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Baltic Quay maths teachers.
Photograph by Dan Brady,
courtesy of BALTIC Centre
of Contemporary Art,
Gateshead, UK.
186 Burns (personal
correspondence, 2009)
187 Burns (personal
correspondence, 2009)
Growing future Innovators: a scoping study
At the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
in Gateshead, the professional development
program B Creative includes the novel
scheme BALTIC Buddies, a hands-on form
of ‘expert collaboration’ between artists and
teachers that looks at how contemporary art
can inspire learning within and across subject
areas. Over a series of workshops held at
the gallery, art teachers partner with fellow
teachers from non-arts subjects to develop
a program of work that is then implemented
with students. Helen Burns from BALTIC
describes the model as follows:
Beginning with a contextual talk from the
KS3 New Curriculum Regional Subject
Advisor, teachers went on to work with an
artist, visiting an exhibition and exploring
methods for questioning and interpreting
art, so as to be able to repeat this with
pupils. Emphasising the fact that there are
no ‘right answers’, that engaging with art
involves personal interpretation and that
responses are not judged, was key. If we
can nurture this understanding, we open up
minds to make connections which can lead
to exciting personalised and collaborative
learning opportunities.
After looking at the art, the pairs of
‘buddies’ worked as a group to discuss the
possible curricular links which could be
made through the art they had experienced
and working on an idea for a possible
cross-curricular project. After reflective
discussion, the process undergone at this
point was used as a model to develop a
project plan by each pair of buddies.
The pairs used the gallery’s library and
archive resources to investigate art and
artists as a suitable stimulus for their
particular pairing of subjects. Art teachers
were paired with teachers of geography,
English, history, religious education,
science, technology, drama, maths etc.,
which made for an interesting selection of
art and artists.
The whole session was visually mapped
and wall spaces were used to progressively
display what was produced, providing
materials for reflection and gradually
making the creative process visible. An
added benefit of this was to demonstrate
the value of displaying work in progress,
rather than only the ‘perfected’
end results. 186
The program has proved so popular that in
order to accommodate for its growth Helen
Burns says, “we are now developing ideas
to create a digital network in which buddies
work collaboratively, sharing expertise to
socially construct knowledge.” 187
On another scale entirely is the project
Edgware Road by the Serpentine Gallery.
It involved artists working with all of the