Week 10: Kaleidoscopes, Twisted Vessels, and Great Waves

Um… Seriously. Slow down, time. I want to enjoy every second of student teaching and I don’t need to rush anything! My my my..

Monday: In Drawing class students were working on their plate designs for carving. Mr. Keller and I were still working out the kinks of heating the linoleum in the kiln – figuring out temperatures and timing and everything else. LUCKILY… nothing melted. Which is apparently a thing that can happen when lino gets overheated. 

Fingers and toes crossed each time, nothing happened. I had started to work out a system for heating the plates – collecting them at the beginning of class, heating a bunch at a time, and checking on them every few minutes to see how they were shaping up. Literally. If the lino was bending to the sides of the kiln, it was time to remove it and distribute for carving. Students were learning to respect the process and showing as much patience as possible for 9^th graders. I was proud of them for persevering through the waiting game of carving. And really.. if the lino was new, it would not be an issue. But most of my job is problem solving, so it goes.

In art survey I had a new batch of cartoon characters, which is what Mr. Keller and I affectionately call our 7^th graders. I had complete control over the class – start to finish. The goal for the day was expectations, Art Zone grading procedures, and introductions. Introductions from students to Ms. Kanak because they were all new faces! I was so excited. I introduced our first lesson of the quarter – name kaleidoscopes. My example went over extremely well – Mrs. Pizza is always a hit! Students got to work right away on their kaleidoscope designs but I made one tiny mistake.. I should have encouraged more brainstorming on their design ideas. This would have created some more time for them to draw, work slowly, add details.. Mr. Keller pointed out that little misstep, but I think they did all right.  One thing I have observed since teaching this lesson a second time is that students are working much faster than the first time I taught this particular project. It is interesting to see the results, the complexity of designs, and the amount of effort put into the work… I think next time I will require brainstorming and design problem solving. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Some advanced students.. just being awesome

At the elementary school I was working with 6^th grade on weaving. More weaving. All the weaving. My goal for the day was to spot-check students’ work and teaching them how to create locked blocks of weaving for designs and patterns. I thought I was doing myself a favor by only teaching the students who were ‘ready’ to learn the new stitch. Uhh… yeah. That whole hindsight thing. I should have done a mass demo for the whole group and then addressed individual issues or questions as such. This class struggles with raising their hands and prefers to call out my name instead. Which.. with a small group of kids it’s not a problem. But when we are pushing in to the whole grade it gets a little hectic. Something else to work on – quieting them down. 

Tuesday: Drawing students were transferring and carving like it was their job – because it was. We were working on heating plates. I provided students with examples of carving techniques, texture ideas and sheets, and suggestions on creating movement lines and patterns. Students were patient while their plates heated up and worked on the test plate for experiments with line and textures. 

Some more advanced students' work.. just so good!

In Art Survey students were cracking down on their kaleidoscope ideas – again, they could have benefited from brainstorming or planning out different ideas. Today they were adding details and starting to fill in shapes and spaces with color. I taught them to use the pastels with even pressure and full coverage of color. Most of them were still working on drawing up their radial designs but some got into coloring today. Today I also realized that some kids… some kids should not sit by other kids. Personalities clash, or on the other hand they mix too well, and no work gets done. I made the decision to create some seating arrangement changes for the following day. I must admit I struggled with noise levels and behaviors with this group.. I thought seating chart changes would help that problem and I wouldn’t know until I put them into action. I established my behavioral expectations framed around the school's rules as well as my expectations for art making on day one and I think the students are highly receptive to that. I give them the option to solve their own problems, through the Love and Logic philosophy, and most of them choose to stay on task and redirect their attention accordingly.

Here's a treat! This is the project my advanced students at the elementary school are working on - Altered Environments. Students are learning how to draw in perspective using wrenches and angle finders. In addition to using new tools, students are adding changes to their chosen 'environment' or space. There is a lot of variety happening..

At the elementary school I was weaving with the other half of 6^th grade – half? Team? Either way, they were weaving about it. I took my own advice and taught the new stitch to the whole class, just making time for individual questions after the demo was done. Students knew what was expected of them and got to work… loudly. This group is super chatty! Typical middle school way of doing things – why do something quietly when you can talk to three people at once? Ayiyi.. a handful of students were making the day quite loud and messy for the rest of the class and for Ms. Kanak. Mr. Keller and I decided to make some seating changes, as needed, to this class group as well. Sometimes you just have to address the individuals instead of the whole class – but it’s hard when they are all talking and acting up at once. Just another thing to tack on to the list of things Ms. Kanak needs to learn how to do more effectively. As sassy as that sounds it’s true – I strive to be a reflective and open-minded educator. I am not afraid to admit when I am overwhelmed or feel a loss of control.

And right after that class ended it was time to visit the whole 6^th grade for a push-in! Of course. Of course.. This means that we go into their classrooms and bring the work with us. This could have benefited from some more organization as well. Mr. Keller came up with the idea of distributing half the grade’s projects at a time – having them separated into their team groups for the students to sort through and find their work. This works.. in theory.. for some amount of time. After students are done working, however, the order has to be reestablished and you have to recollect the work and separate it. No. Easy. Task. Mr. Keller and I ended up picking one side of their environment (classroom) for one half of the grade and the other for the other half. The hard part was gathering up their work after they had moved all over the two classrooms to go to their work areas. Again I ran into the issue of wanting to teach the students a new stitch and not being able to centralize that lesson. I chose to sit in one area of the room and teach the new stitch or techniques to the students who came and asked to learn it. That worked for awhile, but I could tell by the end of the day that many of the students had expected me to wander to their side of the environment while I had already settled onto the other.. lesson learned – make the learning accessible to everyone. Even if it is just one half of a grade at a time - make yourself available.

Just a reminder that my snake is still around - hellooo

Wednesday started off with my foray into teaching the introductory ceramics class. Mr. Keller and I decided that my Twisted Vessels lesson which I worked on with advanced handbuilding would be a good transitionary project for the intro kids. AND we also took the opportunity to record some of my teaching in ‘real time’ on my phone. It was going to be used as an alternative to my professor visiting and observing but after more consideration I really wanted him to be present for my actual teaching and organization of lessons. More on that later.. I introduced the lesson and showed some examples I had found on the internet. Then I showed some of the advanced students’ work as examples and students seemed to perk up after that. I think they realized they were being given the opportunity to work at an advanced level, or at least to experiment with the media in the same way as their advanced student peers do, and they were interested in that. While working on that project, many of the intro students offered up ideas and suggestions for what they would do if they worked on the twisted vessels. Luckily for them! That was in the plans all along. Sneaky art teachers… 

Anyway, as you can see in the video I introduced the lesson, showed examples, and eventually demonstrated the use of the extruder. One of the main issues I ran into with this project was wedging the clay enough to produce quality working surface and material. I am an impatient person by nature – that’s why I like drawing. There is immediate gratification and notification of what needs to be done or worked on. Clay is more finicky.. clay is a time bomb for Ms. Kanak. The nice thing about this particular project is the ability to try.. and try and try and try again. I made about 9 versions of this same project, created 3 teacher’s samples, fired 1, and scrapped the other two.. story of my life. But! If at first you don’t succeed, wedge-wedge again.

Art Survey had a double long class for block day and today was the day we moved seats. This group of students is HIGHLY social and talkative - not something I want to entirely discourage, but I had already moved some of their seats once to try and encourage more productivity and good choices. We talked about observing symmetry in our designs today, as well as continuing to fill in shapes with colors. Students were working away on their drawings and sharing ideas with their classmates. The seating changes seemed to work – most students were on task. Mr. Keller and I were joking about how seating charts are a lot like games of chess. You have to have a strategy, you need to know how different pieces will interact with each other, and you have to follow through with your choices.

At the elementary school we were back with 4^th grade working on Art History at the Zoo…today was rough. Behaviors and noise levels and distractions and oh so many other things. Students were feeding off of each other’s energy and distractions ran abound! One student with oppositional defiant disorder was fighting with one of the well behaved and dedicated students at his table, calling her drawing stupid and ugly and just being mean. Another student who had apparently not been fed or given medication was absolutely bouncing off the walls. He could not sit still in his chair and could not focus on his work. Still another student was hopping around the room, touching the SMARTboard to change images before it was his turn, bothering people, touching others’ work. I have said it before but this grade is madness. Straight. Crazy madness. I had no time to document work because I was so busy putting out fires and trying to rationalize child brains – here’s a tip: just don’t do that. I focused my efforts on redirecting students, keeping them on task, and keeping them away from each other. Let me tell you.. I breathed a big sigh of relief when they left for the day. You can’t win ‘em all! Especially in 4^th grade.

Thursday morning was kiln Christmas! Big time. Students’ work was coming out in piles and droves and was looking really good. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the students whose work was ready would not be able to see their work til study hall or til Friday.

 I snapped some pictures of my advanced handbuilding students’ work to show the ‘before and after’ pictures. 

In Drawing we were able to re-heat linoleum til forever since the kiln was still cooling. The plates were turning out Awesome and students were learning to solve all their carving problems by talking to me and to each other. We did a quick walkabout halfway through the block period just so students could see what their peers were working on. I think this class benefits greatly from gaining insight and feedback from peers – they seem to be more independent when it comes to problem solving and figuring out the ‘best’ ways to do things for themselves. Linoleum carving is no picnic, but they’re making it look easy.

At the elementary school I was teaching a lesson called “Under the Earth.” The objective of this lesson is to teach students about spaces, pattern, line, shape… there’s a lot. Basically, they receive a big sheet of paper and they have to fold it in half – tall-ways. On the top half of the paper they draw what is above the ground. On the bottom half they draw what they find under the ground. We looked at images from past classes as well as diagrams of soil content, root structures, tunnels… it was a lot of fun brainstorming ideas with them. My problem at the elementary school, time and time again, is reinforcing expectations. At the high school/middle school level I find myself only having to say them once or reinforce once before students work efficiently and follow expectations. At the elementary school it is CONSTANT. You have to be on your toes and have your ear to the ground as well – it’s a lot of demand. Students can be on task one minute and bothering their neighbors or talking out of turn the next. I am actively learning to reinforce hand raising to ask questions and that keeps the noise to a dull roar most of the time. However, some students just have not learned voice levels at all – whether at school or at home – and they are loud always. On top of that, some students at the elementary just really really really do not want to be in art class at all. Such. Fun. It’s something to work through and I need to modify my instruction to keep up with expectation reinforcements, for sure.

Ceramics students had access to their beautifully glazed work on Friday morning. All the students were abuzz, matching their glaze cards/stickies with their work and preparing to share with the class. Mr. Keller is really good about talking students through the process and regrouping them afterwards to talk about choices made during glazing and firing. I am learning a lot about how glazes interact and what to look for when preparing for a firing or loading the kiln for a glaze firing. So much valuable knowledge. After students put their work in the display cases they went back to finishing up their vases and starting on my project, the twisted vessels. Today was exceptionally busy with teaching and organizing and planning and grading and…. There were just not a lot of pictures taken… I apologize in advance.

Drawing class was a full work day. So much carving and cutting. Students were doing a great job of working with the tools and keeping busy while their plates heated up. Again, lino carving is no small feat – they will be ready to carve just about anything after I leave this semester.

Art Survey was a work day for kaleidoscope drawings. I even created an early finisher project with my hashtag #ArtSoHard ! Students were so excited Ms. Kanak is on Twitter. I suppose it’s the little things…

At the elementary school it was time for me to meet with the other half of 4^th grade to work on Art History at the Zoo. The results in this class were far far better than the other class.. but there were still some behaviors. I am quickly learning the power of a seating chart when it comes to productivity, behaviors, and attention. Wowza! Some students were finishing up their art history drawings today and some of them even started new ones. I was impressed with their perseverance and exploration of the media – lots of fun imaginative drawings all over the room! Mr. Keller and I made some major classroom management changes after meeting with this class. We created new rules about voice levels – Voice level 1 you can earn (whisper-like voice). Voice level 0 is demonstrated if you lose that privilege and can be assigned to individual students. Hopefully that will help the work ethic and distractions occurring in this grade level and overall.

The next hour of elementary ‘teaching’ was actually just a trip to 4k for some story time. I read them “The Day the Crayons Quit” and I even got a slushie! Slushies were a behavioral incentive.. I earned one for my.. wit? The littles enjoyed being read to about sassy crayons and I enjoyed the mental break from demonstrating and disciplining because the teachers were in the room with me. They invited me to read to the little tinies any time we had a prep hour… Kind of running out of those, but I will keep that in mind.

Another week of learning goes by… and more ahead, always. That is what I enjoy most about teaching; you’re constantly being challenged to learn more, do more, and be more involved.

I like it. I like it a lot.

Ms. Kanak