Postmarks of Unlearning: Using Postcards to Record and Remember Artful Encounters

Dr. Sara Scott Shields is an Assistant Professor and coordinator of the Masters in Art Education for the Department of Art Education at Florida State University. Her interests include artful approaches to both teaching and research, with a particular focus on how the arts impact both teacher and student identity development.

Dr. Sara Scott Shields’s article titled “Postmarks of Unlearning: Using Postcards to Record and Remember Artful Encounters” was recently published in Volume 69, Issue 2 of Art Education. Art Education is the official journal of the National Art Education Association (NAEA), and covers a diverse range of topics of professional interest to art educators and anyone whose interest is quality visual arts education.

Dr. Shield’s article explores her experiences teaching pre-service Elementary Education students. In the article, she explores how pre-service educators might begin to question why we teach what we teach – more specifically how we navigate our educative movements in ways that create a memory for our students, while documenting our own growth as educators. Through the concept of “unlearning” Dr. Shields challenges how her students came to understand themselves as teachers and how their experiences informed the development of an evolving teaching philosophy.

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