The Artful Educator

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The Artful Educator

Creative, imaginative and innovative approaches to teaching

By: Sue Cowley

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Products specifications

Attribute name	Attribute value
Size:	222 x 182mm
Pages :	216
ISBN :	9781785831157
Format:	Paperback
Published:	April 2017

Is teaching an art, rather than a science? Instead of measuring education and reducing everything to data, what if we looked at it through the lens of the arts? Sue Cowley demonstrates how teachers can become artists, sculptors, actors, dancers, musicians, playwrights, poets, designers and directors, no matter which subject or age group they happen to be teaching. The artful educator paints the air with ideas and weaves magic with words. They aren’t afraid of a little risk, or of planning and delivering lessons a little differently. Learn how to be more creative, experimental, playful and imaginative in the methods you use to manage your classroom, and in the myriad ways in which you help your students to learn.

Discover what an ‘artful attitude’ to education looks like, with plenty of practical, real-life ideas for artful teaching and learning. Sue has collected inspiring examples of how colleagues in a range of settings, from early years to secondary and further education, are already using artful approaches in their classrooms. Find out how to engage with your artful side, reinvigorate your approach to teaching and inspire yourself and your children with the pure joy of learning. Getting artful can involve borrowing techniques from the arts to use in teaching, getting learners hands-on with creating artworks themselves and also engaging learners with great existing works of art, cultivating the cultural capital that comes from this in the process.

A collection of suggestions designed to inspire you to take creative risks with your learners, this is a book for explorers and rebels. An ideal resource for trainees, NQTs and experienced teachers alike, The Artful Educator is for anyone looking for inventive, innovative approaches to teaching.

Contents include:

Part One: Artful Attitudes

Chapter 1. The Artful Philosophy

Chapter 2. Artful Attitudes to Learning

Chapter 3. Artful Attitudes to Creativity

Chapter 4. Planning to be Artful

Part Two: The Artful Educator

Chapter 5. The Actor

Chapter 6. The Playwright

Chapter 7. The Film Director

Chapter 8. The Set Designer

Chapter 9. The Prop Designer

Chapter 10. The Costume Designer

Chapter 11. The Storyteller

Chapter 12. The Author

Chapter 13. The Artist

Chapter 14. The Sculptor

Chapter 15. The Musician and the Singer

Chapter 16. The Dancer

Chapter 17. The Chef

Ten Tiny Steps

Click here to view Sue Cowley’s 100 Tips for Artful Educators.

Sue Cowley

Sue Cowley is a writer, presenter and teacher trainer, and the author of more than 25 books on education, including How to Survive your First Year in Teaching. Her international bestseller, Getting the Buggers to Behave, is a fixture on university lists, and has been translated into ten different languages. After training as an early years teacher, Sue taught English and drama in secondary schools in the UK and overseas, and she also worked as a supply teacher. She now spends her time writing educational books and articles and is a columnist for Teach Nursery, Teach Primary and Nursery World magazines. Sue works internationally as a teacher trainer, as well as volunteering in primary classrooms and helping to run her local preschool.

Click here to listen in on Sue's podcast with Pivotal Education 'How to fix education'.

Click here to read Sue's article in TeachTalks magazine 'Learning: Beyond the Walls' (p.20).

Click here to read Sue's article in TES 'What evidence does Amanda Speilman have to suggest nurseries don't teach nursery rhymes'.

Click here to read Sue Cowley’s blog.

Reviews

UKEdChat

In our recent UKEdChat session on Creativity in Schools, I alluded to creativity being a way of thinking and seeing the world. What I was meaning is that so much of pedagogy appears to be stuck around rigid curriculum programmes and creativity in schools appears to be stifled by accountability, getting results and pressures on teacher workload. Yet encouraging all members of a school community to be creative goes beyond the process of doing arty stuff, dance or singing - it's a way of thinking, doing, collaborating and feeling alive - it's a way of humanity.

For some in education, it is difficult to break free from the curriculum and school straight-jackets, but I would agree with Sue Cowley that teachers are intrinsically creative by their very nature. You only have to witness how creative the profession is when new initiatives come from policymakers, or when an aspect of the teaching and learning process isn't working and a teacher adapts the lesson immediately to keep students engaged. Teachers are endlessly creative in the face of many different challenges.

In her new book, “The Artful Educator - creative, imaginative and innovative approaches to teaching”, Sue Cowley explores an artful philosophy, the antithesis to standardisation. The results providing a powerful force for building students self-confidence and promoting an enjoyment of learning.

An 'artful attitude' to education offers different ways to learning, planning and creativity, with the book offering ideas for early years, primary, or secondary teachers to become: actors; playwrights; film directors; storytellers; sculptors; authors, or even; chefs. Yes, no matter what curriculum speciality you teach within, there is always the opportunity to be creative with the scheme of work you have to make your subject come alive and spark the senses of your students.

Sue offers a great range of ideas, activities and inspiration that will stimulate your artful thinking, making your teaching spark into life, and bringing out the best in your students offering creative ways of learning that they will fondly remember

Click here to read the review on UKEdChat.
Jane Clarke, Head of EY

The book is split into two parts- the first focusing on the theory behind artful attitudes and the second on how to develop skills on how to become an artful educator. Part one - artful attitudes discusses what is meant by the term creative and part two is split into thirteen different chapters on different ways to achieve being creative and artful. I work in the Early Years and felt that I already had a good knowledge of the first section of this book as part of my role is to encourage children's creativity and confidence. The book discusses the importance of creativity and how it impacts children's life and learning. I would recommend this book as I found Part Two helpful in developing my practice and boosting my creativity in teaching and learning. I enjoyed the different chapters that focus on the variety of ways creativity can be taught: for example the chef- though food; or the film director which focuses on incorporating creativity with computing skills. At the end of each chapter there are recommendations of activities for Key stages 1 and 2 and beyond, which are simple and cross curricular. The last chapter in this book is called ten tiny steps and I have already begun using this as a starting point to develop my skills having implemented them slowly into the running of my Reception class.
Lisa Lillywhite, The Smart Happy Project

The Artful Educator is aimed at teachers. This is a license to break the rules. It should come with a license certificate to cut out. As she says in the intro, a book for -˜explorers and rebels' it helps educators to teach with -˜chaos inside them' I would completely champion that. This is for passionate and informed, decisive teachers. It's a step by step guide to approaching learning techniques as an art form and to encourage the students to see it that way, so demonstrating what an artful attitude can bring to life.

Click here to read the full review.
Aliss Langridge in The Teacher magazine

-‹Sue Cowley's international bestseller, Getting the Buggers to Behave, has become a go-to manual for new and practicing teachers alike.

Similarly, The Artful Educator is jam-packed with ideas, approaches and practical methods for activities in your classroom. It's also written in a simple, accessible form so that readers can dip in easily for ideas. A must-read for artful educators everywhere.
MBR Bookwatch: June 2017

Sue Cowley is a writer, presenter and teacher trainer, and the author of more than 25 books on education. In “The Artful Educator: Imaginative, Innovative and Creative Approaches to Teaching” she draws upon her years of experience and expertise to explain and demonstrate how classroom teachers can become artists, sculptors, actors, dancers, musicians, playwrights, poets, designers and directors, no matter which subject or age group they happen to be teaching.

The artful educator paints the air with ideas and weaves magic with words. They aren't afraid of a little risk, or of planning and delivering lessons a little differently. Learn how to be more creative, experimental, playful and imaginative in the methods you use to manage your classroom, and in the myriad ways in which you help your students to learn.

“The Artful Educator” reveals what an artful attitude to education looks like, with plenty of practical, real-life ideas for artful teaching and learning. Offering inspiring examples of how colleagues in a range of settings, from early years to secondary and further education, are already using artful approaches in their classrooms, “The Artful Educator” shows how to engage with an artful side, reinvigorate an approach to teaching and inspire both teachers and their students with the pure joy of learning.

Getting artful can involve borrowing techniques from the arts to use in teaching, getting learners hands-on with creating artworks themselves and also engaging learners with great existing works of art, cultivating the cultural capital that comes from this in the process.

Critique: Thoroughly -˜reader friendly' in organization and presentation, packed from cover to cover with practical suggestions specifically designed to inspire classroom teachers to take creative risks with students of all ages, “The Artful Educator” is ideal instructional resource for trainees, NQTs and experienced teachers alike. Simply stated, “The Artful Educator” is very highly recommended for school district, college, and university library Teacher Education collections as well as the personal reading lists of student teachers and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject.
Dr Pooky Knightsmith, Director of the Children, Young People and Schools Programme, Charlie Waller Memorial Trust, Vice Chair, Children and Young People's Mental Health Coalition.

The Artful Educator will spark joy in both teachers and learners. You don't have to be arty or creative to find yourself rapidly consumed by Sue's passion and friendly approach. Within a few pages you'll be champing at the bit to try out Sue's simple but innovative ideas - and all those ideas of your own that the book will no doubt effortlessly inspire.
Duncan Partridge, Director of Education, English-Speaking Union.

A timely response to the notion of teaching as content delivery for examination performance. Sue Cowley's book delights in its embracing of the complex, with all the engaging messiness that this entails. Proudly modelling her belief in the power of the metaphor, Cowley equates teaching with a range of creative arts, providing practical pointers for putting the soul back into classroom practice. Some will interpret the book as a riposte to the push to make the profession more research-evidenced. I don't. For me, Cowley's call for teacher creativity in the classroom sits perfectly comfortably alongside the idea of education being research-informed: practitioners guided by academic journals and their artistic instincts.
Isabella Wallace, education consultant, author and presenter.

I whole-heartedly recommend this book to teachers. It comes at a time when many in the profession have reported that the thrill and buzz of teaching is being sucked from classrooms by the obligation to just drill pupils for tests. Full of useful, practical ideas, The Artful Educator understands that there is an important distinction between pointlessly sugar-coating work with a superficial -˜fun' activity and actually inspiring intrigue and engagement in a topic or skill.

I feel sure that The Artful Educator will help teachers to move pupils beyond simply tolerating their learning and help them to actually love it instead.
Rachel Whitfield, teacher and author

The Artful Educator is a breath of fresh air and certainly food for the soul. How wonderful to read a book that is focused on the creative and artful teaching of children and on the value of learning that can't be logged on a spreadsheet. Sue is a master craftswoman of words - and her voice of experience is both authentic and believable. Sue is a seasoned teacher, and I for one will feel more confident facing my classes with her advice on my bookshelf.
Tim Taylor, teacher, author of A Beginner's Guide to Mantle of the Expert.

Sue Cowley has written a book for all those teachers who feel the job is becoming a chore, devoid of freedom or enjoyment. In The Artful Educator, she lays out what it means to be a creative teacher: one that inspires students through their actions, one that takes risks, involves children in their own learning and isn't afraid to divert from the lesson plan. If you want to be a teacher like this, you should read this book. Sue Cowley flies in the face of current establishment thinking on education. Full of ideas, this book is a licence to take risks, try out new and exciting ways to capture your students' imaginations, and above all engage them in a love of learning.

Packed with ideas, The Artful Educator is a book about education that will inspire young people to want to learn. Written in Sue Cowley's engaging and straightforward style, it shows how teaching is still a job that can be exciting, challenging and, above all, fun.

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