Observing in Wisconsin: Day 2

So Tuesday I was able to observe at a second school in the same district. This was a special case; the teacher has two different schools to report to during the day. His main art room is located in the high school and is pretty nice! Mr. K is a ceramicist and so his focus in the classroom and his curriculum is clay and functional pottery. Mr. K has a fairly large kiln room, extruders, throwing wheels, glaze posters... I was excited to learn from him! He has a great grasp on curriculum balance and working to his own strengths with students. They know he is credible and he makes himself available to help and answer questions.

Slab mugs with faces

One really awesome project students were working on was for the Solar Science Olympics. A group of students were putting together a stained glass project that concerned the effect of the sun on the environment. Working with a local artist, the students learned about stained glass and created the design for the sun. They also created a base/pedestal object for the piece. The box will be placed outside and the stained glass piece will sit on top of the box. With the sun shining through the stained glass, the colored light will change the colors of white, pretty drab, paper mache flowers inside the box. The idea being communicated is that the sun affects nature in beautiful ways. Such an awesome project! 

Mr. K showed me around the room, stopping at this project. He stated he wants to incorporate more core classes into his curriculum. He wants to create a "Core Class" and have students work on projects that relate to what they are learning in their Science, Math, Social Studies, etc. classes. VERY similar to the lessons I have been writing :) Off to a good start!

paper mache flowers for the project

stained glass sun

Wooden box to hold the stained glass piece

The first class of the day was ceramics and, as stated, this classroom is focused around ceramics! Students were working on various projects including wheel-thrown vessels, platters, and hand built teapots. Some students were catching up on other ceramics work like masks. The work REALLY impressive.. made me feel like I definitely need to spend more time with clay.

A really nice teapot

"elephant" teapot

Students were self-starters and independently working. The classroom was quiet and productive and Mr. K walked around helping anyone who needed questions answered. One of the most effective aspects of his classroom management was his clean up procedure. There are two clean up times: early, and late. Students can choose when to put away work and clean up their spaces - further increasing student independence and responsibility. The room is never left messy or unprepared for the next class. A great idea!

Painting was the second class of the day and had many more students than Ceramics. Mr. K had developed a lesson to teach students about the work of Keith Haring: 

Mr. K with one of the Keith Haring paintings

this student liked horseback riding so she painted an image of riding 

1. Make a list of 3 personal themes or ideas that are important to you. Examples: climate, music, health, change 

2. Using black sharpie/charcoal, begin developing bold cartoon-like images that convey your personal message/theme/ideas

3. Tape poster paper to drawing board and paint it solid black.

4. Select the most interesting image from your drawings (communicates theme/idea)

5. Redraw your best sketch on the poster paper, using light-colored chalk. 

FILL THE PAPER

6. Paint wide lines over your chalk lines with white acrylic paint

- some shapes could be painted solid bright white or with one solid accent color.

Students took multiple approaches to the assignment but it was clear the pieces had a lot of personal meaning, which was so cool to see and talk about. Each student had a different story to tell and a different design to draw. One student had reared a bunch of curvilinear connecting lines that kind of looked like balloons. Another student drew a dreamcatcher with dollar bills underneath the feathers.. 

This student told me the meaning behind his work was "all paths lead to nowhere." ...kind of depressing but when prompted for further explanation he revealed he was really proud of his results. He had drawn his design and when he tried to clean up the lines there was paint residue from another student. The paint was applied in such a way that you could see every brushstroke and line. It looked so cool! So my reply to his explanation? "Looks like your path lead to this really awesome work." The student agreed and kept working on his project.. sometimes happy accidents happen!

The next project was similar but more complex: students had to create mythical creatures in the style of vinyl floor paintings. Students had to paint a large piece of canvas with black paint and, after creating several pre-drawings, recreated the drawing on the canvas with chalk. After that they had to paint the creature with black outlines and complementary color schemes. The background had to be the opposite of the foreground animal and it created a really excellent contrast! Local artists were also part of this project - and their work was scattered throughout the room to inspire the work.

teacher sample

flying snake!

bunny claw..foot thing

Students had to draw an original mythical creature but could use any references they wanted. It was kind of funny because students were looking up images on their phones and Mr. K was thrilled. That removed the bottleneck issue of using the computer to find references and allowed students to be more independent. Mr. K had to approve of their pre-drawings but after that they were completely self-motivated and really excited about the work. There was a great variety of designs and ideas throughout the room :)

The next class was 7th and 8th graders and the energy changed IMMEDIATELY. The class size increased again and the pace changed as well. These students needed much more structure and order to get to work. They went to pick up their pieces and set to work.. mostly. I have a theory that in every class... more often than not.. there is one student who just does NOT want to be there. In reaction to that they act up, out, and talk louder than everyone else. They strive for attention and recognition and once their actions are acknowledged it usually... escalates. As an observer I did not interfere with any disciplinary actions and instead walked around the room looking at student work - which was, again, SUPER impressive.

Mr. K had the students starting a new project about impressionist artists. Students looked at paintings by various impressionist artists and then had to find a landscape photograph and transfer it to a large piece of drawing paper. Starting with a pencil drawing students had to capture as many details as possible. 

Mr. K helping out a student

The next step was to cover their pencil lines and add more detail with markers. The colors are limited to browns and tans - Mr. K utilized the 'multicultural' colors of Crayola markers. The markers were starting to dry out so Mr. K's solution was to provide a cup of water and use the markers like watercolors. After markers students used pastels to add color and finally watercolors to create a resist effect across the entire composition.

table of diligent artists :)

Love the wet marker effects -
very cool and easy to accomplish

z


The other project students were working on was a cubist animal painting. Pablo Picasso's work was shown as inspiration and then students had to create drawings of real or imagined animals. Mr. K emphasized the use of minimalistic teacher samples - you want the students to find their own way to create and explore the assignment.

1. Students draw real/imagined animal.
2. Draw lines in all directions across animal (diagonals, up and down, must intersect with animal)
3. Use primary color as a base for a color scheme for animal (yellow would be paired with yellow orange, yellow green, etc)
4. The background should use a complementary color scheme as well - the scheme should be opposite to the figure.
5. Add black and white as accents
6. Add black outline (optional)

teacher sample - very simple and sets expectations

After 7th and 8th grade left Mr. K had a prep period where I helped him prepare work for the art show. The work coming out of his classroom is EXCELLENT.

This project was in response to Chuck Close's paintings. Students chose an image, created a grid, transferred the image, and used pastel resist with watercolors. Students learned about creating complementary color schemes, secondary colors, and breaking down images. I was really impressed! Also... Sherlock looked awesome.

SERIOUSLY. SHERLOCK.

This student had explained the rationale of his Keith Haring painting as
something he did 'because [he] was bored' WELL he must have been really bored to create this!

The high school is grades 7 - 12 and the work reaches far beyond that. Students explore their projects fairly extensively and make the work very personal without it feeling contrived.

this was called "School Struggles"

Um... I had to put this in here. It was called "Harmony"

Mr. K is also a very talented painter and encourages his students to explore as many media as they can. These paintings are acrylic landscapes/portraits/wildlife portraits. There were quite a few students who created fan art-type pieces which were interesting. Mr. K encourages students to use acrylics just like oils - fat over lean and as many layers as possible. The results are stunning and Mr. K even has the paintings framed for display. Pretty cool.

This was titled "Locked".... so. Good.

Lots of ceramics work that spanned from platters and cups to teapots and vases

After a fortunate break for lunch (because seriously.. I need to eat or I get scary cranky) we were off to the elementary school. The school is k-6 and we had a break from the kindergarteners for the day since they were on a field trip. This gave us extra time to prep for the two periods of the day, 1st grade and 6th grade.

1st grade was a really really REALLY energetic group of little ones who were all over the place in terms of their focus and interest in art. Mr. K has a sort of 'rec room' as an art room which is big but also very closed-in and restrictive... I had to stop myself from organizing the construction paper by color. I swear, being an Art Teacher has given me OCD. All jokes aside, Mr. K had a pretty cool lesson idea for the students.

Banners!
View banners in motion and discuss how banners work/move/appear. We looked at a youtube video of a flag blowing in the wind.. and immediately after that video was over there were previews for the next videos. Minecraft was IMMEDIATELY pointed out by one of the students, so the connection was made: Minecraft is an okay subject for this project. Oh boy.

Mr. K wanted students to create banners with patterns that "move" - aka how the banner moves in the wind or hangs on the wall determines how the pattern/designs will appear. Mr. K uses grade-level textbooks to introduce new lessons and ideas. This creates student interest because they have to follow along to know what comes next.

Students were given a long piece of paper on which to glue shapes and pieces of paper. Mr. K went over different ways to fold the papers into shapes, how to create arrangements, and limited the color scheme to two sheets of construction paper - hopefully in different colors.
Students had to arrange their paper pieces on the large sheets and then Mr. K came around to check the work and progress of each student.

Students soon learned that they could partially fold shapes to create different arrangements and effects - such as the student below:

her shapes were more abstract than the squares and triangles of her peers' work

a pretty strong arrangement, I think

Students had to glue down their shapes onto the banners and then they were done. Of course, we had to make sure our names were on the papers, too! There were a few students who were really distracted and struggled with the project - and then Minecraft happened. One student began creating Minecraft characters with his squares/shapes and then half of his table followed suit, and another few students at the table next to theirs! Though this was definitely not the application Mr. K wanted to demonstrate and teach.. at least the students were gluing and cutting things down/out? The main problem was the lesson was meant to explore abstract shape arrangements and pull students away from representational ideas -- Minecraft is kind of a huge deal with elementary kids.

6th grade was also working with paper craft, but in a much more methodical way. Students were creating paper mosaics of their own design. Mr. K established expectations with the students by saying "I am going to treat you like my 7th graders and teach you the next lesson before you finish the current one. You will need to decide when you are ready to move on and you will be self-motivated." Students also read a short excerpt from their textbook to give some background knowledge. Students were eager to get to work and the goals for project 1 were as follows:

To create an original design using paper shards of different colors
-- color scheme is encouraged but not required, from what I saw
To leave black space to simulate 'grout' between shards of paper
To FILL the paper space with colored shards
To leave a frame around the image for display

different types of paper shapes used to create space

I'm not 100% sure what this was but the student was pretty into it and it looks cool

flower with tribal colors

sassy cat

After students completed this project Mr. K demonstrated the next project, which was stained glass windows. If you've ever created paper snowflakes that was the first step of the project - folding and cutting. Students were learning about radial symmetry, pattern, line, shape, and cutting techniques.

1. Create 'snowflake' (aka wire frame of stained glass) using black construction paper
--use radial symmetry
2. Glue unfolded frame onto a sheet of tissue paper
3. Glue multicolored sheets of tissue paper onto the back to simulate colored glass patterns
4. Experiment with placement and layering of colors
5. Allow to dry

Mr. K had students using a watered down glue mixture to adhere the papers, which also changed the color of the paper slightly. Only two students made stained glass projects and the rest were working on their mosaics. Mr. K said one of the main challenges is differentiation: "One student could start and finish in a day and another could take a week." From what I saw he was pacing the group fairly well and everyone was working.

stained glass design, in foreground

These next few pictures are some of the lesson ideas Mr. K has explored with his k-6 students.

"Mechanimals" animals combined with machines 

How to show wind in art - check out that sideways house!

illustrating and painting insects

drawing crowds of people

Overall I had a great experience with Mr. K in his classrooms. At the end of the day we had one final prep period where students could come in and do independent or group work. Mr. K had students come in and help us finish preparing work for the art show - so much bubble wrap. So much. I learned a LOT from the organization of the art show pieces between Mr. K and Mr. S - holy moly, is that a big undertaking. But as I stated before, the work is amazing!

His students were friendly and asked lots of questions - they wanted to know about NMU, teaching, etc. And I of course wanted to know about their favorite lessons, media, and classes in school. I am a huge nerd, really... My big project after helping with the art show was letting my OCD tendencies out and about - I sorted through ALL of Mr. K's issues of Scholastic Art Magazine, and he graciously donated duplicate issues to me as thanks. So now I have a pretty good arsenal of ideas for lesson plans and activities both in school and at camp!

In the coming semester I am going to work extra hard to educate myself on the legal and academic changes coming to teachers because being able to observe in Wisconsin schools has changed my outlook on future teaching possibilities... I might try to become employed in Wisconsin in 2015/2016 after student teaching! I need to do more research on state reciprocity for my certification after graduating, but both of these teachers showed me that k-12 education is not the big scary beast teachers can make it out to be! In fact, it might just be the challenge I am looking for in my future career. Except maybe with some of the 1st graders... no, just kidding! They were great, too. I feel more ready than ever to conquer my student teaching semester and continue to be the powerhouse art educator I strive to be.

ON THAT NOTE: Mr. K actually invited me to come back and be his student teacher in the next few years! I was so ecstatic! His schools would be a great place to get my feet wet in teaching k-12 and learning the ropes of managing that many students.... I already do it at camp, to be honest. A classroom in each school would be a much more controlled and welcome environment to work in. I could finally establish classroom management procedures, solid rules, clean up procedures.. I am such a huge nerd about this stuff it's overwhelming sometimes. But really, I was and AM so excited! I made sure to pass on my information to Mr. K and assured him we would be in touch. I have so many ideas for his classes and students - especially for the "Core Class" he proposed. I mean.. I look at my own lessons and I'm like, "Yeah, I'm doing that already. BRING IT ON!" We will be in touch, most definitely, about those proceedings in the future. Until then I will continue to work on developing lesson ideas and resources for my future teaching/observation experiences.

And for now - I must sign off! I am a tired tired lady and I have lots to do tomorrow. But I'm glad I finally updated and finished this post :) It was a great couple of days and I will be returning to those schools this fall semester for more observations and hopefully to iron out the details of student teaching!

Okay. Time to get to sleep. I love sleep.. happy summer! Finally.

Ms. Kanak