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Multi-Sensorial Pedagogy for Art History Education: Integrating the Collective Wisdom of People Who are Blind and Have Low Vision to Reconsider Conventional Academic Norms

Abstract:The conventional style of teaching art history, using a vision-centered approach as an unquestioned academic norm, has excluded students who are blind and have low vision. To be more than a reasonable accommodation to include students with visual impairment in the mainstream art history classroom, an approach without relying on vision would challenge the mainstream educational pedagogy that has marginalized people with different bodies and senses. The article discusses the use of a multi-sensorial pedagogy, similar to that already used in museum hands-on educational workshops, to incorporate tactile sessions in undergraduate art history classes. Through personal observations made during these classes, I found that sighted students needed a lot of support to become familiar with tactile learning before they could learn effectively through this new approach. To ensure successful adoption of this approach, the collaborative development of a multi-sensorial curriculum among educators and disabled people will be essential, otherwise these attempts will become vulnerable to exoticism and academic exploitation by mainstream scholars in the accelerating neoliberal trend in academia and the art world today.