12-12-09

Overall I think I learned most in this course during field experiences. Most of the content I took away from the course was of the way to actually conduct myself in the classroom (as opposed to the valuable, but personally untested head-knowledge that I received in education and methods courses up until that point), and small improvements made to my lesson plan and teaching during the lesson study process.

I was surprised that in the school my group taught at, which has a reputation very being a very rough and dangerous place, the discipline problems came from students not participating and being too quiet, rather than being too talkative or fighting. It was good to have that experience, because if not, I might have went into teaching believing the hype about how "bad" certain "kinds" of students are.

I would like to continue to explore art as a way to personally connect with students, and have them connect with parts of themselves that are not usually expressed in the classroom.

12-6-09

In the interest of brevity, I would describe the lesson that my partner and I taught as one rooted in the idea of fear, in which students were encouraged to express intense personal emotion, or attempt to draw emotional reactions from their viewers through a mixed-media piece. We equipped students for this task by showing video clips and images that used aesthetic devices such as lighting, size, and color to express or evoke fear.

Something that was in the original plan that was not carried out well (due to me forgetting, to be honest) was a classroom discussion of composition--how to creatively use the elements and principles of art to one's advantages in filling the paper. Some students drew extremely small figures or did not think enough about the size and shape of the objects involved in their piece, causing the finished product to possibly be less powerful than its potential as an artwork. Even this issue goes back to a larger one, which was a disorganized demonstration on my part.

Another related factor is the simple condition that it was not our classroom; We had only a limited time to prepare resources before students arrived, and had limited relationships with the students, which served as a disadvantage in the ability to motivate the two or three students who were not interested in the project.

11-22-09

It's really difficult to talk about building community in the classroom without sounding naive about the prevalence of certain socially disruptive factors, and being idealistic about how a community can be effectively formed in spite of these challenges.

All a teacher can do initially is to make efforts from the beginning of the school year to create an environment where everyone is accepted and valued, by encouraging diverse views, appearances, and art-making, and enforcing a classroom policy in which one must leave negative things such as gang-related speech and actions outside of the room, perhaps even in order to enter the room.

A big part of when this community can be encouraged is in collaboration during work time and during sharing and critiques. If the teacher opens up to the students and encourages them to do the same, a number of students may follow, and members of the class may get to know each other as individuals, breaking barriers that exist outside of the art room.

In order for this to be truly effective, all students in the room must be invited to participate, and this community must be made attractive to each individual student by the teacher and others who have come on board. How to make community attractive depends completely on the students' interests.

11-15-09

I can't say that I've encountered any classroom management issues that can be considered "severe", but from my (limited) experience in the classroom it seems that the most common classroom management problem is a lack of motivation, manifest in potentially opposite ways--students' refusal to work, or having a chaotic classroom where not much is actually being done artistically (and of course both of these can take place at once).

In motivation being the biggest issue, I think it's important to acknowledge that the root of the problem can come from numerous factors, including the student not knowing why art is relevant to their own life, lack of examples of educated individuals in the students' community, a lack of value for education in the home, a lack of rest or down time outside of school, and other issues.

I think the best strategy to employ with most classroom management problems is for the teacher to make (him/her)self present and accessible in the classroom, apply student interest and energy toward artwork, and have low-pressure conversations with students before or after class.

11-8-09

I always wanted to be an artist so I was never much of a student in non-art classes, and I have lacked the motivation even to complete assignments that were of some interest to me, simply because of my schedule (I'd love to put in all the hours it takes to maximize my potential output in painting class, but I also have other classes and a job...and I need to sleep sometimes) or the timing of the assignment in general.

However, usually when I'm not motivated to do schoolwork, it's because the assignment does not apply to anything I want to do with my own life, or the guidelines of the assignment restrict me from handling it in the way I would like to.

I don't think there's any way to answer a question of how I would motivate uninspired students until it happens. I definitely won't win every battle against the general lack of motivation in some students or its many causes, but what I can do is be sensitive to the fact that my original presentation of a lesson may not be the best way to reach some students, and be willing to make adaptations based on student needs and interests. Knowing what those needs and interests are will (hopefully) come from meaningful relationships with the students, if only in conversations about hobbies during work time. Fortunately, art is flexible enough to apply to any student's interests or ambitions.

While teaching an art lesson based on the idea of personal fears, I tried to motivate one student at my site by speaking with him and asking him about his interests, but he would only give very short answers that weren't helpful to me or himself. I allowed the assignment to bend, and told him that if he wasn't afraid of anything, then he could create a piece that would draw fear out of others--but up until the last few minutes of the last day of the lesson, he would not work beyond the small lines he marked his paper with seemingly just to get rid of me. I can only hope that if I were his regular teacher, rather than an occasional student teacher of a four-day assignment, I would have gained a better understanding of where his lack of motivation comes from and how to find and direct whatever interests he does have.

10-25-09

In whatever school district I end up becoming a part of, I think one of the best ways to be an advocate for the arts is to make the events of the art classroom and students' artwork (preferably with their permission) as visible as possible to the school and community in order to get people acquainted with the importance of an art curriculum and the meaningful learning that takes place in an art education. For these things to be valued by the community, the art teacher that uses public accountability as a form of validation must be conscientious in creating, implementing, and maintaining an art education experience that is relevant to the students and other areas of their academic education.

I think that there are risks involved with being an advocate of art in education, simply because in many school systems at this time the pro-art position is contrary to that of the school system as a business, and that of parents and community members who don't understand its value. This could cause employment issues if pursued openly.

The way to balance these things is not certain, but by making the art curriculum effective for other school subjects and beneficial to all students, we can maximize art education itself and increase the community's desire for their children to have it at the same time.

10-18-09

I think the fundamental benefit of collaborative artmaking is the transmission of ideas between artists, in order for each artist to grow by being drawn out of their boundaries, and to gauge the effectiveness of their visual communication methods.  Multiple artists giving input to one piece can also teach the individuals more about themselves, and maybe they would like to expand on some ideas that where pointed out to them in their own work.  Service-learning projects could fit into the curriculum as the beginnings of different projects, using research to guide my methods.

I've never really made art with others in a hands-on sense, but a major part of collaborative artmaking that I have participated in is group critiques.  I think that the technique used in the book to prevent "groupthink" during critique is something that can potentially make that part of artistic dialogue exponentially stronger.  Honest feedback during and after the creation of a piece of art is a vital part of the flow of ideas between artists, and can be key in fostering a collaborative atmosphere.

Groupthink, in my opinion, has been very present in the critiques I've experienced, as even when I have no idea how I would comment on someone's piece, I am able to predict what others would say because of the climate of that class, and give that as my input for the sake of participation.  This can be detrimental to the discussion, the piece in question, and the thought process of the artist who created/is creating it.