What page are we on? Interdisciplinary examples of the ‘what’ and ‘how’ in the ‘doing’

Abstract

Interdisciplinarity has always existed in teaching and learning, but through a need to judge or assess student work, disciplines emerged in the 19th century, where subject areas became separate entities. “In ancient times education and philosophy was interdisciplinary (or rather pre-disciplinary) in the sense that philosophers did not accept any boundaries or limitations to the validity of the truths they uncovered by the way of thinking” [Krishnan, 2009, p.13]. More recently, there has been a move back toward interdisciplinarity, but the way is not easy while external structures remain that work against its philosophical values. We have employed a qualitative constructivist framework with an autoethnographic lens to examine a series of workshops that were conducted by the author. This article examines the difficulties that exist in pursuing an interdisciplinary approach, while acknowledging the benefits. Examples are provided of some ‘small steps’ that have been taken in the ‘doing’ as without practical examples, the ‘what’ and ‘how’ are lost and the discussions remain philosophical leaving teachers and academics scratching their heads, wondering how they will do this. The outcome of this approach allows a clear view of what can be achieved when the arts are involved.