in progress. It started in an art college with 

an intention to facilitate movement ‘towards 

a more creative education system’ and is 

based on creative engagement as both the end 

and the means of the endeavour. As such it 

exemplifies the huge potential of moving to 

creative engagement as the new normal for the 

times we’re in. While the focus of this story is 

on practice it also illuminates how theoretical 

frameworks can act as powerful points of 

reference for keeping process and practice on 

track. 

THE BACKDROP 

Socially–engaged: For some years the Burren 

College of Art (BCA) an independent not-forprofit 

college situated in the heart of the Burren 

landscape and catering for under-graduate and 

post-graduate international students of fine art, 

has felt that art has the potential to be directly 

relevant to addressing social challenges and 

concerns. At a time when existential challenges 

such as climate change and biodiversity loss were 

facing us, artificial intelligence was bringing into 

question the uniqueness of our endowments as 

a species and social media were undermining 

shared social narratives, business as usual was 

no longer an option. An art college surely had an 

AT A TIME WHEN EXISTENTIAL 

CHALLENGES SUCH AS CLIMATE 

CHANGE AND BIODIVERSITY LOSS 

WERE FACING US, ARTIFICIAL 

INTELLIGENCE WAS BRINGING 

INTO QUESTION THE UNIQUENESS 

OF OUR ENDOWMENTS AS A 

SPECIES... 

obligation to share creative process – what artists 

know - with wider society? This proposition felt 

particularly compelling for an institution which 

shared Joseph Beuys’ belief that ‘everybody is 

an artist’ which is to say that everybody has the 

potential to be creative in everything they do. 

With this is mind BCA began to work with 

cohorts of post-graduate students from NUIG – 

PhD students from multiple disciplines, medical 

practitioners doing post-graduate studies in 

education, students from the Huston school of 

Film and Media Studies etc. - over sessions of two 

week-ends where they were invited to bring their 

greatest challenge and engage with it through 

immersion in the landscape of the Burren and 

PAGE 19


their own inner landscape as well as individual 

and collective arts and other experiential 

practices. 

What became clear from these experiences was 

the value of: 

• Being in nature and allowing our most 

precious resource – attention - to relax and 

be unstructured; 

• Providing space from the relentless extrinsic 

demands made on attention, particularly 

by social media, while opening to greater 

interiority; 

• Learning from other students both in 

structured group work and in unstructured 

social settings; 

• Uncovering habits of attention which 

were discovered to be the source of many 

recurring challenges both personal and 

professional; 

• The richness of arts-based and experiential 

learning and 

• The quality of learning that occurs when 

concern with exams and grades is relaxed 

– students were guaranteed a pass for 

conscientious engagement. 

Secondary Schools: When approached 

by a philanthropist to do some work with 

schools in north Clare, the college responded 

enthusiastically by hosting teachers for daylong 

sessions of creative immersion at BCA 

and taking creative practice to the schools 

themselves. These were hugely energizing and 

engaging sessions for both teachers who were 

invited to renew the vocation that drew them to 

teaching and for students who got to engage with 

experiential and group learning. 

The Education System: It was but a short step 

for the college to wonder about the nature of 

the larger school and education system still 

operating within an industrial-age paradigm 

while the world around us was changing out of 

recognition. Students sitting in regimented rows 

in classroom were simultaneously immersed in 

a digital world that was commandeering their 

attention and brining huge social pressures. 

Meanwhile the capacity of the planet to sustain 

civilisation was in question and casting a shadow 

over their young lives. Finally the conviction that 

education would lead to employment was being 

challenged by the ever-changing nature of the 

skills and capacities required for the world of 

work. 

An education system conceived for a world 

of gradual change was unprepared for the 

volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity 

that were the new normal for our globalised 

civilisation. It was time for an intervention with 

systemic ambition that would help the system 

to become more creatively adaptive. As Sir Ken 

Robinson observed in his famous 2007 TED 

Talk 1 ‘Do schools kill creativity?’: “creativity is as 

important as literacy and we should treat it as if 

it had the same status.” 

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 

Scaling to a systemic level was a quantum shift 

in ambition. To be meaningful it had to bring 

creative process to bear at the level of social 

change as opposed to individual or group work, 

the scale at which a college normally works. As 

PAGE 20


FOR THE ARTIST THERE IS 

TYPICALLY AN INNER COMPULSION 

TO FOLLOW AN ARTISTIC CALLING. 

THIS PROVIDES MOTIVATION, 

FOCUS AND PERSEVERANCE. 

an art college it was felt that an ambition that 

concerned itself with nudging the system in a 

more creative direction should have ‘a-priori’ 

credibility. However it was necessary to be clear 

about the distinction between ‘art’ and creativity, 

terms which are frequently confused. 

For the artist there is typically an inner 

compulsion to follow an artistic calling. This 

provides motivation, focus and perseverance. 

Dedication and practice bring the necessary 

skill to deconstruct limited ways of seeing the 

world so as to see with fresh eyes. Creativity 

more generally conceived is concerned with 

producing that which is new and valuable. It is 

not confined to the domain of artistic impulse 

but has application across the full spectrum of 

human activity. 

Purpose and Presence: A simple model of 

creativity which I find serviceable in everyday life 

can be encapsulated in the terms Purpose and 

Presence. Clarity of purpose provides the ‘truenorth’ 

compass bearing, the ‘why’ of the creative 

endeavour which corresponds to the artistic 

impulse for non-artists. The greater the clarity 

and call of purpose the greater the motive force 

and sustainability of the endeavour. As Friedrich 

Nietzsche 2 observed “If we have our own ‘why’ of 

life we shall get along with almost any ‘how’.” In 

the case in question the purpose was clear and 

compelling, how to help the education system 

make the paradigm shift that this time called for 

and was increasingly urgent. 

Presence, the second dimension, points to the 

extent to which we bring not just of our mental 

intelligence - which education has historically 

privileged - but the fullness of our emotional and 

bodily intelligences to bear. Much of education 

and early life experience has the effect of 

closing down these components in our natural 

endowment of creativity which is our birth right. 

(According to George Land’s research, creativity 

scores fall dramatically from 98% among fiveyear 

olds to 30% among ten-year old’s, 12% 

among 15-year olds and 2% among adults aged 

thirty one.) 3 BCA was well used to practices that 

engaged greater presence in students – now the 

task was to scale this for working at a systems 

level. 

Design Theory/Theory U: Theory U 4 a text by 

Otto Scharmer of MIT describes a technology of 

social change which he subtitled ‘Leading from 

the Future as it Emerges - The Social Technology 

of Presencing’. ‘Presencing’ is his newly-coined 

word combining the ideas of ‘presence’ and 

‘sensing’. Scharmer’s work also highlights the 

importance of purpose 5 . (Figure 1) 

At its simplest this is a retelling of design process 6 

which underpins artistic practice and which 

encapsulates three core movements: 

• Divergence – a blue-skies thinking phase in 

which all judgment is suspended and all data 

are invited in concerning the task/challenge/ 

opportunity at hand. In Scharmer’s telling it 

is characterised by the injunction to ‘observe, 

PAGE 21


U-Journey 

Observe 

Observe 

Observe 

Act in 

An 

Instant 

Retreat 

& 

Reflect 

Figure 1: Theory U (https://emergent550.weebly.com/theory-u.html) 

observe, observe’ with an ‘open mind’, ‘open 

heart’ and an ‘open will’. The key skills here 

are deep listening, empathy and letting go of 

old paradigms; 

• Transformation - or in Scharmer’s language, 

‘retreat and reflect’, involves withdrawing into 

silence and presence in which to tune into the 

emerging future and allow the contents of the 

opening phase to transform; 

• Convergence - taking the insights from 

the transformation phase into action – in 

Scharmer’s language ‘act in an instant’. This 

entails prototyping and learning from the 

process of experimentation. 

A powerful insight recounted by Scharmer 

concerns the importance of interior conditions. 

He quotes the former insurance company CEO, 

Bill O’Brien to the effect that ‘the success of an 

intervention depends on the interior conditions 

of the intervener’ 7 . In an age that privileges 

action and external achievement the importance 

of cultivating rich interiority is worth being 

reminded of. 

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE: ‘TOWARDS A 

MORE CREATIVE EDUCATION SYSTEM’ 

With some trepidation – creative process is 

‘risk-taking’ after all – we decided on a three-part 

programme: 

Listening: in this phase one-to-one interviews 

were conducted across the field of education – 

about fifty in all from policy-makers to academics 

and teachers – while focus-group sessions 

PAGE 22


were conducted with national-school children 

and conferences were attended. This deep 

listening phase revealed an unexpected degree of 

consensus around the need for systemic change 

in education. The harvest of the process was 

captured in interviewees’ own words in a scoping 

report called ‘Voices from the Field’; 

Deep Dive Creative Symposium: Actors from 

across the field of education – with a particular 

focus on students - were invited to a three-day 

creative symposium at the Burren College of Art 

at which there would be no ‘expert speakers’ 

– the participants would be the experts. The 

invitation promised welcome, safety, creative 

engagement and an opportunity for renewal. An 

opening video presentation by Otto Scharmer 

on whole person and whole system learning set 

the scene. Participants could choose to work 

in one of four strands: the micro strand of the 

classroom; the macro systemic strand (using 

the embodied practice of Social Presencing 

Theatre); a making visible strand (using arts 

and craft materials) and the ‘unspoken strand’ 

revealing what’s not normally said. Plenary 

sessions allowed for cross-fertilisation of 

multiple perspectives assisted by the magical 

fiddle playing of Martin Hayes. Art and creative 

facilitation processes were integral to the design 

and implementation throughout. The impact of 

student voice was powerful. A comprehensive 

account is to be found on the BCA website at 

creative education. 

Ready for Action: On the final morning of the 

symposium the call was made for proto-type 

actions in the direction of a more creative 

education system. Fifteen actions were 

proposed. Two stood out for their ambition to 

bring the Burren process to a national scale: 1. A 

Citizens Assembly for Education (CAFÉ) proposed 

by former Deputy General Secretary of the INTO, 

Catherine Byrne and 2. A process called BEACONS 

proposed by the Director of the Teaching Council, 

Tomás Ó Rourke, that envisaged bringing all the 

schools in local areas together – parents, teachers 

and students - to discuss their aspirations for the 

education system. 

SUSTAINING THE CREATIVE IMPULSE 

No one could have foretold in advance that 

these – and many other – prototypes would 

emerge from the creative engagement that was 

the Burren symposium. Nor could they have 

predicted that the impulse from the symposium 

would propel these prototypes into embodied 

action. The BEACONS process is being enacted 

under the aegis of the Teaching Council in schools 

from Ennistymon to north inner city of Dublin 

addressing specific issues of inclusion and 

education for immigrant communities as well as 

illuminating themes that are common locally and 

nationally. As with the originating symposium, 

the process – typically stretching over a day and 

a half (pre-Covid) – entails creative engagement 

in the form of facilitated multi-generational 

conversations that empower all voices to be 

heard. 

Meanwhile work on the CAFÉ strand was 

progressed with a tribe of supporters meeting in 

creative format on Saturday mornings, hosted by 

Máire Ó Higgins of Larkin College in Dublin, and 

including the input of Larkin students. A CAFE 

proposition was formulated for political parties 

which resulted in the inclusion of a commitment 

in the Programme for Government 8 as follows: 

PAGE 23


“We are committed to supporting the development 

of a shared understanding of the value of 

education, which addresses how education can 

prepare people of all ages to meet new societal, 

environmental, technological, and economic 

challenges which face us all. We will: Establish 

a Citizens’ Assembly on the Future of Education 

ensuring that the voices of young people and those 

being educated are central.” 

This is another exciting staging post in the 

journey towards the ambition of a more creative 

education system. Now the task is to till the soil 

of a national conversation and crowd-source a 

new narrative in education to ensure that CAFÉ 

is as productive of transformational change as 

it can be. Seeding a renewal in education that is 

a match for the challenging times we are in is a 

goal worthy of the centenary of the foundation of 

the state. 

Creative conversational processes are already 

engaging education constituencies online (during 

Covid) and, combined with the work of BEACONS, 

will provide a strong bottom-up nurturing of the 

national debate and the CAFÉ process. We are 

confident that creative process will be productive 

of a systemic reimagining of education in which 

creativity itself is at the core 

PAGE 24


REFERENCES 

Department of the Taoiseach (29 October, 2020) ‘Striving for Excellence in Education’. Programme For 

Government: ‘Our Shared Future’ 

Jones, John Christopher, (1992) Design Methods: Seeds of Human Futures. John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, 

1970; 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 1992 

Land, G and Jarman B, (1993), Breaking Point and Beyond: Mastering the Future Today. San Francisco: Harper 

Business 

Oxford Essential Quotations (5ed, 2017) Oxford University Press; Published online 

Ray, M (2005), The Highest Goal. Barrett-Koehler Publishers Inc, San Fransico: 

Robinson, Sir Ken (February, 2002) TED Talk ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity’: UTube 

Scharmer, C. Otto (2007), Theory U Leading from the Future as it Emerges - The Social Technology of Presencing. 

Barrett-Koehler Publishers Inc, San Fransico. 

PAGE 25


PAGE 26


Creative Arts, Discovery and Empathy: Sharing 

Creativity and Exploration in Education 

Dr Daithí Kearney Co-Director of the Centre for Creative Arts Research, Dundalk Institute of Technology 

Creativity is at the heart of almost everything 

that I do. It is part of my connections with 

people, including students, and helps me to 

understand their perspectives, potential and 

challenges. It plays a critical role in how I 

help them to understand and, in turn, assess 

their understanding of different aspects of my 

subject areas. It contributes to their and my 

wellbeing and is often the spark that provides 

the motivation to keep exploring. My own 

paths in performing and composing music, 

ethnomusicological and geographical research, 

and the scholarship of teaching and learning 

regularly criss-cross and share traits and like 

many others, I am concerned with how research 

is applied outside of academic contexts in 

tangible ways (Dillane and Langlois, 2021). 

My communities include the students in my 

classroom, my colleagues in a research centre 

and academic department, the members of a 

community orchestra and church choir, and 

my neighbours. All contribute to and inspire 

my creativity and I hope, in turn, that I also 

facilitate some of their creativity that is part 

of a shared learning process. As a composer, I 

write music with these communities in mind, 

sometimes informed by my ethnomusicological 

or geographical studies. In some instances, this 

creative activity draws attention to heritage 

BY ENGAGING IN CREATIVITY, 

WE ARE EXPOSING OUR 

VULNERABILITIES AND MUST 

ACCEPT THAT THE PROCESS 

MAY NOT LEAD TO A POLISHED 

CONCLUSION. 

or challenges in society. More and more I am 

challenged to find innovative ways to share this 

creativity and embrace technology and work 

across disciplines with a STEAM philosophy. 

We are regularly told that creativity is important 

for both the economy and in education. An 

emphasis on creativity is integral to many 

national and international policies in education 

(Wyse and Ferrari, 2015). It can contribute to 

deeper learning and enhance wellbeing. It also 

requires bravery on the part of all involved, not 

least the teacher (Jorgenson, 1997). By engaging 

in creativity, we are exposing our vulnerabilities 

and must accept that the process may not lead to 

a polished conclusion. In this way we learn about 

ourselves and also gain a greater understanding 

of the challenges faced by others. The emphasis 

is much more on the process itself and the 

PAGE 27


emotional engagement that rises and falls with 

the tides of inspiration. There is a need for trust 

and a belief that, much more than simply games 

we play, engaging in artistic pursuits can open 

our minds to possible solutions we did not know 

we were seeking. Often, the questions emerge in 

the creative process. Moreover, so do the people 

and personalities that can too often be hidden or 

silenced in more conservative approaches. 

In this essay I reflect on three experiences from 

recent years that are part of my occupation 

as lecturer but extend beyond the classroom 

and formal curriculum. I value my involvement 

in a series of Erasmus+ funded projects with 

colleagues and students across Europe that 

placed an emphasis on creativity and the arts. I 

reflect on my development of a community music 

module for which third level undergraduate 

students collaborated with adults with 

intellectual disabilities and a concurrent music 

module for a certificate in independent living 

skills. In the face of social restrictions brought 

about by COVID-19 I acknowledge the important 

social role of artistic activities and their impact 

on wellbeing, drawing on my experiences with a 

community orchestra. 

CREATIVITY AROUND THE WORLD 

International opportunities for learning are 

not just about learning about other cultures 

but understanding different approaches and 

perspectives (Kearney and Commins, 2021). Since 

2012, I have been fortunate to be involved in two 

Erasmus projects with DkIT and collaborating 

institutions in Belgium, Norway and Portugal. 

This has involved residential experiences in the 

different countries that helped develop teambuilding 

and group work skills through a series 

of workshops, brainstorming and reflective 

practice. I benefitted from witnessing and 

learning from the approaches of my international 

colleagues, who embraced creativity in their 

different disciplines and, in particular, the Write 

A Science Opera (WASO) methodology (Ben- 

Horin, et al, 2017; Smegen and Ben-Horin, 2020). 

Students were encouraged to represent their 

experiences through various media including 

visual arts, film, music, dance and drama. These 

projects allowed the students involved from 

different academic programmes to bring their 

discipline specific skills together and inform each 

other on the possibilities for problem solving 

or communicating various ideas or concepts. 

The projects also facilitated the development of 

inter- and multi-disciplinarity and the nurturing 

of entrepreneurship amongst the participants. By 

promoting creativity in education, we recognise 

the potential of culture for lifelong learning 

and the centrality of creativity as a human 

characteristic that manifests itself in different 

disciplines and contexts. The multidimensional 

nature of creativity implies that knowledge in a 

wide range of different domains – from artistic to 

technological – can be the basis for creativity and 

innovation. 

CREATIVITY AS COMMUNICATION 

Creating a shared experience, sometimes from 

disparate starting points is also integral to the 

philosophies of Community Music (Higgins, 

2012). While the European projects sought to 

bring together people from different cultural 

backgrounds, at home, similar collaborative 

exercises were utilised to engage students with 

different learning abilities. As with working 

with people from different places, collaborating 

PAGE 28


EQUALITY AND INCLUSIVITY 

WERE HUGELY IMPORTANT 

ASPECTS OF THE PROJECT AND 

ENCOURAGE THE DEVELOPMENT 

OF THIS PHILOSOPHY INTO LIFE 

BEYOND THE CLASSROOM. 

with adults with different intellectual disabilities 

required the development of understanding and 

empathy and learning to focus on ability rather 

than disability. Community Music students on 

the BA (Hons) Music programme at DkIT began 

collaborating with service users from RehabCare 

in Dundalk culminating in a performance of 

songs that they co-wrote entitled Hear Our Voices 

in December 2015. The process highlighted 

that sometimes it is the simple stories we tell 

that teach us most about our world and push 

us to understand, appreciate and respect the 

people around us. Subsequent projects included 

Space for Everyone the following year, which 

also involved participation in the Global Science 

Opera, Moon Village, extending the learning 

beyond the everyday to an engagement with 

science and technology, focusing on gravity 

and the potential to live on the moon. These 

projects highlighted an amazing openness to 

ideas and wonder. My own mentor, Fr Pat Ahern, 

the founding Artistic Director of Siamsa Tíre, 

the National Folk Theatre of Ireland, repeatedly 

reminds me of the importance of wonder and 

how creativity can help us express our wonder at 

the world around us. 

The written reflections of the participants 

in Hear Our Voices and subsequent projects 

demonstrated that all had taken on responsibility 

for and benefitted from different aspects of 

the project (Kearney and Sneddon, 2016). A 

critical facet of the projects that come through 

in the reflections is the democratic nature of the 

learning space. Facilitated by a lecturer and a 

co-ordinator from the care centre, participants 

had a prominent role in decision making and 

shaping the project. People with different skills 

could take on particular roles and there was 

an acknowledgement of the importance of 

everybody contributing in order for the project 

to be a success. Equality and inclusivity were 

hugely important aspects of the project and 

encourage the development of this philosophy 

into life beyond the classroom. It was clear from 

observing the participants as they worked and 

again on the stage that friendships were formed 

by individuals that may not otherwise have met. 

These projects were not ‘just’ music projects, 

they were community projects that can nurture a 

better place and stronger, more inclusive society. 

One of the motivating factors behind the initial 

Hear Our Voices was the desire amongst service 

users at RehabCare to ‘go to college’. Access to 

Higher Education has become almost universal 

and yet there are still some groups that are or 

feel excluded. An important development at DkIT 

was the Certificate in Skills for Independent 

Living, a two-year Level 3 programme of 60 

credits specifically developed for adults with 

intellectual disabilities. It sought to develop a 

lifelong learning ethos amongst learners and 

enable the learners develop relevant knowledge 

and competence to be able to take his/her place 

in society. One of the modules that I facilitated 

PAGE 29


was focused on music. While we learned about 

different genres, musicians and the rudiments of 

music, we did so by creating. There was natural 

overlap with other modules as we created songs 

about the learners’ life experiences, inspired by 

what we might be listening to. In their computer 

literacy module, the participants created posters 

for a Christmas concert and we also composed 

some music that was incorporated into their 

performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer 

Night’s Dream as part of their drama module. 

Creating the song helped the students to 

understand the story, characters and relevance of 

the Shakespeare play and apply that learning to 

understanding their own life experiences. 

CREATIVITY AND COMMUNITY WELLBEING 

Isolation has unfortunately become part of our 

life experience over the past year. In isolation we 

are challenged to not only nurture creativity in 

our students but find new creative approaches in 

our teaching. The act of musicking is also social 

and enhances wellbeing. The Oriel Traditional 

Orchestra is a cross-border, intergenerational 

community orchestra of which I am one of the 

voluntary musical directors. The approach 

and philosophy I bring to this community 

orchestra mirrors that which I developed with 

the Traditional Music Ensemble at DkIT in my 

role as lecturer (Kearney, 2019; forthcoming). 

I composed a piece of music pre-COVID-19 

entitled ‘The Oriel March’ that was to be recorded 

by the OTO with the support of Creative Ireland 

Louth. With public health restrictions, the act 

of recording became an exercise in creativity 

and was a challenge that connected members 

of the orchestra in online spaces. The orchestra 

continued to rehearse virtually, exploring 

DISCIPLINARY KNOWLEDGE AND 

SKILLS ARE IMPORTANT BUT 

CREATIVITY ACTIVITIES ARE 

APPLICABLE ACROSS DISCIPLINES 

AND INVITE US TO COLLABORATE 

OUTSIDE OF DISCIPLINE SILOS. 

different approaches, and made the recording 

primarily using mobile phones while listening 

to a MIDI backing track. Engaging in this project, 

Performing Oriel’s Heritage, encouraged people 

to discover new ways of doing things, embrace 

technology and communicate with and support 

fellow participants. They also discovered the 

historical built heritage of their region that was 

featured in the video. The project contributed 

to my understanding of technology, storytelling 

and connectivity and many participants reported 

back on the positive impact of being involved 

in a virtual community to make music on their 

wellbeing during a difficult period (Kearney, 

Commins and McGuinness, forthcoming). 

CONCLUSION 

These three examples cross formal and informal 

education but fundamentally underline the 

potential of the arts and creativity to enhance 

our experience - as teacher, student or 

participant - of education. Education and the 

Arts are about discovery and can be enhanced 

through collaboration with others. A common 

theme to emerge in my reflections was that 

engaging in creative activities leads to greater 

empathy, which is a step towards understanding 

PAGE 30


the challenges faced in the world. Disciplinary 

knowledge and skills are important but creativity 

activities are applicable across disciplines and 

invite us to collaborate outside of discipline silos. 

I believe strongly that the study of music has a 

central role in education and that its importance 

is multifaceted and can enrich a more holistic 

experience of education. As a creative act, it helps 

develop engagement, community and wellbeing. 

I believe in the value of facilitating creative 

projects in education and integrating this across 

all disciplines to realise the exceptional potential 

that exists in all of our students. Moreover, we can 

step beyond the classroom to share our creativity 

with the wider world. 

PAGE 31


REFERENCES 

Ben-Horin, O., Chappell, K.A., Halstead, J. and Espeland, M., 2017. Designing creative inter-disciplinary science 

and art interventions in schools: The case of Write a Science Opera (WASO). Cogent Education, 4(1), DOI: 

10.1080/2331186X.2017.1376926. 

Dillane, A. and Langlois, T., 2021. Sonic Mapping and Critical Citizenship. Transforming Ethnomusicology Volume 

II: Political, Social and Ecological Issues, ed. B. Diamond and S. El Castelo-Branco. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 

p.96-114. 

Jorgenson, E., 1997, In Search of Music Education Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 

Higgins, L., 2012. Community music: In theory and in practice. Oxford University Press. 

Kearney, D. 2018. ‘Listening for Tradition: Contributing to a Regional Musical Identity Through Higher Education 

and Research’ Musicology Research Series, 4(2) 'Geography, Music, Space', pp. 387-424. 

Kearney, D. Forthcoming. ‘Performing Local Music: Engaging with Regional Music Identities Through Higher 

Education and Research’ in S. Horlor and J. Williams (eds) Musical Spaces: Place, Performance, and Power. Jenny 

Stanford. 

Kearney, D. and Sneddon, S., 2016. ‘The Classroom as a Space to Make Voices Heard’. European Sociological 

Association (ESA) Sociology of Education Mid-term Conference on Education and Empowerment, Università 

Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy. 

Kearney, D., and Commins, A. (2021). ‘The World is our Oyster: The Benefits of International Experiences in 

Higher Education’. All Ireland Journal of Higher Education, 13(1), pp. 1-18. 

Kearney, D., Commins, A. and McGuinness, P. forthcoming. ‘Virtual Musicking During COVID-19: Maintaining a 

Music Ensemble Community’ in Journal of Music, Health, and Wellbeing. 

Smegen, I. and Ben-Horin, O., 2020. Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guidebook for Writing a Science Opera. Brill Sense. 

Wyse, D. and Ferrari, A. (2015) Creativity and Education: Comparing the national curricula of the states of the 

European Union with the United Kingdom. British Educational Research Journal. Vol. 41(1), 30–47. 

PAGE 32


National Association of Principals and Deputy 

Principals Creative Engagement Programme. 

Dermot Carney - Arts Officer, National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals 

The National Association of Principals and 

Deputy Principals has been a leader of arts 

in education in second level schools since its 

creation in 1998. Almost immediately NAPD 

President Mary Hanley formed an Arts 

and Culture Committee with Derek West as 

Chairperson. Access to arts in education was 

one of the rights included in the Declaration of 

Human Rights in 1948 and from this inspiration 

NAPD began advocating for arts in education in 

Irish schools. Arts in education as opposed to arts 

education describes the process where an artist 

or arts group actually comes into the school to 

work with students. 

By 2000 the Committee had conducted and 

published a survey of arts provision in second 

level schools called The Arts in Our Schools . 

Anticipating much of what is current now the 

2000 report stated “we envision an education 

system where all the students have access to and 

participation in the arts, where they can develop 

their knowledge, appreciation and practice so as 

to achieve their full potential.” 

The report proposed: 

• That there must be recognition of the 

centrality of arts in education in schools. 

• That there must be a national strategy for the 

ACCESS TO ARTS IN EDUCATION 

WAS ONE OF THE RIGHTS 

INCLUDED IN THE DECLARATION 

OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN 1948 AND 

FROM THIS INSPIRATION NAPD 

BEGAN ADVOCATING FOR ARTS IN 

EDUCATION IN IRISH SCHOOLS. 

arts in education in Post Primary education. 

• There must be full government support for 

arts in education. 

• That co-ordination between all relevant 

agencies to promote arts in education is 

absolutely essential. 

The report concluded that “we must bring 

art and the artist into the classroom.” NAPD 

immediately began lobbying for arts in education 

for Irish second level schools. 

By 2005 it had got the support of two 

departments, the Department of Education 

and Science and the Department of Arts Sport 

and Tourism, to finance and launch Creative 

PAGE 33


Engagement. Creative Engagement is an arts 

in education programme devised by NAPD that 

includes all the arts from the temporal to the 

spatial . 

NAPD continued its advocacy and was involved 

in drafting the Artists ~ Schools Guidelines 2006 

and involved again in drafting Points of Alignment 

in 2008. It welcomed the Arts in Education 

Charter 2013 and went on to support the High 

Level Implementation Group set up by the 2013 

Charter. NAPD was represented on Encountering 

The Arts Ireland (ETAI), the Arts in Education 

Portal editorial committee and currently works 

with Creative Ireland on the Creative Youth Pillar. 

THE CURRENT ARTS CULTURE AND HERITAGE 

COMMITTEE. 

The current NAPD Arts Culture and Heritage 

committee celebrates its twenty first anniversary 

this year. Made up of serving and retired school 

leaders, the committee has been administering 

the Creative Engagement programme in schools 

since 2005. The current 2020-21 committee 

includes Kay O Brien (Chairperson), Dermot 

Carney ( Secretary), Anthony Condron, Mick 

Daly, Dr. Brendan Flynn, Mary Hanley, Dave Mac 

Pherson, Frances Neary, Paddy O Conor, Michael 

Parsons. Derek West is an associate member. 

The committee is chosen to represent the 

different regions of the country. The committee 

members visit schools ( or contact them online) 

during the year to give support to teachers 

involved in the projects. Kay O Brien, Anthony 

Condron, Mick Daly, Paddy O Conor and Michael 

Parsons have worked at one stage or another in 

VEC/ETB schools. 

WHAT IS CREATIVE ENGAGEMENT? 

Creative Engagement 2019-20: CDETB. Margaret 

Aylward Community College, Whitehall, Dublin. 

(Medium: Ceramic) 

It is a second level arts-in-education programme. 

Arts projects are completed in schools each 

year. This entails an artist or artists coming 

into the school to work with the students and 

PAGE 34


expression. The student is seen to be at 

the centre of the creative process and 

the programme strives to complement 

curricular learning in the arts, culture 

and heritage. One aspect of the Creative 

Engagement programme has been the 

establishment of working partnerships. 

To this end Creative Engagement has 

established working partnerships with 

Poetry Ireland, The Heritage Council, 

Young Social Innovators, The National 

Museum, The National Gallery, IMMA, 

Local Authority Arts Officers and 

Creative Ireland. 

HOW IS CREATIVE ENGAGEMENT 

FUNDED? 

Creative Engagement 2019-20: CDETB. Margaret Aylward 

Community College, Whitehall, Dublin. 

Medium: Ceramic 

just as important students going to an artist’s 

place of work where appropriate. The result of 

them working together NAPD described as a 

“creative engagement”. The Creative Engagement 

programme encompasses the arts in its broadest 

manifestation, from the visual arts to music, from 

theatre to dance and all the arts in between. 

WHAT IS THE AIM OF CREATIVE 

ENGAGEMENT? 

The aim of the Creative Engagement programme 

is to encourage students' creativity, initiative and 

Funding for the Creative Engagement 

scheme is secured from the Department 

of Education and the Department of 

Tourism Culture Arts Gaeltacht Sport 

Media via Creative Ireland. In the 

past sixteen years since its inception, 

there have been over 1300 Creative 

Engagement projects funded by NAPD. 

Predating the Creative Schools programme, it is 

the longest running broad based second level 

arts-in-education programme in Ireland. 

SUPPORT FROM SCHOOL LEADERS. 

The encouragement of school leaders, 

teachers and artists is acknowledged as the 

vital ingredients for the success of Creative 

Engagement in the classroom. Their 

commitment allows the space for students to 

explore, to problem solve and to create. Creative 

Engagement works alongside the Creative School 

programme. 

PAGE 35


EMPOWERMENT TO INNOVATE. 

One of the messages of the OECD Innovation 

Strategy ( 2010) is to empower people to 

innovate. A key argument for arts in education 

is its contribution to innovation societies. The 

introduction of artists into schools in a non 

curricular context such as Creative Engagement 

allows students to freely explore the arts and 

to innovate. This in turn impacts on their skills, 

ambition, commitment, motivation, confidence 

and ultimately their creativity. The design 

process involved in Creative Engagement has 

been a vehicle through which creativity is 

propelled and the Student's Voice has been 

empowered over the past sixteen years. Any 

year groups can be involved and any subject 

department can lead it. In recent years 

Transition Year groups have been to 

the fore but all year groups, except 

State examination years, are regularly 

involved. 

Gaeltacht Sport Media, through Creative Ireland. 

The size of grants to schools can vary depending 

on the funding made available yearly from the 

government departments. 

WHAT ARTS PROJECTS ARE ACCEPTED ? 

The arts in the broadest sense are encouraged 

from, music to sculpture, from literature to film 

and all the arts in between. Local or national 

artists or arts groups must work with students 

as part of this initiative. Heritage inspired 

projects are also encouraged. There is an Annual 

Exhibition of Creative Engagement usually in 

IMMA or the National Museum Collins Barracks. 

However this year it was held live online for the 

first time. The link to the exhibition can be seen 

by visiting www.napd.ie 

HOW DOES A SCHOOL APPLY? 

A school can apply for a grant from the 

NAPD Arts and Culture Committee. 

Application Forms are on www. 

creativeengagement.ie . The Application 

Form can be found under FORMS on 

the website. Schools often contribute 

some funds towards the projects. Once 

a school accepts a grant offer two 

cheques are sent by NAPD during the 

year, one upon initiation of the project 

and the second on its completion 

towards the end of the school year. 

The programme is co- funded by 

the Department of Education and the 

Department of Tourism Culture Arts 

Creative Engagement 2019-20: LCETB. St Anne’s Community 

College, Killaloe, Co Clare. Wall art. 

PAGE 36


WHAT ARTISTS ARE INVOLVED? 

Generally a school sources a local artist or arts 

group. Over the years many artists have been 

involved including international names such as 

Lady Gaga’s dress designer, Sorcha O Raghallaigh. 

Also involved in Creative Engagement was 

Cartoon Saloon the Oscar nominated Kilkenny 

animation studio, Luka Bloom, Mundy , 

playwright Enda Walsh and many more. The 

attraction of the programme for many schools is 

that the school has the freedom to choose its own 

artist and its own project. 

WHAT ABOUT INNOVATION? 

Projects must be creative, original and bring 

something new to whatever the students are 

doing. NAPD do not fund traditional school 

plays, choirs etc. As school leaders NAPD 

wishes to extend the influence of the arts in a 

whole school sense so that students can achieve 

through exposure to the arts the skills needed to 

drive and to adapt to innovation societies (OECD 

2010). However access to and engagement in the 

arts must be seen as important for its own sake. 

The benefits of increased access to the artsin- 

education is obvious but it has also been 

reinforced by Dr Emer Smyth's study, Arts and 

Cultural Participation among Children and Young 

people. (2016) 

In recent years the Creative Engagement 

programme has increased from 57 projects 

in 2011 to 107 applications in 2019-20. The 

pandemic in 2020 resulted in some fall off 

in numbers but this has rebounded. NAPD 

wishes to expand the programme from 100 

schools to 200 schools over the next five years. 

ETB schools are underrepresented in the 

Creative Engagement 2019-20: LCETB. Limerick College 

of Further Education. Digital print textile project 

applications currently so NAPD would welcome 

any approaches from ETB schools. Wellbeing 

and many other programmes in the education 

system also benefit from widespread access to 

the arts. School leaders all attest to the positivity 

of the programme and its influence on school 

climate. Creativity through increased access to 

the arts for the student is NAPD's goal in order to 

compliment the other aspects of their education 

and ultimately achieve an excellent outcome to 

their time in school. 

PAGE 37


Partaíocht Chruthaitheach 2019-20 : KCETB. Coláiste Pobail Osraí, Cill 

Chainnigh. Meán: Cló/ Medium: Print 

PAGE 38


REFERENCES 

Arts Council of Ireland & Department of Education & Skills, (2006). Artist~Schools Guidelines: 

Towards Best Practice in Ireland. Dublin: The Arts Council. http://www.artscouncil.ie/uploadedFiles/ 

wwwartscouncilie/Content/Arts_in_Ireland/Young_people,_children_and_education/ArtistsSchools06_English. 

pdf 

Arts Council of Ireland, (2008). Points of Alignment: the Report of the Special Committee on the Arts and 

Education. Dublin: The Arts Council. http://www.artscouncil.ie/uploadedFiles/wwwartscouncilie/Content/ 

Arts_in_Ireland/Young_people,_children_and_education/Arts_education_en_08.pdf 

Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, The & Department of Education and Skills, The. (2013). Arts 

in Education Charter. Dublin: Government Publications. https://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Policy- 

Reports/Arts-In-Education-Charter.pdf 

OECD (2010), The OECD Innovation Strategy: Getting a Head Start on Tomorrow, OECD Publishing, Paris. 

https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264083479-en. 

Smyth, E. (2016) Arts and Cultural Participation among Children and Young People: Insights from the Growing 

Up in Ireland Study. The Arts Council, Dublin, Ireland. The Economic and Social Research Institute, Ireland. 

PAGE 39


PAGE 40


Arts and Creativity in Education 

Dr Katie Sweeney National Director for the Integration of the Arts in Education, Department of Education 

SUMMARY 

The importance of the arts in education has 

been increasingly recognised in recent decades 

by practitioners and public alike. The arts are 

fundamentally important for developing the 

creative capacities of each individual and are 

indispensable to education as a whole. Arts 

participation is also crucial to developing 

the young person’s understanding of the 

wider cultural environment in which we all 

live. Putting arts and culture at the centre of 

education is important not just for developing 

creative capacities and skills but also for 

encouraging social responsibility and personal 

qualities such as resilience, empathy, and a 

capacity for friendship. “While the arts have no 

monopoly on creativity, they foster it particularly 

well. Creativity is not a purely intellectual 

process. It is enriched by other capacities and in 

particular by feelings, intuition and by a playful 

imagination”. Ken Robinson (2011). 

ARTS IN EDUCATION 

The incorporation of the arts into state provided 

education in Ireland began in earnest with the 

publication in 1978 of ‘The Place of the Arts in 

Irish Education’, known as the Benson Report. 

Points of Alignment, the 2008 report of the 

Special Committee on the Arts and Education, 

ARTS EDUCATION REFERS 

USUALLY TO MAINSTREAM 

TEACHING AND LEARNING OF 

THE ARTS AS PART OF GENERAL 

EDUCATION, WHILE ARTS-IN- 

EDUCATION REFERS MOSTLY 

TO INTERVENTIONS FROM THE 

REALM OF THE ARTS INTO THE 

EDUCATION SYSTEM. 

confirmed an alignment between politicians, 

practitioners and public around the need to 

address this issue and marked another significant 

milestone. The title refers to alignment of the arts 

on the one hand with education on the other. 

In 2011, Ruairi Quinn T.D., Minister for 

Education & Skills and Jimmy Deenihan T.D., 

Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht 

had responsibility for this area of converged 

interest to prioritise action on Arts in Education. 

Arts education refers usually to mainstream 

teaching and learning of the arts as part of 

general education, while arts-in-education refers 

mostly to interventions from the realm of the 

PAGE 41


arts into the education system. Arts education is 

primarily the responsibility of the Department 

of Education. The role of the Department of Arts, 

Heritage and the Gaeltacht has been as advocates 

promoting the cause of the arts within formal 

education. For arts-in-education, the Arts Council 

has been a primary agent of policy and provision. 

The publication of the Arts in Education Charter 

in January 2013 symbolised an unprecedented 

initiative whereby the two Governments 

Departments with responsibility in the area 

were combining their efforts, in association 

with the Arts Council, to address a range of 

policy objectives identified by them. This was 

a landmark attempt at joined-up thinking 

envisioning a future alignment centred on the 

student. 

“We believe creativity must be placed at the 

heart of our future as a society and a country. 

The arts are our first encounter with that rich 

world of creativity, and we believe in placing the 

arts, alongside other subjects, at the core of our 

education system. We believe this Charter to be a 

formative step in realising that ambition” 

(Arts in Education Charter 2013). 

The Charter Implementation Group was chaired 

by the late Professor John Coolahan. 

The Charter contained 19 objectives. Key 

initiatives developed and implemented between 

2014 and 2017: 

• Launching of the Arts in Education Portal 

2015 

• Primary CPD – Teacher Artist Partnership 

CPD and Residency Programme 

• Post-primary CPD - Arts in Junior Cycle 

• Expansion of Music Generation 

• Establishment of Irelands National Arts and 

Culture in Education Research Repository 

• Local Arts Education Partnership (LAEPs) 

Partnerships - CMETB Pilot 

• School Policies and plans incorporating arts 

in education opportunities 

• NCCA established reciprocal partnership with 

the Arts Council 

• Partnership working with the CNCI and ETAI 

In 2017, the Creative Ireland Programme 

marked an important new development on this 

journey. The Programme builds on preceding 

initiatives and aims to work in parallel with the 

many existing schools programmes that support 

creativity as well as the work of many individuals 

and organisations outside the formal education 

system. It is an all of Government initiative. The 

plan underlines the importance of fostering 

creativity by integrating the arts and creativity 

into education, and the impact this can have 

on other curricular areas of the mainstream 

curriculum. Bringing three Departments of 

Government together (Department of Tourism, 

Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, 

Department of Education and Department of 

Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and 

Youth) for this work has shown the importance 

of the voice of the child and the need to pay 

attention to arts and creativity in early years’ 

settings as well as in our primary and postprimary 

schools. 

PAGE 42


ARTS EDUCATION REFERS 

USUALLY TO MAINSTREAM 

TEACHING AND LEARNING OF 

THE ARTS AS PART OF GENERAL 

EDUCATION, WHILE ARTS-IN- 

EDUCATION REFERS MOSTLY 

TO INTERVENTIONS FROM THE 

REALM OF THE ARTS INTO THE 

EDUCATION SYSTEM. 

Creative Ireland is based on five Pillars and is 

about creativity and the broader alignment to 

be achieved that recognises that this is not just 

about the arts community or the education 

community. It is an alignment that recognises 

that “investment in early years care and 

education reaps significant dividends throughout 

a child’s life and to society” (Better Outcomes 

Brighter Futures report (2014). 

The Creative Youth Plan (Pillar 1) aims to “give 

every child practical access to tuition, experience 

and participation in art, music, drama and coding 

by 2022.” The Plan works across: 

Schools: Enhancing arts and creativity initiatives 

in schools and early years settings. 

Teacher CPD: Increasing and enhancing teacher 

continuing professional development 

Out-of-School: Improving cross-sectoral 

collaboration to support creativity for children 

and young people in the community. 

The Department of Education plays either a lead 

role or a significant role in many of the actions 

in the Creative Youth Plan. Key initiatives under 

Creative Youth are: 

• Creative Schools – led by the Arts Council in 

partnership with DoE and DCEDIY 

• Creative Clusters – led by DoE via Tralee EC/ 

ESCI 

• Teacher-Artist Partnership CPD (Primary 

CPD) - led by DoE via Tralee EC/ESCI 

• Arts in Junior Cycle (Post Primary CPD) – led 

by DoE/JCT 

• Local Creative Youth Partnerships (out-ofschool 

creative partnerships in three ETB’s) 

• National expansion of Music Generation. 

• Arts in Education Charter initiatives: Arts 

in Education Portal and National Research 

Repository ACERR – led by DoE 

1. CREATIVE SCHOOLS 

Creative Schools is a key in-school initiative 

led by the Arts Council in partnership with the 

Department of Education, the Department of 

Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and 

Media and the Department of Children, Equality, 

Disability, Integration and Youth. It provides 

tangible supports for schools to embrace these 

developments by placing the arts and creativity 

at the centre of school life. Schools participate 

in the initiative over a two-year period and are 

provided with access to a “Creative Associate” 

to assist in developing a creative plan for each 

school. Launched in 2018, 464 schools have 

participated to date. 

PAGE 43


2. CREATIVE CLUSTERS 

Creative Clusters is led by DoE via Tralee 

Education Centre/ESCI and funded through 

the Schools Excellence Fund. The initiative is 

considered one of the key in-school initiatives 

of Creative Youth. The initiative demonstrates 

how the arts and creativity can support clusters 

of schools to work together over a two-year 

period to address common learning challenges, 

identified by those schools. Clusters can consist 

of primary schools only, post-primary schools 

only or a combination. Schools apply together as 

a cluster in groups of three to five. There is one 

cluster per full time education centre to ensure 

national spread. Clusters receive access to a 

“Cluster Facilitator” to help clusters shape and 

develop their project. Schools are also provided 

with substitution allowances to facilitate cluster 

meetings between schools. The Creative Clusters 

initiative first commenced in 2018 and a total of 

220 schools have participated across 65 clusters 

to date. 

3. TEACHER-ARTIST PARTNERSHIP & 

RESIDENCY PROGRAMME (TAP) 

The Teacher/Artist Partnership (TAP) CPD 

initiative was developed in 2014 to support and 

enhance arts education. It is a unique initiative in 

which artists train to work in partnership with 

primary school teachers. Teachers participate 

in week long approved and accredited summer 

course where they work in partnership with 

artists. A number of teachers then benefit from 

a 20-hour residency in the following school year, 

where the teacher and artist pair can continue 

to work together in the classroom. To date 1,304 

Teachers and 245 Artists have trained in TAP CPD 

THE AIM OF THE ARTS IN 

EDUCATION PORTAL IS TO 

CONTINUE TO BUILD A 

COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE 

WITHIN ARTS AND EDUCATION, 

PROVIDING A SPACE WHERE 

BOTH ARTISTS, CREATIVES AND 

TEACHERS CAN BE SUPPORTED 

AND INSPIRED. 

across 535 primary schools. The TAP programme 

now exists in a face-to-face and online format. 

4. ARTS IN JUNIOR CYCLE 

Arts in Junior Cycle is operated by Junior Cycle 

for Teachers and presents a series of professional 

development experiences for post primary 

teachers to support engagement with the arts 

and learning in Junior Cycle. The Professional 

Learning Experiences (PLE), run in conjunction 

with arts organisations, embody the principles 

and key skills which underpin the Framework for 

Junior Cycle and provide teachers with practical 

and creative methodologies to engage with 

learning outcomes in their classroom. Since 2017, 

3,217 post primary teachers have accessed these 

PLE’s. 

5. LOCAL CREATIVE YOUTH PARTNERSHIPS 

The Creative Youth Plan committed to 

establishing “Local Creative Youth Partnerships” 

(LCYPs) on a pilot basis in three ETB areas. 

PAGE 44


These Partnerships have formed networks which 

enable information sharing and collaboration 

between local creative youth service providers 

to bring about better use of existing resources, 

practices and initiatives in an ETB area. They are 

providing an opportunity for the ETB’s to forge 

new partnerships and collaborations with their 

local cultural and creativity communities. 

Three LCYPs are being piloted following an 

application process: 

• Kerry Education and Training Board 

• Laois and Offaly Education and Training 

Board 

• Limerick and Clare Education and Training 

Board 

6. MUSIC GENERATION 

Music Generation is a national programme of 

performance music tuition for young people. 

While outlined as one of the commitments under 

the Charter, the full national roll-out of Music 

Generation is one of the actions contained in the 

Creative Youth Plan. The majority of Local Music 

Education Partnerships are led by ETB’s. Under 

Creative Youth, a commitment was made to the 

expanding Music Generation nationwide, with 10 

new partnerships being established to complete 

national expansion. 

7. ARTS IN EDUCATION CHARTER INITIATIVES 

There was a commitment in the Creative 

Ireland Programme 2017 to fully resource and 

implement the objectives of the Charter which 

include (a) the Arts in Education Portal and (b) 

ACERR. 

(a) Arts in Education Portal 

The Arts in Education Portal (www. 

artsineducation.ie) is the key national digital 

resource for arts in education and creative 

practice in Ireland and was launched in May 

2015. The aim of the Portal is to continue to 

build a community of practice within arts and 

education, providing a space where both artists, 

creatives and teachers can be supported and 

inspired. The Portal is a dynamic online space, 

updated continually with news, features and 

new digital content which provides a window 

into the diversity, depth and breadth of practice 

taking place all across Ireland and showcases 

many other flagship initiatives such as Creative 

Clusters, TAP and Creative Schools. In 2020 the 

Portal had in excess of 28,000 users. 

(b) ACERR Ireland’s National Arts and Culture 

in Education Research Repository 

The ACERR Research Repository positions 

Ireland to capitalise on our national investment 

and make further gains for researchers in the 

Arts, Culture and Creative sector. Ireland, Irish 

research and researchers, need to be positioned 

within a digital research infrastructure to 

capitalise on its potential. ACERR gives access to 

Irish third level research and researchers from 

across the Arts and Culture sector to the public 

- both nationally and internationally - with the 

overall goals of showcasing excellent work. With 

the overall goal of showcasing excellent work, 

the focus is on excellent, innovative knowledge 

making and creative work. Teachers, community 

workers, citizens throughout Ireland are now be 

able to access this resource freely. 

PAGE 45


Other initiatives of Creative Youth include: 

• Early Years CPD initiative – to be developed 

by DCEDIY 

• NAPD Creative Engagement Programme 

• Youth Drama 

• Group/Choral Singing 

• Fighting Words 

• Tech / Computational Thinking 

• The Big Idea 

• Junk Kouture 

CONCLUSION 

We know that for today’s student knowledge is 

essential, skills are important and capabilities are 

vital and “creativity is a new literacy and should 

be regarded with the same status as English 

or maths” in the school curriculum. “It is most 

critically about making sure that individuals 

acquire a solid foundation of knowledge in key 

disciplines, that they develop creative, critical 

thinking and collaborative skills” (Andreas 

Schleicher and Qian Tang, 2015). The arts and 

creativity are fundamentally important for 

developing the creative capacities children and 

young people and are indispensable to education 

as a whole and Ireland has made enormous 

advances in the last decade in this area. Globally, 

education is going through a critical time of 

unprecedented change and there has never been 

a better time for us to embrace the arts and 

creativity in the classrooms of our schools. 

PAGE 46


REFERENCES 

Arts in Education Charter (2013): Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the Department of 

Education and Science. 

Benson, C. (1979): Benson Report THE PLACE OF THE ARTS IN IRISH EDUCATION, The Arts Council 1979. 

Creative Ireland Programme (2017-2022): www.creativeireland.ie 

Creative Youth, (2017): A plan to enable the creative potential of every child and young person. 

Department of Children and Youth Affairs, (2014-2020), Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, The National Policy 

Framework for Children and Young People. 

Points of Alignment, (2008), The report of the Special Committee on the Arts and Education. 

Robinson, K. (2015). Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, Fully Revised and Updated Edition, Publisher(s): 

Capstone. 

Schleicher, A. and Tang, Q. (2015). Universal Basic Skills: What Countries Stand to Gain OECD 

PAGE 47


PAGE 48


The Power of Creative Dance in the 

Classroom 

Monica Muñoz Dancer, Choreographer and Educator. John Coolahan Early Years Artist in 

Residence at The Ark 

SUMMARY 

Creative dance can be incorporated in the 

classroom to stimulate learning. Creative dance 

can be used as a tool to teach by introducing 

children the opportunity to physicalize concepts 

learned in class, but perhaps the most important 

part of why creative dance should be integrated 

in the curriculum is that it can become a stimulus 

for learning. As a dance artist working in primary 

schools in Dublin, I have teached creative dance, 

releasing the students from their passive learning 

posture, seated in their chairs for the major part 

of their schedule, asking them to physicalize 

concepts and ideas learned in class. By asking 

students to respond through their bodies to 

aspects of what they learn, we can encourage 

agency, self-esteem, new levels of self-discovery 

and creativity. All of these, are needed for a 

child-centred education and can prepare children 

for fulfilling futures. Creating, performing and 

appreciating dance together in the classroom 

can also develop an atmosphere of team spirit, 

co-operation and acceptance. Reflecting and 

conceptualizing dance as kinaesthetic learning 

could support creative dance to have a more 

central role in Irish primary schools. 

DISEMBODIED EDUCATION 

The current system on sedentary education is 

a result of our dualistic concept of body and 

STARTING IN PRESCHOOL 

CHILDREN, EDUCATION 

ANTHROPOLOGIST AND EARLY 

YEARS SPECIALIST JOSEPH TOBIN, 

2004 SUGGESTS THAT “THE 

BODY IS DISAPPEARING IN EARLY 

CHILDHOOD EDUCATION". 

mind. Starting in preschool children, education 

anthropologist and early years specialist 

Joseph Tobin, 2004 suggests that “the body 

is disappearing in early childhood education. 

Once a protected site within the larger world 

of education in which the body could flourish, 

preschools are now a battle-zone in the war 

against the body, sites where the bodies of 

children and the adults who care for them fall 

under increasing scrutiny and discipline”. (p 

111) He describes how very young children 

are spending less time in the sand than they 

do at the computer, that their teachers and 

carers feel less free to offer them a hug or 

to sit them on their lap and that they are 

generally discouraged from affectionate or 

energetic contact play with each other. Tobin 

PAGE 49


believes that the reasons for an increasing 

disembodiment in early childhood settings are 

consequences of our focus on “rationality, control 

and risk avoidance”. This trend continues in 

primary schools; Sir Kenneth Robinson has also 

commented on the dangers of “disembodied 

learning” in his TED Talk (2006) Do Schools Kill 

Creativity? “As children grow up we start to 

educate them progressively from the waist up, 

and then focus on their heads, and slightly to 

one side”. Children’s physical development has 

continued to lose out to the increasing emphasis 

on disembodied education, or “head learning” 

but there is a sufficient body of understanding 

to demonstrate that movement stimulates the 

neurological system and wires the brain, forming 

the connections that lay important foundations 

for children’s learning and development. 

KINAESTHETIC LEARNING 

Creative dance is more than exercising the body. 

It connects body with mind in a holistic process 

of learning, a process that can be enhanced by 

kinaesthetic learning. This is a process where 

knowledge is created through the transformation 

of experience. It is also one of the eight types 

of learning styles defined in Howard Gardner’s, 

an American developmental psychologist, 

theory of Multiple Intelligences. He claims that 

we have not one but multiple intelligences. 

They include linguistic, musical, mathematical, 

spatial, kinaesthetic, naturalistic, interpersonal 

and intrapersonal. He argues that these types 

of intelligence are more or less independent 

of each other. He also says that we all have 

different strengths in different intelligences 

and that education should treat them equally 

so that all children receive opportunities to 

the develop their different abilities. When we 

learn kinaesthetically we process information 

physically with bodily control and expression 

through personal experience, cognitive elements, 

feelings, emotions and interpretations from 

different perspectives. According to Gardner- all 

of these elements are present in creative dance. 

This learning emphasizes subjective experience, 

gives the learner agency and the possibility 

to create sense in learning-by-doing. If we 

compare about a child sitting and listening to a 

teacher and a child trying to make sense of this 

information with the whole body, interpreting 

an historic event, or text, or poem alone or 

in a group improvising; we can imagine how 

many more spatial, cognitive, emotional and 

experiential connections can be reached in the 

latter’s experience. This learning is child-centred, 

focusing on students being active, giving them 

the power of choice, reflection and of problem 

solving. Carla Hannaford, biologist, educator and 

the author of Smart Moves; Why learning is Not 

All in Your Head states that ‘Movement anchors 

thought”. Dance in a school setting, is not a form 

of break, or a time off from serious learning. It 

is a tool of learning that gives the students the 

opportunity to be physically involved through 

creativity. 

LEARNING THROUGH MOVEMENT FOR ALL 

I have seen children who normally would not 

participate verbally, who are absent or not 

engage, or are fidgeting in class, transform in 

the creative dance lesson, responding physically 

with imagination and great creativity, focusing on 

a task and also responding verbally to questions, 

and problems because they feel more physically 

grounded. Let’s take for example a dance 

PAGE 50


ROSEMARY ROBERTS, 

EARLY YEARS AUTHOR AND 

CONSULTANT, SAYS “WE CAN 

USE WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT 

THE PROCESS OF LEARNING TO 

HELP CHILDREN TO BUILD ON 

WHAT THEY ALREADY KNOW, 

GIVING THEM OPPORTUNITIES TO 

PRACTICE, STRUGGLE AND PLAY.” 

session where its learning purpose is to apply 

kinaesthetically elements of spatial awareness; 

the students are from first class in a primary 

school from north Dublin, mix gender group and 

from diverse cultural backgrounds. Our warm up 

starts with a free exploration of straight lines 

with different body parts, in different levels 

and creating different spatial pathways. All the 

students are encouraged to respond physically 

to the tasks, so they all commit to do it, they all 

take action, they all have to think physically 

about what they are doing. Later on children 

create small solos inspired by robots, using only 

straight lines; they will also direct each other 

to travel creating paths in different directions 

reinforcing the concept of lines. Towards the 

end of the lesson students are asked to work 

in small groups creating their own robot 

dances related to choices made by the children 

including, articulation of body parts, dynamics 

and space. Each group shows its dance. We 

divide the class in two groups, the performers 

and the critics. Critics are asked to watch and 

comment on whether the robot’ dances were 

clearly created and patterned and why. Critics 

and performers then swop roles. During class 

all students had an opportunity to be creators, 

performers and appreciators. These three aspects 

are interconnected and interdependent. While 

a lesson might focus on one specific aspect, 

the three go hand in hand. Also relevant is the 

fact that there are open-ended challenges, that 

encourage problem solving responses, different 

ones for each of them. For some students that 

have difficulties to sit still in the classroom, they 

learn by experiencing with their bodies this 

creative process. Children learn in situations that 

are neither undemanding nor overwhelming. 

As Rosemary Roberts, early years author and 

consultant, says “we can use what we know 

about the process of learning to help children to 

build on what they already know, giving them 

opportunities to practice, struggle and play.” 

We just need to provide the opportunities for 

students to do it in an experiential way, to- allow 

students to connect with their physicality. 

DANCING TOGETHER 

Another important aspect of creative dance in 

the classroom is the practising relationshipbuilding 

with peers, when in the dance lessons 

students are constantly creating and moving 

together. To create dances effectively with others, 

children will contribute ideas, collaborate and 

cooperate. In order to achieve a positive learning 

attitude in the classroom, in which there are 

good relationships within the students, every 

child should be encourage to dance with each 

other regardless of their ability, gender or 

friendship. That each child is willing to dance 

with everybody in the class is something to aspire 

PAGE 51


to. Good group work requires the students to be 

aware of the others. It requires trust, sensibility 

and physical respect. Learning the movement 

of others helps student students to expand their 

own movement vocabulary while teaching 

other children their own moves puts them in 

the a teaching role where their voices and choice 

can be heard. When children create together a 

dance in the classroom they are gaining some 

important collaborative skills that are valuable in 

adult life. Also creating something together gives 

them a stronger bond than when they are sitting 

alone facing a teacher. In my experience is very 

positive to design tasks where children move 

around and on command they have to relate to 

the nearest child, or form couples or groups, 

and to achieve random groupings in a lesson. 

For children to create and to dance together 

requires a responsibility for the self and a shared 

responsibility for others. I have found in some 

classrooms that the simple act of holding hands 

in a circle can be difficult for some children to 

achieve, but building the trust and understanding 

that starts with holding the other’s hand allows 

for more complex movements with a partner, or 

in older classes, the excitement and responsibility 

of taking the weight of a partner. Learning about 

being different within a group is a key element 

for diversity and inclusion and creative dance can 

teach us that. For example, students used their 

own experiences based on their own personal 

stories. Students wrote about a holiday, or a trip 

with their family. Students then combined their 

stories and began creating movements related to 

them. I observed students excited to contribute, 

benefit and encourage each other. In general 

the dance atmosphere appeared less cliquish 

and more inclusive. Working collaboratively 

helped students to construct positive relations 

to each other, encouraging freedom and 

helping on individual’s ideas. I believe that 

when the students were creating the dance 

in the classroom they felt empowered, it were 

encouraged empathy and different perspectives. 

Connecting the world of a child with the world 

of a professional dancers, the African American 

dancer Judith Jamison says: 

"There’s only one of me. There’s only one of 

anybody. That’s why different steps look different 

on different people." 

CONCLUSION 

Because of the holistic benefits it offers, creative 

dance in the classroom matters. Unfortunately, 

despite examples of excellent collaboration 

between dance artists, educators and teachers, 

we are still a long way away from the stage where 

creative dance is available to every child in the 

Irish school system as an accepted and respected 

contribution to their learning. We might need 

only to be able to use the power of creative dance 

and its kinaesthetic tools effectively. A shift in 

attitude and belief, can only come with increased 

awareness, knowledge and understanding and 

this involved commitment, trust and the risk 

of asking students to get up and DANCE. A risk 

worth taking. 

PAGE 52


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Gardner, H. (2006) Multiple Intelligences Basic Books, Revised Updated ed. Edition 2006 

Hannaford, C. (2005) Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not Learning Is Not All in Your Head (2 nd.) Salt Lake City: 

Great Ocean Publishers 

Jamison, J. with Kaplan, H. (1993) Dancing Spirit: An Autobiography. New York: Thorsons 

Roberts R. (2002) Self Esteem and Early Learning. London: Paul Chapman Publishing 

Robinson, K (2006) Do schools kill creativity? Video recording TED (online) Available at www.ted.com/talks/ 

ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=EN (accessed February 2021) 

Tobin, J. (2004) The Disappearance of the Body in Early Childhood Education. In Bresler, L. (ed.) Knowing Bodies, 

Moving Minds: Towards Embodied Teaching and Learning Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers 

PAGE 53


PAGE 54


Experiencing the Power of Change in Education 

Innovation, creativity and collaboration - the future of education 

Alan Morgan University College Dublin Innovation Academy 

Cecilia Travers St. Andrew's College, Dublin 

INTRODUCTION 

In a recent article published by the Irish Times 

(March 22nd, 2021), Dr. Andreas Schleicher, Head 

of Education for the OECD stated that Ireland’s 

education system is based on a 20th century 

model of learning and needs to modernise 

to avoid producing second-class robots in a 

world of rapid technological change. This is not 

really a surprise, but when one as high up in 

the education world as Dr.Schleicher is, people 

begin to listen. The World Economic Forum have 

also thrown their hat in this ring, discussing in 

their January 2020 report that new models of 

education need to be defined for what they refer 

to as ‘the fourth industrial revolution’, stating 

that the current standardized model of direct 

learning used in mainstream education today 

was largely influenced by the needs of the first 

and second industrial revolutions to fill repetitive 

process-oriented early manufacturing jobs. Prof. 

Cathay Davidson speaks to this point in her 2017 

book, The New Education stating that students 

who have been through the school and college 

system in the last 15 years have been given a 

raw deal as their schooling was developed in 

the late nineteenth & early twentieth century to 

train farmers and shopkeepers to become factory 

workers and office managers. 

“IN TIMES OF CHANGE, LEARNERS 

INHERIT THE EARTH, WHILE THE 

LEARNED FIND THEMSELVES 

BEAUTIFULLY EQUIPPED TO DEAL 

WITH A WORLD 

THAT NO LONGER EXISTS". 

Eric Hoffer 

Teaching and learning needs to be reimagined 

to reflect the times we live in and The UCD 

Innovation Academy’s programme - The 

Professional Certificate & Diploma in Creativity 

& Innovation in Education (Educators’ 

programme) has been a slow burner since 2014, 

transforming teachers and their students lives, 

but now that the pandemic has fundamentally 

shaken education to the top of the bottle, this 

programme is bursting over and bubbling with 

fizz in the virtual world giving a new reach and 

transformative experience to all who participate - 

The American philosopher, Eric Hoffer famously 

said “in times of change, learners inherit 

the earth, while the learned find themselves 

PAGE 55


beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no 

longer exists’. Following the severe disruption 

to global education systems due to the COVID-19 

pandemic, the need for creativity, innovation, 

transformation and the reimagining of education 

is now more important than ever and this 

pedagogical creative and innovative programme 

has something to say about that. 

THE WHY 

Exploring the literature on creativity and 

innovation in education, there are many strong 

views going back in time. More recently (Winks, 

et al, 2020) state that innovation in higher 

education has been the focus of much debate 

and research for many decades, pushing the 

modern university to reconsider what a ‘higher 

education’ consists of, looks like, and feels 

like to those involved, both as learners and 

educators. According to the recent KPMG report 

on Education during a pandemic (KPMG, 2021), 

major drivers of global change are reshaping the 

world in the 21st century and no institution will 

be completely immune. The fourth industrial 

revolution will prove to be as profound as the 

previous industrial revolutions and the ability 

to transform will be critical for all education 

institutions so they can shape and respond 

to a changing world of education. The last 

couple of decades have brought fundamental 

changes to our understanding of the how and 

why of learning, in particular there has been 

debate about blended and flexible learning, 

but the reality has been that online resources 

have only really supplemented the dominant 

mode of delivery, which was classroom based 

synchronous and in-person. But today, driven 

forward by the pandemic, it is unbelievably 

the reverse situation where programmes and 

shorter courses will be designed to be delivered 

through technology with a ‘digital first’ focus and 

only then supplemented by face-to-face, human 

support. This has been the exact case in point 

with the Educators programme at The Innovation 

Academy, where Covid19 unexpectedly and 

remarkably brought the programme from a 

classroom based practical learning-by-doing 

course, to a fully delivered on-line immersive 

learning experience that now has no boundaries, 

with international educators logging on from as 

far afield as Vietnam. 

There have been key structural shifts in the 

nature of world economies, cultures and 

society into which our students will ultimately 

enter - but what changes is education making 

to respond to these tectonic shifts? Creativity 

and innovation at all levels of education is 

fundamental in enabling this change particularly 

If Governments and societies at large are to 

fully realise the human capacity for learning 

that drives creativity and innovation. To speak 

to this ‘reimagination of learning’ there needs 

to be a support mechanism for educators at 

all levels of education so as to enhance their 

teaching practice and in the development of their 

own creative, innovative and entrepreneurial 

mindsets which leads them best positioned to 

develop such mindsets in their students for the 

betterment of economy and society. 

THE ‘EDUCATORS PROGRAMME’ @ THE 

INNOVATION ACADEMY 

The Professional Certificate & Diploma in 

Creativity & Innovation in Education delivered 

by The UCD Innovation Academy is charging 

PAGE 56


NOW, MORE THAN EVER, 

EDUCATORS REQUIRE AN 

ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET TO 

OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES WE 

ALL FACE AND TO CAPITALISE ON 

THE OPPORTUNITIES TO SUCCEED 

IN WORK AND LIFE BOTH TODAY 

AND INTO THE FUTURE. 

forward with reimagining education for a 

world that is rapidly changing, requiring a 

new approach to teaching & learning using 

methodologies such as creative communication, 

design thinking, effectuation, project based 

learning, systems thinking and entrepreneurial 

thinking. Now, more than ever, educators require 

an entrepreneurial mindset to overcome the 

challenges we all face and to capitalise on the 

opportunities to succeed in work and life both 

today and into the future. This entrepreneurial 

mindset is one that combines the ability to 

identify and create ideas of value together 

with the capability to learn through intentional 

iteration and the ability to engage others through 

empathy, teamwork and effective communication 

skills. Exploring the OECD Learning Compass 

2030, they discuss the concept of “transformative 

competencies” that students need in order to 

contribute to our world and shape a better future 

that can create new value, reconcile tensions and 

dilemmas, and take responsibility. The Educators 

programme at the UCD Innovation Academy 

reflects on the challenges and changes facing our 

students and society over the coming years and 

decades and speaks to what kind of responses 

are needed from our education system. It 

explores how and why we learn and investigates 

the challenges and opportunities raised by 

modern technology and the potential evolution of 

education in light of recent societal changes and 

work practices due to the impact of the Covid19 

pandemic. 

During the programme, educators collaborate 

and co-create an environment where they 

have the time and space to develop a creative 

response to this changing world by shaping new 

learning experiences for them and their students. 

Educators are invited to revisit and reimagine 

their education practice in an immersive 

experiential environment. Specifically, they will 

have the opportunity to develop their creativity, 

to explore new ideas and entrepreneurial 

initiatives in education and to develop their 

leadership for effecting change while all the time 

building a collaborative community of practice. 

THE LEARNERS VIEW 

To demonstrate the learnings from the 

programme, the inclusion of empirical evidence 

from a recent participant on the programme has 

been included in this paper to give an objective 

perspective on the overall programme learnings. 

This is an extract from the post programme 

reflection report from Cecilia Travers. 

Cecilia is International educator, Modern Foreign 

Language coordinator of St.Andrew’s College, 

Dublin. She is an experienced educator with a 

demonstrated history of working in the Irish 

PAGE 57


secondary education industry and at international 

level teaching French language and literature. 

By participating in Creativity, Innovation and 

leadership in Education, Cecilia wants to bring 

innovation to her teaching practice, to prepare 

students for the post-Covid world and impact 

change through the reimagination of education. 

REFLECTIONS ON THE EDUCATORS’ 

PROGRAMME 

Feeling the power of change is probably the way 

I would summarise my time at the Innovation 

Academy since October 2020, despite being in 

the middle of the Covid crisis. During this crisis, 

as an educator, I felt presented with two choices, 

firstly feeling useless, overwhelmed and wait for 

things to pass or secondly surf the wave and take 

this opportunity to learn new skills. These new 

skills would help me become a better educator 

and be part of the changes to our education 

system that were becoming more and more 

obvious as, for the second year in a row, State 

examinations had to be cancelled or amended. 

The common ground amongst the educators 

at the Innovation Academy was that this time 

should be used to upskill our teaching practices, 

to review and debate the goals of the Irish 

education system and to put the students back 

at the centre of learning to prepare them for the 

future. From day one in the course, I felt that I 

had finally been given a voice. I never felt like a 

student there to learn from unreachable lecturers 

but rather as part of a group of educators 

led by experienced facilitators who were 

encouraging everyone to share their experience 

and knowledge and learn from one another. I 

AS YOU PUT THE STUDENT’S 

NEEDS AT THE CENTRE OF THE 

PROBLEM TO RESOLVE, THE 

LEARNER IS CENTRAL TO THE 

SOLUTION YOU DEVELOP. THE 

EMPATHY PART OF THE PROCESS 

ALSO ALLOWS FOR STUDENTS TO 

BE HEARD AND BE GIVEN A VOICE. 

felt my opinion, along with my peers, was heard 

and valued. The tone was set straight away. It 

created an atmosphere of genuine trust amongst 

educators and facilitators. We all learned so much 

from each other. That is the power of the UCD 

Innovation Academy. 

Working alongside other educators from 

different backgrounds and countries, from 

primary school to higher education was an 

incredible experience. Guided by fabulous 

top international facilitators, we discovered 

the power of collaboration going through the 

Design Thinking Process and projects. We were 

given the tools to bring changes to our teaching 

practices and encouraged to bring creativity and 

innovation to our schools and classrooms. It 

might originally have been daunting to have the 

course entirely online, but it turned out to be an 

added bonus, giving us the opportunity to work 

with Vietnamese colleagues and International 

speakers, bringing a wealth of new knowledge 

and experience. Having turned into an online 

PAGE 58


learner helped me to become a better online 

teacher when we returned to online teaching in 

January 2021. I was equipped to give my students 

a positive online learning experience and got 

very positive feedback from the students and the 

parents. I had acquired these skills from my time 

at the Innovation Academy. 

Module 1 of the programme was a fantastic way 

to work and nurture my creativity. We were 

encouraged to reflect on our own experience as 

a learner and to use a journal to reflect on our 

teaching practice. Being introduced to the Design 

Thinking Process has allowed me to approach 

teaching and education in a new and innovative 

way. As you put the student’s needs at the centre 

of the problem to resolve, the learner is central 

to the solution you develop. The empathy part of 

the process also allows for students to be heard 

and be given a voice. Students have a role to play 

in finding the solution. They become co-creators 

of their learning which became apparent in our 

first Design Thinking task, “How can we make 

learners become co-creators of their learning 

environment?” The Design Thinking Process 

provides you with many skills like problem 

solving, collaboration, growth mindset and 

finding innovative solutions. I learned so much 

from this process and I now feel confident to 

bring these skills to my students. These skills 

could become game changers for learners. 

In Module 2, we were quickly introduced to David 

Price OBE who worked with us throughout the 

module. Within a few minutes, it was clear that 

David was going to encourage us to push the 

boundaries of the traditional Irish education 

system and help us look at education at a global 

level. We need to use the current Covid crisis to 

make the necessary changes to education to help 

our learners prepare for the world of tomorrow. 

Be the change and build back better! I am lucky 

to already be exposed to International Education 

as I have been teaching the International 

Baccalaureate for the last 10 years, but it was 

the first time that I was able to exchange with 

leaders and other educators about the changes 

needed to the Irish education system. Once I had 

been introduced and trained in the International 

Baccalaureate mindset, I could clearly see the 

values of basing your teaching on transferable 

skills. 

As an educator, I was happy to see the evolution 

of the New Junior Cycle programme, which is also 

based on skills rather than content, but I have 

been surprised in the past to see the resistance of 

my colleagues and their fears towards change. It 

was really refreshing to be in a room with likeminded 

educators who are all putting the learner 

at the centre of their teaching and learning 

objectives. As a secondary school teacher, I 

really welcomed the opportunity to hear the 

views of third level teachers and I feel we 

should be working more with our counterparts 

in the primary and third level sectors to create 

continuity throughout the Irish educational 

system’s levels. This Innovation Academy is a 

place where this type of exchange is facilitated, 

encouraged and valued. 

Module 2 had a focus on working as part of a 

team to generate, develop, iterate, prototype 

and finally present new approaches and 

methodologies in teaching & learning – The 

Future of Education. Our team was made of five 

PAGE 59


educators from very different backgrounds, 

primary, secondary and third level but also from 

different countries, as two were from Vietnam. 

We quickly settled on our problem to solve: 

“As we remain in the third wave of the Covid 

19 pandemic and associated level 5 lockdown, 

our students, youth, and older people in our 

community are missing an urgent and precious 

connection. 

Everyday news shows the link missing between 

schools and the community, and both sides are 

suffering from this lack of connection. 

So, what we need is for educational bodies 

to reconnect with the older generation in our 

community and for the education system to 

recognise and value the engagement of the young 

generation in order to change the perception of 

young people in our community by connecting 

them and getting them to work together for 

everyone's personal growth”. 

Through an extensive empathy process, it 

became apparent that students want to do more 

for their community and would like to have this 

experience recognised as part of their education. 

It was also interesting to see that at the beginning 

of 2021 the department of rural and community 

development published a National Volunteering 

strategy stating that it sees Young people as 

the future of volunteering. One of their top 

priorities is to deliver an educational programme 

in partnership with youth organisation and 

Educational bodies. We were on the right track. 

We decided to look at creating a new Junior Cycle 

short course which allowed us to have an impact 

on the curriculum at secondary level Junior Cycle 

and would also allow us to bring it to the senior 

cycle if it was successful at Junior cycle. 

“Junior Cycle Students need a way to engage 

regularly with the local communities because the 

curriculum does not give them the resources to do 

it despite their enthusiasm”. 

We called our project: SHOUT (StrengtHening 

cOmmUniTies) and using all our research created 

a short video presenting our project. It has been 

entered as a showcase for the Féilte festival 2021. 

In Module 3 we participated in a number of 

leadership experiences, all intended to encourage 

us to explore and develop our creative, innovative 

leadership practice as an educator. It has given 

us the tools to become leaders in innovation in 

Education. One of the key activities where we 

were invited to develop our leadership skills 

was through the Role Play Actors using various 

educational scenarios. This was an immersive 

learning experience bringing together both 

pedagogical and leadership concepts. 

I feel that I have been given the power to make 

changes to improve the educational experience of 

our students. I am looking forward to continuing 

working on our SHOUT, Junior Cycle short 

course project, bringing volunteering to our 

curriculum and making it happen. I feel ready to 

move my career forward as an educator and lead 

innovation in education and shape the future of 

Education. 

CONCLUSION 

It is time to train and inspire our educators to 

prepare students for the world of tomorrow 

and awake them to the power of creative 

and innovative thinking in their classrooms. 

Creativity and innovation are the new buzzwords 

PAGE 60


of the 21st century and education must form part 

of this evolution (or should we say revolution) 

in order to bring it into line with the demands 

of a world that is changing in front of our eyes. 

How many times have we heard educators say 

over the last 12 months “do you remember when 

we used to do this in the classroom?” The world 

we knew last year is probably like the horse and 

cart - it may still exist in some circles, but there is 

a faster new improved method of reaching your 

destination! 

We are now living in a world of disruption, 

the Covid19 pandemic has seen to that - But 

disruption drives change and transforming 

entrenched systems comes through ‘disruptive 

innovation’ a concept developed by Harvard 

Business School professor Clayton Christensen, 

disruptive innovation is the process by which 

new ideas and inventions create value and 

ultimately topple existing competitors. Is the 

education system the ‘entrenched system’? 

and in order to meet these new challenges, 

and embrace the change required, creativity, 

innovation and an entrepreneurial mindset are 

now essential tools and approaches that need to 

be in the educators tool box. 

PAGE 61


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Christensen, C. (1997) The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston, Mass: 

Harvard Business School Press, 

Davidson, C. (2017) The New Education, Hachette Book Group, New York 

OECD (2021) http://www.oecd.org/education/ 

Schleicher, Andreas, March 22nd, 2021 in Carl O'Brien, Irish schools need to modernise ‘20th century’ approach 

to learning, warns OECD. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/irish-schools-need-to-modernise-20thcentury-approach-to-learning-warns-oecd-1.4516222 

Winks, L., Green, N. & Dyer, S. Nurturing innovation and creativity in educational practice: principles for supporting 

faculty peer learning through campus design. High Educ 80, 119–135 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734- 

019-00468-3 

World Economic Forum, 2020. Schools of the Future Defining New Models of Education for the Fourth Industrial 

Revolution 

PAGE 62


Creative Engagement in Education and 

Being Fully Human. 

Máire O Higgins Larkin Community College, Dublin 

SUMMARY 

Coming into stillness, listening deeply without 

judgement, and engaging creatively, help us to 

become fully present and to flourish as human 

beings. When we find ways as educators, to pay 

attention to how we are in the present moment, 

we experience the transformative power and 

connection that we have with each other, again 

and again. 

I went to UCD to study English in 1984. A 

compassionate and wise lecturer in the English 

Department gently admonished me in my final 

year for not attending his lectures. I spent a lot 

of time in the College drama society putting 

on plays. I discovered the playwright Samuel 

Beckett in Dramsoc. In Beckett’s play “Waiting 

for Godot” the absurd feelings of alienation that 

I experienced from the characters’ nihilistic 

understanding of the world, resonated viscerally 

with me, as I tried to navigate my world which 

had been heretofore the world of a naïve, convent 

raised, middle class, indigenous white Irish child, 

for whom rigid Catholicism and the absolute 

necessity to ‘be good’ had been a defining moral 

compass. Getting to know Beckett’s characters 

in the rehearsal room, was a needle point in my 

development as a young person. My world grew 

through embodying characters who thought 

differently to me and who articulated their 

PRACTICING STILLNESS HELPS 

US TO BECOME ACCUSTOMED 

TO MEETING OURSELVES 

AND GROWING IN LOVE WITH 

OURSELVES. 

shadow side. My discerning English lecturer 

and lover of Beckett saw what I was doing with 

Beckett’s plays and he gave me a pass in his 

subject specialism. He helped me to succeed and 

circumvent the education system that did not 

easily reward embodied knowledge. He showed 

me love and compassion. 

Love in education is a conscious act that enables 

us to be fully human. It starts with us becoming 

comfortable with being still. Practicing stillness 

helps us to become accustomed to meeting 

ourselves and growing in love with ourselves. 

Stillness allows us to hear what matters in 

between the words we speak. 

Deep listening without judgement, helps us to 

hear what we are saying to each other. The act 

of listening is an act of compassion, as when we 

are truly listening, we are relieving the suffering 

of the other. To be human is to suffer and to 

PAGE 63


understand how to handle our suffering is how 

we learn to flourish. Thich Nhat Hanh describes 

our handling of suffering as an ‘Art’ 1 . 

Connecting to creativity from a place of stillness 

and deep listening helps our hearts to heal and 

soar as we share who we are with one another. 

This is transformative education. The work is 

slow, careful and beautiful, and honours the 

authenticity of each one of us. 

After thirty years as an educator, my work now 

is an engagement with love. It isn’t always easy. 

Creating a systematic approach to engaging 

creatively, with stillness and deep listening, has 

helped me to heal and thrive as an educator. 

The playwright Colin Murphy has written a new 

version of Sophocles’ play Antigone. Transition 

year students are engaging with the themes of the 

play. Conversations are curated through a fourstep 

process: 

1. being still – a pause 

2. checking in – how am I? 

3. deep listening – without judgement 

4. checking out – how was this experience? 

Young people, the educators and the artist 

inquire about our experience of burial rights 

during Covid. We share stories about grannies, 

granddads and friends dying. The teacher 

Michelle Fallon, the artist Colin Murphy, myself 

and the students, discuss the impact of not 

being able to attend a funeral. Some students, 

who hadn’t thought about burial rights from 

the perspective of the common good, are 

realising that their Government is trying to 

makes decisions that respect the rights of both 

the individual and of the community. Listening 

to their peers and to the adults in the group, is 

deepening the young people’s understanding 

of how civil society works. Connecting the 

conversations to the characters in Antigone has 

helped us to explore challenging issues in an 

emotionally safe space, because we are looking at 

the actions of the characters in the play and not 

relying on the interrogation of our own actions. 

Tapping into our emotional and embodied selves 

in this safe way is helping us to feel connected 

and to find common ground. This is the best kind 

of citizenship education; where young people 

get to look closely and viscerally at why we make 

laws. This creative process helps us to be curious, 

to recognise each other’s sorrow, to grow through 

a shared common understanding of our values, 

and to flourish as humans. This work resonates 

with the poet John O Donohue’s assertion that 

“Real friendship or love is not manufactured or 

achieved by an act of will or intention. Friendship 

is always an act of recognition”. 2 

The photographer Mandy O’Neill worked as an 

Artist in Residence in the school I work in. Mandy 

gave us a fresh set of eyes through which to look 

at ourselves in school and reflect on who we 

are. At the end of her residency with us, Mandy 

exhibited in the Gallery of Photography. Her 

exhibition was called Quiet at the Back. Mandy 

said of her exhibition 

1 Thich Nhat Hanh https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/ 

thich-nhat-hanh-suffering/ 

2 O Donohue J (1999) p 45 Anam Cara: Spiritual 

Wisdom from the Celtic World Bantam Press 

PAGE 64


THIS KIND OF EDUCATION 

MATTERS BECAUSE IT ENABLES 

OUR YOUNG PEOPLE TO BE FULLY 

HUMAN, AND NOT ‘ON THE WAY’ 

TO BEING FULLY HUMAN. 

“Quiet at the Back contemplates the place of 

school among the frameworks in place to support 

and nurture young lives through adolescence, as 

they become adults”. 3 

Mandy’s exhibition invited us to reflect on how 

well we think we know our young people. A 

photograph can reveal so much about a person 

that we don’t pick up on during the busy school 

day. Mandy gave us time, through her stunning 

portraiture work, to reflect on the beauty of the 

human beings we work with. 

Mandy is currently working with 12 female 

students on an initiative around place. Each 

student has walked with Mandy in their own area 

in Dublin city and pointed out what matters to 

them in the place they live. Mandy has written a 

diary of the conversations she is having with the 

young women and she has photographed them 

in their place. She has then shared her diary 

entries and the photographs with the 12 women 

and myself. We curate the conversations we are 

having through a) a pause, b) a check-in, c) deep 

3 http://www.mandyoneill.ie/quietattheback/ 

hkk9kseqqg9qjmzumcqbem5q8t2mqa 

listening, and d) a check out. The conversations 

are rich and insightful. The young women are 

seeing themselves and hearing about themselves 

through their peers who respond to the 

photographs. And each young woman sees herself 

through Mandy’s portraits. This is transformative 

education, where young women are finding 

positive acknowledgement of who they are in 

their own communities right now. They are 

flourishing human beings in the present moment. 

This kind of education matters because it enables 

our young people to be fully human, and not ‘on 

the way’ to being fully human. 

My thirteen-year-old nephew told me that he 

saw his Primary School education as a fun time 

where socialising played an important role in 

his development. He sees secondary school 

differently. He sees it as a time to get serious and 

to work towards third level. He sees second level 

education as a way through to the next stage of 

his life. I was saddened and disappointed that our 

secondary school system could be defined and 

interpreted in this way. I believe it is because we 

have forgotten how to acknowledge explicitly, 

with our young people, that they are becoming 

fully human all of the time. 

A significant growth in my development as an 

educator was my experience in 2009, on a Steiner 

Kindergarten teacher training programme. I had 

intuited all of my adult life that young people 

needed others to act as agents for them, to model 

for them how to live well, and to advocate for 

their wellbeing. I also understood that young 

people needed to learn how to become their 

own agents for growth and change, and that 

they needed support to navigate this growth, so 

that they could build their capacity to flourish 

PAGE 65


and love themselves. I learnt from Steiner 

pedagogies and practices that young people 

need agency to be explicitly taught, through 

creative engagement, and through embodying the 

learning process. I also learnt that this can only 

happen when educators learn how to embody 

and befriend their own Nature so that they can 

then share their capacity for self-love with young 

people. 

In the first few weeks of my Steiner training, we 

explored how to teach the alphabet. I was invited 

to choose a scarf from a basket of coloured 

scarves, and to stand and move my upper body 

with the scarf, from side to side, in silence. I was 

invited to leave my self-conscious self at the 

door of the school and trust, and engage with the 

exercise. I was then invited to recreate the motion 

of my body and the scarf, onto a long narrow 

strip of paper with a large crayon that was laid 

out on the floor of the classroom. I was invited to 

draw the image that emerged through the body 

and the dance, over and over again. As I drew the 

image, I was invited to move my body to allow it 

to follow the image I was drawing, recreating the 

image down the length of the long strip of paper. 

I was invited to attach a sound to the image I was 

drawing. I chose an ‘s’ sound. I was invited to 

whisper the sound as I drew. After the exercise, I 

was invited to pay attention to how I was during 

the exercise. I was surprised at how emotional 

and engaged I was in the exercise. This was a 

gentle and sensory experience. After I had gone 

through this experience I was introduced to the 

letter ‘S’ in the alphabet. This exercise invited me 

to discover how it felt to embody the experience 

of a letter before learning the letter. It was a 

simple and profound exercise in how education 

can transform us when it is embodied. Twelve 

“PAY ATTENTION 

BE ASTONISHED 

TELL ABOUT IT”. 

Mary Oliver 

years after doing the Steiner training, I still have 

a vivid memory of the experience. There is not a 

lot that I remember about other teacher training 

experiences I have had. 

In my role as Chaplain, I often sit with teenagers 

who struggle to love themselves. It is heart 

breaking. Poverty and social exclusion are at the 

heart of the matter. So too is a lack of awareness 

of how to recognise their shadow side and 

befriend their own Nature. Many young people 

have not been taught the skills to sit with their 

own Nature. They easily reject their shadow side 

and feel ashamed of it. Teenagers in secondary 

schools need guidance from their educators, to 

help them to recognise and acknowledge their 

light and dark sides and deepen their awareness 

of their own Nature. Only then can they learn 

how to be fully present to themselves and at ease 

with their own Nature. Educators also need to 

learn how to do this work in order to befriend 

their own light and dark side and be at ease with 

their own Nature. 

I believe Beckett’s works mirror the paradox 

of emptiness and presence that we are all now 

being brought to our knees to experience and 

embody in our schools as a consequence of 

the Covid pandemic. Like Beckett’s characters 

Vladimir and Estragon in ‘Waiting for Godot’, 

PAGE 66


our young people and our educators need to 

know how to dig deep and find a way to navigate 

despair and isolation and learn how to be 

comfortable with our own Natures and with 

each other. We can do this through welcoming 

and embodying explicit pedagogies that teach 

the skills of stillness, deep listening and creative 

engagement across all disciplines in school life. It 

will allow us to do what Mary Oliver asks of us - 

“Pay attention 

Be astonished 

Tell about it”. 4 

We have a Citizens Assembly on Education as 

part of our Programme for Government. Let us, 

without judgement and with a beginner’s mind, 

pay attention to how we reimagine training 

programmes for educators. Let us pay attention 

too to how we reimagine our schools as spaces 

that help us all to be astonished and tell about it 

with love. 

4 Oliver M (2008) ‘Sometimes’ Red Bird, Boston 

Beacon Press 37 

PAGE 67


REFERENCES 

O Donohue, J (1999) p 45 Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World Bantam Press 

Oliver, M (2008) ‘Sometimes’ Red Bird, Boston Beacon Press 37 

O'Neill, M (2019) Quiet At The Back. http://www.mandyoneill.ie/quietattheback/ 

hkk9kseqqg9qjmzumcqbem5q8t2mqa 

Thich Nhat Hanh (2017) Why We Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Suffering. https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/thich-nhathanh-suffering/ 

PAGE 68


Transforming Junior Cycle: The Arts in 

Junior Cycle Initiative 

Margaret O'Shea Team leader for Arts in Junior Cycle and Visual Art, Junior Cycle for Teachers 

Schools’ Support Service. 

Ann Ryan Advisor for Arts in Junior Cycle and English, Junior Cycle for Teachers Schools’ Support 

Service. 

The arts have a strong claim to be part of 

education. They enrich our understanding of the 

world, challenge prevailing ideologies, widen 

our perspectives, engage and delight us, and 

celebrate our humanity (Mike Fleming) 

Arts in the classroom, broadly defining ‘the Arts’ 

to mean ‘any creative or interpretative expression 

(whether traditional or contemporary) in 

whatever form’ (Arts Act, 2003), may include 

visual arts, theatre, literature, music, dance, 

opera, film, circus and architecture… spilling into 

related areas including heritage, design, creative 

coding, designing video games and all parts of 

our creative culture (Arts Council of Ireland, 

2008; Arts in Education Charter 2012; Creative 

Ireland Programme 2017-2022). The arts inspire 

and permeate our lives at all levels and serve 

as a unique vehicle for meaning making and 

discovering who we are. Eisner (2002), in his 

thoughtful investigation on the value of the arts, 

reminds us that the arts enable us to think in 

ways that are both disciplined and disparate and 

respond to stimuli in ways that are subjective 

and intellectual. The arts can help us to explore 

the unknown, tolerate ambiguity, play with ideas, 

take risks, and nurture and unearth our inner 

selves. 

The Junior Cycle for Teachers (JCT) schools’ 

support service Arts in Junior Cycle initiative, 

.....THE ARTS ENABLE US TO 

THINK IN WAYS THAT ARE BOTH 

DISCIPLINED AND DISPARATE 

AND RESPOND TO STIMULI IN 

WAYS THAT ARE SUBJECTIVE AND 

INTELLECTUAL. 

Elliot W. Eisner 

established in 2014, endeavours to create 

experiential Professional Learning Experiences 

(PLEs) for teachers that provide space and 

time to actively engage in the arts and learning. 

The initiative is based on partnership and 

collaboration with key elective partners across 

the arts and education sectors and is supported 

by the Department of Education and Creative 

Ireland programme (2017–2022), Pillar 1 

Creative Youth. The initiative is guided by the 

principles expressed in the Arts in Education 

Charter (2012) and the Framework for Junior 

Cycle (2015). 

The Arts in Junior Cycle PLEs provide not only 

innovative opportunities for participants to 

learn as artists and teachers, but also to interact 

with others where they can learn within a 

PAGE 69


type of ‘zone of proximal development’, as 

expressed by Vygotsky (1978), through social 

engagement (Dewey, 1934; Eisner; 2002; 

Cropley, 2006; Lave and Wenger, 1991). The 

PLEs provide participants with spaces that 

facilitate full immersion in a creative process 

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1996) and freedom to 

experiment and make mistakes (Robinson, 2011). 

Through its extensive partnerships with artists, 

and arts organisations, Arts in Junior Cycle seeks 

to harness the capacity of arts professionals in 

“fostering a community of learners” (Shulman 

and Shulman, 2004, p.260) and subsequently 

contribute to enhancing, even transforming, 

teaching and learning in schools through their 

collaborations with teachers. 

In more recent years the Arts in Junior Cycle 

programme has expanded to encompass a broad 

range of elective workshops and initiatives. 

JCT’s vision is for all teachers to value, enjoy and 

be enriched by the arts and to see the arts as 

integral to learning. At the heart of the initiative 

is the goal to create a range of entry points, as 

espoused by Gardner (1991), for teachers to 

activate their own creative processes through 

scaffolding a hands-on approach to learning. The 

Covid-19 pandemic has meant that the Arts in 

Junior Cycle programme has had to adapt, like 

many educational programmes, to meet the needs 

and interests of teachers in these dramatically 

changed circumstances. From the start of the 

current school year, the programme has moved 

entirely online, offering teachers a programme 

of elective PLEs in a range of artistic disciplines. 

In addition, the initiative has also provided a 

series of podcasts, in the form of conversations 

with artists from a variety of arts backgrounds, 

in which they talk about their creative processes 

and the skills and competences needed to realise 

their work. 

The arts infused PLEs that the initiative 

offers provide teachers with opportunities to 

experience first-hand a range of learner-centred 

approaches to teaching and learning using the 

arts as a medium. These approaches include 

active learning methodologies such as drama in 

education strategies, initial group brainstorming 

of ideas, the use of process journals, the 

establishment of teacher/artist communities of 

practice and the mentoring of teachers by artists. 

Two Arts in Junior Cycle PLEs, developed in 

2020/21, are singled out here for particular 

mention as they exemplify some of these 

innovative approaches. These are Style 

and Purpose: Developing Your Voice and 

DesignCIRCLE. 

Style and Purpose: Developing Your Voice 

This PLE, developed in partnership with Poetry 

Ireland, comprises a series of online writing 

workshops for Junior Cycle teachers of any 

subject. Teachers are placed into small writing 

groups based on the writing genre that interests 

them. Facilitated by a professional writer, each 

group then meets online at times they co-agree, 

with the emphasis being on writing together in a 

safe, supportive and experiential space. Although 

the teachers work alongside a professional writer 

who mentors the group and provides feedback 

on their writing, teachers are actively involved 

throughout the process. This learning experience 

mirrors what Kenny and Morrissey (2016) 

describe as “a reciprocal learning relationship” 

(p.56) between artist and teacher. 

PAGE 70


THE LEARNING SPACES ARE 

NEGOTIATED THROUGH 

DISCUSSION AND TEACHERS 

COLLABORATE WITH ARTISTS 

AND CO-CREATE THE INTENDED 

LEARNING. 

DesignCIRCLE 

Though similar in structure to Style & Purpose 

above, DesignCIRCLE operates more along 

the lines of a teacher/artist community of 

practice than a series of mentoring workshops. 

Developed in collaboration with the Design and 

Craft Council of Ireland, it is positioned as an 

opportunity for Visual Art teachers to engage in a 

series of online community of practice meetings 

with professional designer makers . Teachers are 

placed into small groups with a designer maker 

and spend time on their own work exploring a 

theme or stimulus that sparks their curiosity. 

The stated emphasis for teacher participants is 

to ‘collaboratively explore, create and reflect on 

[their] own artwork in a safe, supportive and 

experiential space’. In this way, teachers and 

designer makers become equal partners in the 

initiative. 

Arts in Junior Cycle PLEs are innovative by 

design. As noted earlier, the PLEs offered as 

part of the initiative give teachers opportunities 

for experiential engagement in their learning, 

whether for a single workshop or for a more 

prolonged engagement, such as in Style & 

Purpose or DesignCIRCLE. The learning spaces 

are negotiated through discussion and teachers 

collaborate with artists and co-create the 

intended learning. In addition to these elements, 

the structure of these PLEs includes both an 

introductory workshop, during which teacher 

participants meet the artists in their assigned 

groups and begin the process of collaboration, as 

well as a reflective event at the end of the series. 

These reflective events provide opportunities 

for artists and teacher participants to share and 

celebrate the learning and identify the next steps 

for themselves in the chosen artistic discipline, as 

well as in their professional classroom practice. 

Feedback from teachers and artists for both 

Style & Purpose and DesignCIRCLE has been 

positive, indicating that the initiatives are making 

an impact. One designer maker, for example, 

when asked what they felt were the benefits for 

teachers taking part in the initiative, commented 

that it was 

“a way for teachers to connect and share 

common experiences and the challenges their 

work creates in terms of their individual artistic 

practices… all the group have expressed the 

benefit of talking about their practices and 

taking the time to focus on their personal 

creative work of their daily jobs”. 

Feedback from some DesignCIRCLE teacher 

participants has included: 

It is great to be able to discuss each member’s 

thought process and influences. [The designer] 

is very enthusiastic and it's nice to be able to 

follow his progression … month by month 

The connection with other teachers is great. 

It’s wonderful to have other artists/teachers 

PAGE 71


to bounce ideas off and seeing their work is so 

inspirational. It’s time for me to focus on my 

own art again, it’s quite a cathartic experience 

which is much needed in my life right now 

In Style & Purpose participants were surveyed 

mid-way through the series, as well as at the 

end, after the reflection event took place. 

Overwhelmingly positive feedback was received 

from all responding participants: 

I am thoroughly enjoying the sessions, they 

have been both beneficial to my own writing, 

but also to my teaching practice. I am really 

glad I signed up. 

I’ve learned loads so far and will be taking it 

into the classroom too. 

This … has provided me with the skills and 

mind frame to really analyse my writing. In 

particular, to think of my target audience and 

who I’m writing for. 

The Style & Purpose reflection event took 

place online with participants, writers, Poetry 

Ireland and Arts in Junior Cycle representatives 

attending. The event included contributions 

from each of the writers, as well as feedback 

from participants on what they learned from the 

experience. Together, teachers identified possible 

next steps in their creative writing journey and 

explored ways in which they intended to bring 

their learning back into the classroom. Some 

participants read extracts from their writing. 

It was a celebratory event for all. Writers 

commented that there was a collective agreement 

in the group on how they chose to proceed 

and that enhanced the experience. One group, 

for example, who were focusing on writing for 

THE UN UNIVERSAL DECLARATION 

OF HUMAN RIGHTS AFFIRMS 

THE RIGHT OF EVERYONE TO 

‘PARTICIPATE IN THE CULTURAL 

LIFE OF THE COUNTRY, AND TO 

ENJOY THE ARTS’ (ARTICLE 27). 

children, all agreed to write a children’s picture 

book. Writers were impressed with the quality 

of engagement by teachers participating, and 

this enhanced their own experience as writers 

facilitating the series. One professional writer, 

reflecting on their involvement in Style and 

Purpose wrote; 

… and I'd say for one or two of them [teachers] 

who took the plunge into writing that it had the 

potential to be really transformative. You know, 

this is a big deal. And it was great pleasure 

as a facilitator to see that. I was reminded of 

the importance of positive feedback and the 

pleasure that people can take from writing. 

Feedback from the various Arts in Junior Cycle 

PLEs to date indicate that arts based PLEs, such 

as Style & Purpose and DesignCIRCLE, have the 

potential to be transformative for teachers in 

their professional practice. In addition, teachers 

who bring their learning back into the classroom 

can also ensure that their students benefit from 

these arts based PLEs. 

The Arts in Junior Cycle initiative strives to 

deepen teachers’ understanding of the arts 

and learning. It aims to offer PLEs that nurture 

PAGE 72


teacher creativity and wellbeing and expand 

their repertoire of learner-centred teaching 

and learning methodologies. The programme 

continues to develop PLEs that increase teacher 

capacity for professional autonomy, such as 

the community of practice model as advocated 

by Wenger (1998) and Shulman and Shulman 

(2004). Nicholas Boreham, cited in Kennedy 

(2005), refers to the richness of connections 

between individuals that can create the capacity 

for transformative practice. The importance of 

nurturing rich connections between teachers 

and artists is something that the programme 

values strongly and is committed to achieving. 

The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights 

affirms the right of everyone to ‘participate in the 

cultural life of the country, and to enjoy the arts’ 

(Article 27). At its heart, the JCT Arts in Junior 

Cycle initiative affirms this right and contributes 

to ensuring that teachers who engage in the 

elective PLEs offered participate meaningfully in 

Ireland’s cultural life and enjoy ‘the arts’. 

PAGE 73


REFERENCES 

Arts Council of Ireland, (2008), Points of Alignment: The report of the special committee on the arts 

and education. Dublin: Arts Council of Ireland. 

Arts Act, (2003) No. 24 of 2003, Dublin: The Stationery Office, Government Publications Available at 

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2003/act/24/enacted/en/pdf 

Creative Ireland Programme (2017-2022), Available from www.creativeireland.ie 

Cropley, A. (2006), ‘Creativity: A Social Approach’, Roeper Review, 28: 3 (Spring), ID: 02783193. 

Csikszentmihalyi, M (1996), Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, New York, Harper 

Collins. 

Dewey, J. (1934), Art as Experience, New York: Berkley. 

Eisner, E. (2002), The Arts and the Creation of Mind, USA: Yale University Press. 

Fleming, M. (2012), The Arts in Education: An introduction to aesthetics, theory and pedagogy, New 

York: Routledge (p. 1) 

Gardner, H. (1991), The Unschooled Mind: How children think and how schools should teach, New 

York: Basic Books 

Kennedy, A. (2005), Models of Continuing Professional Development: A framework for analysis, Journal 

of In-service Education, 31(2), pp. 235–250. 

Kenny, A., and Morrissey, D. (2016), Exploring teacher-artist partnership as a model of CPD for 

supporting and enhancing arts education in Ireland. Dublin: Government of Ireland. Available at: 

https://artsineducation.ie/wp-content/uploads/Research-Report.pdf 

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991), Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press 

PAGE 74


National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA). (2016), Artistic Performance: Engaging 

with the arts, short course specification for junior cycle (Online). Available from https://www. 

curriculumonline.ie/Junior-cycle/Short-Courses/Artistic-Performance/ 

Robinson, K. (2011), Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, 2nd Ed. UK: Capstone 

Shulman, L. S., and Shulman, J. H. (2004), How and What Teachers Learn: A shifting perspective, Journal 

of curriculum studies, 36 (2), pp. 257–271. 

The Arts in Education Charter (2013), Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the 

Department of Education and Science. 

Wenger, E. (1998), Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, Cambridge, UK: 

Cambridge University Press. 

United Nations. (1998), The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 – 1998, New York: United 

Nations Department of Public Information. 

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978), Mind in Society: The development of higher psychological processes, trans. M. 

Cole. London: Harvard University Press. 

PAGE 75


PAGE 76


The Arts and Education 

Dr Jane O'Hanlon Poetry Ireland 

INTRODUCTION 

In the context of education, arts education 

generally refers to the teaching of music, dance, 

drama and visual arts, particularly at secondlevel, 

where curriculum space is “precious” 

(Richmond, 2009, p. 92). The creation and 

presentation of visual art, music, drama, along 

with developing a sensitivity and understanding 

of the historical and social contexts, and a critical 

response, in terms of perception and reflection 

are central to the arts curriculum (Hanley, 2003, 

p. 19). Within the second-level curriculum in 

Ireland the arts also refers to the visual arts, 

drama, music and dance although, the subjects 

taught are generally visual art and music. For 

curriculum purposes dance and literature are not 

regarded as distinct art forms, with dance being 

nested within physical education and literature 

being part of the language arts, linked with the 

subject areas of English and Irish. Visual art and 

music are regarded as separate disciplines and 

are taught by specialist teachers (DES, 2016). 

Since the 1980s both policy and provision have 

distinguished between arts education and 

arts in education. As part of arts-in-education 

practice, artists across various art forms visit 

schools, or schools engage with arts and cultural 

organisations outside the school setting: 

IN THE CONTEXT OF EDUCATION, 

ARTS EDUCATION GENERALLY 

REFERS TO THE TEACHING OF 

MUSIC, DANCE, DRAMA AND 

VISUAL ARTS, PARTICULARLY 

AT SECOND-LEVEL, WHERE 

CURRICULUM SPACE IS “PRECIOUS” 

Arts-in-education practice involves skilled, 

professional artists of all disciplines working for 

and with schools in the making, receiving and 

interpreting of a wide range of arts experiences. 

Arts-in-education practice can happen within 

or outside the school. It ranges from once-off 

visits, through more extended programmes, to 

intensive, collaborative projects (DES/DAHG, 

2013, p. 10). 

ARTS LEARNING 

Stuart Richmond 

There are various understandings of arts 

learning, which include 1) the development of art 

form knowledge and 2) artistic habits of mind 3) 

an understanding of the arts world along with 

PAGE 77


4) the performance and/or exhibition of work 

and 5) the academic and/or the social learning 

outcomes of engaging in the arts (Fiske, 1999; 

Winner & Hetland, 2000; See, & Kokotsaki, 2015). 

The National Council of Cultural Institutions 

described it succinctly: Art, broadly defined, is 

a fundamental human enterprise: the making 

of meaning, individual and collective, through 

representation. In making art we make ourselves. 

In understanding art we understand ourselves 

(DES, 2008, p. 16). 

Firstly, there is the need to distinguish between 

conceptual learning, which is based on an 

understanding of learning as the acquiring 

of ‘knowledge’ and aesthetic learning or arts 

learning which is based on an understanding of 

learning as engaging in the act of creating that 

‘knowledge’. This view of learning, and indeed 

knowledge, reflects a social constructivist view 

of learning as participation in a community of 

learners (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Cunningham & 

Duffy, 1996). These understandings are based on 

a belief in the intrinsic importance of the arts as 

domains of learning to be engaged with on their 

own terms (Eisner, 1998). 

HABITS OF MIND AND LEARNING 

DISPOSITIONS 

Arts learning, therefore, is conceptualised 

in terms of cognitive skills or habits of mind 

and behaviours or dispositions. These habits 

and dispositions, which are seen as seen as 

potentially transferrable include: expression, 

exploration, risk-taking, engagement, resilience, 

imagination, observation, reflection, and art 

world and art form knowledge (Hetland et al., 

2013 p. 6; Winner, 2011). Arts for Art’s Sake? the 

2013 OECD publication asserts that the habits of 

mind that are cultivated in learning to observe, 

envision, explore, express, collaborate, persist 

and reflect, constitute the main argument for arts 

education (Winner, Goldstein & Vincent-Lancrin 

(2013). Points Of Alignment, the collaborative 

arts education strategy document produced 

by the DES and the DAHG in 2008, emphasised 

that student “engagement in the presence and 

immediacy of an arts experience is critical. It 

gives a concentrated experience that provides 

exciting, direct learning opportunities as well 

as the catalyst for further learning through 

subsequent reflection and action” (p. 56). One of 

the ways in which this experience can be made 

available is through working with a practising 

artist in the classroom. 

ARTS LEARNING AND THE ‘TEACHING 

ARTIST’: THE ARTIST IN SCHOOL 

There is no agreed definition of artists who 

choose to work in schools. They are known as 

visiting artist, artist in schools, artist in residence, 

artist in the classroom, resident artist, arts 

educator or a teacher who is also an artist. ref? 

Much of what happens when an artist visits a 

classroom may go beyond, or only superficially 

involve, art form technique. This may be due 

to the brevity or particular focus, of the visit or 

residency, and it is related to the understanding 

of the role of the artist in the classroom and an 

understanding of learning as an act of creation, 

through which the student develops their 

knowledge in, and of, the art form. 

The word ‘art’ has an Indo-European root, 

meaning ‘to put things together’, whilst the word 

teach comes from the Greek meaning ‘to show’ 

PAGE 78


ARTS-IN-EDUCATION PRACTICES 

ARE DESIGNED TO ENGAGE 

STUDENTS IN THE EXPERIENCE OF 

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE AS 

AN ART FORM 

so a ‘teaching artist’, might be defined as “one 

who shows how to put things together” (Booth, 

2009, p. 17). This understanding of the artist in 

the classroom, someone who knows how to put 

things together within their particular art form, 

provides a useful understanding of the artist’s 

role in the constructing and crafting of learning. 

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 

In the European context there has been a 

growing focus on the importance of a broader 

idea of language education which promotes 

the importance of “cultural experiences…. 

(and) the role of school as a place of potential 

social inclusion” through those very cultural 

experiences (Piper, 2015, p. 195). Students’ 

encounters with language and literature play 

a large part in these experiences. With reading 

literacy and the focus on pragmatic texts being 

central to PISA , there are tensions between 

this approach and more traditional literature 

education. One concern, particularly with 

weaker students, is that teaching will tend to 

have to be focused on literacy in the narrow 

sense of being limited to skills training, and that 

this will happen at the expense of literature 

education and meaningful encounters with 

fiction, poetry and drama (Piper, 2015, p. 195). 

Arts-in-education practices are designed to 

engage students in the experience of language 

and literature as an art form. In the classroom 

context the study of literature is situated within 

the language curriculum where the focus 

tends to be on reception and reproduction, 

particularly within the high stakes environment 

of the second-level classroom. Encounters 

with literature are mediated through textbooks 

rather than through ‘real books’ (Piper, 2015). 

This concern also reflects the recognition of 

the dichotomy between literal/cognitive/ 

academic understandings and uses of language 

and more figurative/ noncognitive/aesthetic 

understandings and usages and the contexts in 

which these learnings can occur (Efland, 2004a, 

p. 756). 

This is particularly so at senior cycle, where there 

is a noticeable shift from the more personal and 

social student-oriented approach to the teaching 

of literature at primary and lower second-level. 

Here the focus tends to be on students’ interests 

and integrates texts (including multimodal texts) 

associated with popular culture. The senior cycle 

at second-level tends to focus transmission and 

reproduction of more canonical texts (Witte & 

Sâmihăian, 2013, p. 8), based on the classical 

ideal and focused on university entrance (Piper, 

2015, p. 197). There is no doubt that students 

view the Leaving Certificate as a high-stakes 

examination, significant for their futures in 

terms of education and employment (Banks & 

Smyth, 2015). Students also recognise the low 

status assigned to the arts within the secondlevel 

curriculum, a status stemming from their 

‘low ranking’ within instrumentalist models of 

learning and education (Banks & Smyth, 2015). 

This dictates and is dictated by the common 

PAGE 79


wisdom which says that “what is not measured is 

not important” (Goodlad, 1992, p. 195). 

ARTS LEARNING AND CREATIVITY 

The disconnect between creativity and academic 

learning is partly due to common (mis) 

understandings that are to be found in the myths 

and stereotypes of creativity (Plucker, Beghetto 

& Dow, 2004). These misconceptions tend to 

equate creativity with ‘originality’, or/and with 

particularly talented individuals, who are seen 

as being born creative (Amabile, 1983; Dweck, 

2000). There is also the belief that creative 

activity must always lead to an outcome or 

‘product’ (Beghetto, 2006, pp. 454/455). 

From as far back as John Dewey (1934), creativity 

and meaning-making have been seen to reside 

in personal experiences. However, despite its 

long history and the resurgence of interest in 

creativity worldwide (Shaheen, 2010), it remains 

“an elusive and contested concept” (INTO, 2009, 

p. 11), particularly when it comes to education, 

where it has had a “conflicted” relationship both 

within the classroom (Beghetto, 2006, p. 447) 

and within the curriculum itself (INTO, 2009). 

Psychology has long recognised “the relationship 

between learning and creativity” (Beghetto, 2007, 

p.73), with Vygotsky (2004) advocating that: 

we should emphasize the particular importance 

of cultivating creativity in school age children… 

[since] orientation to the future, [and] behavior 

based on the future and derived from this future, is 

the most important function of the imagination (p. 

88). 

Creativity scholars, speaking about children’s 

innate curiosity, suggest that “the most important 

CIARÁN BENSON DECLARES THAT: 

'IDEAS MATTER, IDEAS OF THE 

ARTS, IDEAS IN THE ARTS, AND 

IDEAS OF THE ARTS IN SOCIETY’ 

element [for the cultivation of creativity is] …a 

deep sense of interest and excitement about 

learning” (Amabile, 1989, p. 14). However, the 

creative and academic aspects of learning are 

still commonly thought of as being quite separate 

in curricular terms (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009; 

Beghetto, 2006). 

Creativity scholars identify the difficulty as 

stemming partly from “the lack of a standard, 

carefully constructed definition of creativity” 

(Plucker, Beghetto & Dow, 2004, p. 87). Although 

there is an ongoing lack of definition of creativity 

(Henriksen & Mishra, 2015), there is general 

agreement that creativity exists on “a continuum” 

from Amabile’s (1983) “garden variety” (p. 361) 

or “little-c” creativity (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009, 

pp. 2-4) used to solve everyday problems, to 

what is termed “Big C” creativity, which is based 

on the traditional idea of the eminent, creative 

person (Plucker, Beghetto & Dow, 2004, p. 85; 

Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). The 1999 report All 

Our Futures defines creativity as the “imaginative 

activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that 

are both original and of value” (NACCCE, 1999, p. 

30); that ability to produce work and ideas that 

are new and novel (i.e., original, unexpected), 

high in quality, and appropriate. One doesn’t 

need to be artistic to be creative, but all artistic 

people are creative. 

PAGE 80


In his lecture, 'Time, Vocabulary and Art's- 

Thoughtful Uses of Feeling?', Ciarán Benson 

declares that: 'ideas matter, ideas of the arts, 

ideas in the arts, and ideas of the arts in society’ 

(2021, p. 15). The lecture celebrated the 40th 

anniversary of the publication of The Place of the 

Arts in Irish Education and charts the progress 

made in arts education and arts in education 

over the last forty years. In that time, the 

understanding of the role of the arts and ideas 

of and about the arts, and their impact within 

society and within education, have changed 

and developed beyond recognition. So too have 

ideas about learning, and more particularly, 

ideas about learning in and for the twenty-first 

century, and with them a greater understanding 

and appreciation of the vital and necessary 

contribution of arts learning to ‘all our futures’. 

PAGE 81


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International Handbook of the Arts and Education (pp. 194-202). London: Routledge. 

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83–96. http://pages.uoregon.edu/beghetto/Plucker,%20Beghetto,%20Dow%20(EP,2004).pdf 

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ABOUT THE EDITOR 

Valerie Lewis is an Educational Policy and Development Officer at 

Education and Training Boards Ireland. She has over twenty years of 

experience in the Irish Education arena at post-primary and tertiary level, 

working across a range of sectors. She has previously worked in the Public 

Information and Communication and, Development Education sections 

of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, supporting their formal 

education programmes and Strategic Education Partnerships. Valerie 

also has also written and designed a range of citizenship education and 

training materials, distributed both in Ireland and at European level. 

PAGE 85


BIOGRAPHIES 

Di Fisher-Naylor 

Director, Creativity, Culture and Education 

Di is Director of Programmes at Creativity, Culture and Education, taking overall responsibility for design, 

implementation and quality assurance. Di travels extensively developing and supporting a wide range of creative 

education programmes in countries across the globe including Lithuania, Pakistan, South Korea and Norway to name 

but a few. Di is also responsible for designing and delivering a range of professional development programmes for 

teachers and creative professionals. She was previously Director of Schools for Creative Partnerships in England. 

Di has worked in the arts for over 20 years including working at Arts Council England as National Director of Grants 

for the Arts. She took on the daunting task when the Regional Arts Board were merged into Arts Council England 

of streamlining the grants system, turning over 100 funding programmes across the country into just four for the 

national organisation. Before that Di worked for Northern Arts (the regional arts board for Northern England) 

specialising in capital development projects and national lottery funds. 

Other positions held previously include Corporate Projects Manager at Business & Enterprise North East, who operated 

a major contract on behalf of the regional development agency for the North East delivering business support service. 

Before that Di spent two years as Chief Executive of the North East Enterprise Bond, an organisation dedicated to 

supporting individuals and companies to set up new businesses. 

Gary Granville 

Professor Emeritus School of Education, National College of Art and Design 

Gary Granville is professor emeritus in the School of Education NCAD, Dublin. He was formerly Assistant Chief 

Executive of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.. He has recently chaired the NCCA Development 

groups for Junior Cycle and Leaving Certificate Art. 

Martin Hawkes 

Trustee of the Burren College of Art 

Martin Hawkes holds BComm and MBA degrees from NUI Dublin. His career has spanned the public service (Department 

of Finance), commercial banking (Banque National de Paris) as well as entrepreneurship in a range of businesses 

from finance and leisure to food and post-production. The latter part of his career has been increasingly concerned 

with social enterprise particularly in the areas of climate change, the Irish language and education. He is chair of 

Coláiste Mhuire Askeaton, was instrumental in the setting up of the Mountains of the Moon University in western 

Uganda and was a founding trustee of the Burren College of Art where he co-presents programmes in creativity to 

post-graduate students from NUIG as well as supporting the college’s leadership work. He was involved in convening 

the Burren Climate Conversations at the college in 2013 which created a framework for subsequent systems-change 

work. He conducted the interviews leading to the 2018 Symposium ‘Towards a More Creative Education System’ and 

is active in promoting both the BEACONS and the CAFÉ process that emerged from the symposium. He is currently 

engaged with bringing creative process to bear on the crisis facing the Gaeltacht as an Irish-speaking community. 

PAGE 86


Dr Daithí Kearney 

Dundalk Institute of Technology 

Ethnomusicologist, geographer and performer Dr Daithí Kearney is a lecturer in Music and co-director of the Creative 

Arts Research Centre at Dundalk Institute of Technology. His research is primarily focused on Irish traditional music 

but extends to include performance studies, community music and music education. Daithí has taught in primary and 

secondary schools and has toured regularly as a musician, singer and dancer. In 2017 he released an album of new 

compositions with Dr Adèle Commins entitled A Louth Lilt and in 2020 collaborated with Ceolta Sí in Youghal to create 

new repertoire inspired by local history and heritage, leading to the album Oidhreact Eochaille. 

Dermot Carney 

Arts Officer, National Association of Principals and Deputies 

Since 2011 Dermot Carney has been the NAPD Arts Officer and the administrator of Creative Engagement. In St. 

Ciaran’s Community School, Kells, Co. Meath, he served as Deputy Principal between 1990 and 2000 and as Principal 

2000-2010. Before that he worked as an art and history teacher in Greendale Community School, Kilbarrack, Dublin. 

Initially apprenticed as a solicitor in the early 70s, he completed a degree in History & Economics in UCD and obtained 

a Higher Diploma in Education there. He went on to gain a Diploma in Art and Design Education from NCAD. Currently 

serving on a number of Boards of Managements he is a member of the Editorial Board of the Arts in Education Portal 

and he works as a visual artist. 

Dr Katie Sweeney National 

Director for the Integration of the Arts in Education, Department of Education 

Dr Katie Sweeney was appointed National Director for the Integration of the Arts in Education by the Minister for 

Education and Skills to represent the Department on the Arts in Education Charter High Level Implementation Group 

in 2013. Her role included the co-ordination and implementation of the Charter initiatives and she continues to works 

with the Curriculum and Assessment Policy (CAP) Unit of the Department and is a member of the Creative Ireland, 

Creative Youth Working Group. 

Working with Professor John Coolahan, she played a pivotal role in the implementation of many of the Charter 

initiatives and is Chair of many associated Committees including: The Arts in Education Portal Advisory Committee, 

the Design Team for the Teacher/Artist Partnership CPD and is co-chair of the National Arts Education Research 

Repository ACERR Group. She is the Department of Education representative of ACEnet which is a network of EU policy 

makers, civil servants and academics working in the fields of arts and cultural education. 

She began her career as a Genetic Engineer and Research Scientist. She has worked as a Senior Lecturer in Dublin City 

University, Dublin Institute of Technology, Trinity College Dublin and the Karolinska Institute of Health Sciences in 

Sweden. She was a former Head of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, Mayo. Before moving into the Department 

of Education she was CEO of MSLET. 

PAGE 87


Monica Muñoz Dancer 

Choreographer, educator and John Coolahan Early Years Artist in Residence at The Ark 

Monica is a dancer, choreographer and educator originally from Barcelona and based in Dublin since 2014. She graduated 

at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen/Germany and completed an MA in Contemporary Dance Education at the 

Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. As a dancer she has worked for over 20 years throughout Europe. 

In Ireland, she has collaborated frequently with Cois Céim Dance Theatre. Monica is passionate about facilitating dance 

for all ages and abilities, from toddlers to elders and also professionals in community and education contexts. She has 

facilitated dance for Dance Ireland, Dance Limerick, BA in Contemporary Dance at the University of Limerick, Dance 

Theatre of Ireland, Step Up Project, Cois Céim BROADREACH and the Creative Schools Programme amongst others. She 

created Groovy Movers, an intergeneration dance programme for parents, grandparents and children commissioned 

by Dun Laoghaire County Council. Her dance piece for young audiences Princesses Can Be Pirates, has been touring 

nationally supported by a Touring and Dissemination award from the Arts Council and internationally supported by 

Culture Ireland. She is currently the John Coolahan Early Years Artist in Residence at The Ark. 

Alan Morgan 

University College Dublin Innovation Academy 

Alan is an Entrepreneurial Specialist and facilitator at the University College Dublin Innovation Academy 

and Programme Director for The Professional Certificate/Diploma in Creativity and Innovation for 

Education. Alan is an enthusiastic and emotional academic, with 8 years teaching, learning and academic 

management experience. Prior to joining the Innovation Academy, Alan was Course Director for Marketing at 

Kaplan Dublin Business School, the largest private college in Ireland, where he taught consumer behaviour. 

Alan is passionate about education and eager to work on developing a new way of learning through the concept of 

Entrepreneurial Pedagogical Methods. He shares the belief that everyone requires an entrepreneurial mind-set to overcome 

the challenges we all face and to capitalise on the opportunities to succeed in work and life both today and into the future. This 

entrepreneurial mind-set is one that combines the ability to identify and create ideas of value with the ability to learn through 

intentional iteration and the ability to engage others through empathy, teamwork and effective communication skills. 

Alan holds an MBA from Liverpool John Moores University, 3rd level Teaching and Learning Diplomas from TUD and UCD 

and is currently studying and researching for a Doctorate in Education (Ed.D) at The University of Wales Trinity Saint David. 

Cecilia Travers 

Teacher, St. Andrew's College, Dublin 

Cécilia Travers is an Irish secondary school and International educator passionate about getting the best out of the 

students in her care and preparing them for their role in the world of tomorrow. Educated in France and Germany for 

her Master's Degree and Ireland for her Higher Diploma in Education, she has spent over 20 years teaching in Ireland 

as a language, resource, and wellbeing teacher including 10 years as an educator for the International Baccalaureate. 

Cécilia has worked with a variety of students from diverse backgrounds and abilities from private single-sex 

traditional Irish schools to Co-educational and Vocational schools. At present, she is teaching in St. Andrews 

College, an Irish International school, which offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma and Irish Leaving 

Certificate. She has adapted to each different system, always putting student's motivation and wellbeing at the 

core of her teaching. Her main values are the inclusion of all students in the learning process, student’s personal 

growth and sense of achievement, international-mindedness, global engagement, and service to the community. 

She has always been looking for innovative approaches to her teaching practice and has recently completed 

her certificate in Creativity, Innovation, and Leadership in education with the UCD Innovation Academy. 

PAGE 88


Máire O Higgins 

Assistant Principal and Chaplain, Larkin Community College, Dublin 

Máire is an Assistant Principal and Chaplain in Larkin Community College Dublin. She has worked in education, arts 

and community development for thirty years. Máire is also a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction teacher and has a 

daily meditation practice. Máire developed the first partnership arts in education Junior Cycle programme in secondary 

schools in Ireland and has led myriad artist residencies in schools. Her work in the arts and education has informed her 

role as a Board member of The Abbey Theatre and Youth Theatre Ireland. As a theatre practitioner Máire worked as a 

Director with Passion Machine Theatre Company and was a founding member of Pigsback Theatre Company. 

In her community development work, Máire has led intergenerational initiatives for civic community engagement, with 

the National Museum of Ireland, the National College of Art and Design, the Abbey Theatre and Localise Volunteering. 

She served as a Board member of Localise for ten years and on the Steering Committee for the National Citizenship 

Education Network. 

Academically Máire holds a Masters in Chaplaincy and Pastoral Care (DCU), a postgraduate diploma in Educational 

Leadership (NUI), a postgraduate diploma in Entrepreneurial Education (UCD) and a teaching qualification from The 

Institute for Mindfulness Based Approaches (IMA). 

Margaret O'Shea 

Team leader for Arts in Junior Cycle and Visual Art, Junior Cycle for Teachers Schools’ Support Service. 

Margaret O’Shea is team leader for Arts in Junior Cycle and Visual Art in the Junior Cycle for Teachers (JCT) schools’ 

support service. She is on secondment to JCT from her teaching role in Loreto Secondary School, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. 

Margaret’s background is in fine art and she is passionate that arts education is protected, supported and nurtured. She 

is currently studying for an MEd in Teaching and Learning in Waterford Institute of Technology. 

Ann Ryan 

Advisor for Arts in Junior Cycle and English, Junior Cycle for Teachers Schools’ Support Service. 

Ann Ryan is an Advisor for Arts in Junior Cycle and English with the Junior Cycle for Teachers (JCT) schools’ support 

service. She is on secondment to JCT from Hansfield Educate Together Secondary School in Dublin. Ann has taught 

English & Drama in schools in England, Australia and Ireland and has also worked in the arts sector as a Film Education 

Officer at the Irish Film Institute. Ann completed an MA in Modern Drama Studies at University College Dublin and 

firmly believes that the arts are integral to learning. 

Dr Jane O'Hanlon 

Poetry Ireland 

Jane O’Hanlon is the Head of Education with Poetry Ireland, coordinating its national suite of education and outreach 

programmes. She is President of IBBY Ireland, Chair of Encountering the Arts Ireland, a Board member of Little Island 

Publishing and a member of the Laureate na nÓg Steering Group, the Programme Board of NUIG Children’s Studies and 

the Steering Group of DCU IoE Write to Read Programme. She is also the current convenor and Chair of the STEAM 

Advisory Group to the Dept Education and Skills. 

She holds MA’s in Women’s Studies and Children’s Literature and her doctoral research was on the unique character of 

arts learning within the formal education system. 

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PAGE 91


Journal of Education Published by Education and Training Boards Ireland 

Volume 3 : Issue 1 June 2021 

PAGE 92

ETBI Journal of Education - Vol 3 Issue 1 - June 2021 (Creativity: Learning Through the Arts)

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