Since my middle school classes are working on a TAB based model right now, I don't really have lessons where everyone is working on the same thing at the same time, so I decided to photograph my 7th and 8th grade classes over two days so I could catch all students. I was able to capture both of my 7th grade classes, but failed at getting 8th grade. Every time I meant to photograph 8th grade, I had so many students asking questions or needing demonstrations that we would get to clean up time and I would realize I hadn't picked up my IPAD to take pictures. Teaching win, photography fail.
My photo essay depicts my 7th graders working on opening activities for the studio centers in the room, or digging in to skill building activities once they have opened a center. I have 7th graders every other day for a quarter, so I have only had this group for 6-7 classes/3 weeks. Both my Day 1 and Day 2 group are very engaged this quarter. My Day 1 group is very studious/gifted kid heavy, and many have struggled a little to break out of teacher-pleaser syndrome and get comfortable doing work that doesn't have a right answer. The day we took these pictures, I was very happy with them because it was the first day where they really started to have flow and seem relaxed. My Day 2 class is full of the "naughty" kids and they dove right in like fish in water. So far, all of them have been successful and engaged in the art room, even if they aren't in other classes. As you can see in the pictures, some students are exploring different types of paint and the effects they can create with different types of watercolors. By far the most popular choice right now is clay. I had a student exclaim "You mean I can use clay everyday if I want to?! We only got to use it once a YEAR in elementary. This is awesome!" Students there are working on wedging, attaching and glazing on test tiles. I have a student in Day 2 who decided that she likes 2D work so she moved on to working with collage after opening painting. Another decided she wants to open all of the stations so she is pictured practicing wire attachments to open sculpture. Other students are recording or reflecting on their calendar in their packets. I am super excited to see what this group comes up with when we start talking about portfolio quality artwork after Thanksgiving.
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What should we teach in our classrooms? Do you agree with creating the classroom as a complex learning system? How would you apply this in your classroom?
I am very interested in creating a complex learning system in my classroom. I have noticed that as students get more comfortable in my classroom, they are also more comfortable talking to each other about their work and giving each other feedback. These organic connections between students are so exciting, and I love to listen to what they say to each other about their art. It can be somewhat awkward when they don’t need me as much and use each other more. I sometimes don’t know what to do with myself when I am not actively teaching and my students are using each other for questions or are completely “in the zone.” Having the creative projects for class has been great because it has allowed me to fill that time with making art alongside my students. For each of my projects, I have been inspired by something that a student was making and incorporated it into my project. I feel so much more creative when I am surrounded by creative people so I agree with Castro’s quote “individuals can in fact become more creative in a dynamic environment, a fact that has obvious implications for teaching art.” One of the important parts of the reading that I will apply to my classroom is the idea that as teachers we should be creating spaces that showcase and exposed the expertise of each student. It also touched on creating connections between students that wouldn’t necessarily connect outside the classroom because they don’t have much in common. This reading makes me want to be more mindful of the relationships I am facilitating in my classroom and the connections between students that I am encouraging. I want to reflect more on this topic and think about what I could do to get students talking and asking each other questions in more controlled ways so that it creates more instances of authentic collaboration. My quote came from Ch. 3 Foundational Approaches to Holistic Art Education.
"When you have the possibility of generating your own simulated body state because you can represent the body on line all the time in the brain, then you have the possibility of generating the body states of others, all the way from the emotional to the muscular-skeletal. You can go from the body of the self to the body of another and through the body, into the mind of another... I live in the facial expressions of the other, as I feel him living in mine." This section was about empathy and embodying the emotions and feelings of another person. I was very interested in the discussion of nerve biology and mirror neurons. I have been preoccupied with health, the body, mind, and relationships because my husband was diagnosed with brain cancer in the spring of 2014 and has spent the last year and a half in treatment and recovery, My piece is about this experience and the struggle of trying to empathize with someone who is going through an experience that you can't possibly understand. As much as you try to empathize and understand what that person is going through, you will always have an incomplete understanding and that can be difficult to navigate in a relationship. You spend so much time studying this person to make sure they are happy, comfortable etc., but they are frustrated, upset, and unhappy. I focused on the expressions of the figures and the inner body to express this disconnect and breakdown of the body/mind to body/mind system. |
AuthorMorgan Singleton is a secondary art educator with a Master's degree in art education. Archives
April 2017
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