Teaching as Wayfaring: Ethnographic Maps of Place and Art Teacher Induction

Teachers face complex challenges as they transition from pre-service education to professional practice. However literature on teacher induction does not address the needs of teachers in specific content areas and the literature on the induction process within art education is sparse. Research shows the complex variety of teaching tasks facing beginning art teachers affects their ability to balance time and energy. Additionally the dissonance between the expectations of art educators and school environments causes many qualified, passionate teachers to leave the field. This points to the need for continued research on the experiences of beginning teachers. In this qualitative study, I use sensory ethnographic maps of place and movement to discuss beginning art teachers changing habitation of school place and experiences during their first years on the job. Specifically, I consider how beginning art teachers (re)create their art rooms based on the needs of their curriculum, work to navigate others’ appropriation of the art room, their perceptions of time, and how they cope with the increase in students, supplies, and tasks which accompany a teaching position. I argue that art teachers are wayfaring learners—responsive wanderers mindfully reacting to their teaching environment and the chorus of elements that constantly contribute to their learning. In conclusion, this project, by closely examining beginning art teachers own accounts of their teaching experiences sheds new light on the neglected issues of the ways place and movement affect beginning art teachers experience school places