How to: Connect Art Curriculum with Aboriginal and TSI Histories and Culture

Jacqui Macdonald has worked as a Primary Music/Arts teacher for Education Queensland over a twenty-five-year period. In this time, she has actively sought to integrate the various strands of the arts into the school curriculum, recognising the equal importance of dance, drama, music and visual art in developing creativity.

In collaboration with the Aboriginal Support Teacher Aide and the support of the local Aboriginal community and elders, Jacqui has promoted cultural awareness through a variety of arts activities, from singing songs in the local language, recreating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stories through drama and dance, to using both visual and media arts to make artistic representations that supported connections to the land and the sea.

As a sessional academic at the University of Southern Queensland, she continues to support and recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, teaching in subject areas such as Arts Curriculum Pedagogy; Creativity and the Arts in early childhood and Intercultural Communication in Early Learning Contexts. In each of these areas there is recognition of the opportunities that the arts strands can provide to enhance cultural connections. Students enjoy Jacqui’s practical workshop tutorials where they create their own works using a variety of arts resources across the strands of music, drama, dance visual and media arts.