I have had a crazy busy, but productive, day and wanted to post about my first day of my five day lesson. I am borrowing Olivia Gude's Elementary I lesson, which is a series of activities that focus on students' elementary (or middle) school experiences. To quote the lesson outline, "In this project you will create a portrait of one of your elementary classroom environments. You will create a "conceptual map" of the kinds of things you noticed and thought about in one of your elementary school years. Draw in a similar style to what you would have used at that time in your life." And most importantly: "The goal of the project is to reclaim aspects of self that were not understood, seen, or cultivated at that time."
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| whales and bugs and playgrounds and parents and yelling sister.... |
Day one was full of activity.. but first I had to get my group of students. I have been working with the Special Education/Social Studies teacher at an alternative high school since I took her Special Education class last semester. I requested teaching her students in particular because I could really see myself working there and taking on the challenges of an alternative high school setting is very appealing to me. The teacher made a school-wide announcement to bring kids into her classroom for my lesson outline - I was able to capture the attention and interest of about 3/4ths of the group. Most of the students were eager to learn more and so we come to part one: presentation of lesson, artist inspirations, and reflection.
I had a short presentation (courteously operated by my observing professor) that displayed artists such as Hollis Sigler, Horace Pippin, Xul Solar, Jacob Lawrence, and Paul Klee. The idea behind displaying these particular artists, as suggested by Gude, is to demonstrate how they created space in their work. We talked about perspective, use of lines and color placement, and the effect that perspective has on the size and feel to a room. The students were a bit apprehensive at first - it was a lot of information to take in - and I will be honest, I had to step back and let the kids do the talking! The other idea behind these artists is their unique use of color blocking, shading, and shapes to create simplified human forms.. the students were having fun deciphering Xul Solar's figures and one student really REALLY did not like Klee's work. I enjoyed learning more about their visual preferences and what they thought was worthy of being called "art".
After the presentation I passed out the reflection sheets for students to fill in. I made sure to tell students that this was a safe place where sharing was encouraged but not mandatory. I had been told by the teacher in the classroom that many of these students had tough home lives or other personal stories that they might not want to share. I feel like this is definitely not an aspect of student personalities that is exclusive to alternative schools; it happens everywhere. Many students only filled out certain questions like, "What did your classroom look like? How did you get to school? Did you ever bring anything for show and tell?" What was fun for me was walking around, checking work, and bringing students out of their shells with my own answers. Believe me when I say I was a weird kid. I still pretty much am.
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| Another 'Tiny Breanne' project (autobiographical comics).. I am still terrified of closets |
Students became a little less shy about their answers and experiences after I started sharing mine with them and I showed them my example as well (first image). Some of the students got a... shall we say.. a LITTLE bit off task when sharing with their neighbors about some of their school experiences. Many of the students have been attending alternative or reform schools for most of their lives so they have only known major and disruptive incidents in their schools. Other students just flat out did not want to talk about home at all, which is okay, too. Some of the answers made me laugh while others made me realize how different our experiences are throughout life. Almost every student shared at least one question or showed me their papers to prove they had completed the task. My big accomplishment was getting one of the more active and outspoken students (from start to finish this kid was up and about) to sit in his chair and complete all but 4 questions on the reflection sheet. He was there to draw, he said. The teacher came back to the room after I completed the lesson and was really surprised by his participation and also stated he can become completely engaged in a project for a long time. I wanted to stay on track so drawing was not in the plan for today..I assured the student drawing was coming up after the questionnaire was completed.. on Wednesday. I am kind of bummed I can't go back until Wednesday but I did not want to interfere with their other elective hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Music. I remember being in choir all those years ago...
Wednesday will be the start of drawing and we get to all pretend to be the age we have answered questions for. My example was 1st Grade Breanne.
--OH, that's another thing. At this particular school, the idea is to build trust and common ground with students. I was called Breanne as opposed to Ms. K or Ms. Kanak, which was very different for me. I had worked with some of the students before as a volunteer helper for the visiting art teacher and they remembered my name, too. It didn't feel informal so much as it felt comfortable - like students laughed at my very lame jokes as a peer... anyway, just an observation I had. Not all my jokes were lame!
I will be doing another short presentation on Wednesday of elementary student artwork to get students in the mindset of their younger selves. I found this to be helpful when I was doing the lesson in my own class and could easily step back into that part of myself. Drawing in a more rudimentary and elementary style takes all the pressure out of being a 'good' or accurate artist and makes the task more fun. Students seemed intrigued to try that this week and more willing to participate because the pressure was off. A lot of the students were also excited about the opportunity to display work in a local gallery. More on that later...
So that's day 1 - and now I must sleep because tomorrow I serve as a judge for the Maker Faire in the Media and Technology class and booooooy am I tired.
More Wednesday with maybe a lesson outline thrown in!? Getting crazy.
Ms. Kanak
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