30 JAN 2015

[visit #4]

After last Friday's meltdown, I realized with the help of my mentors that I was focused on teaching skills and lessons instead of teaching the students as people. I got distracted trying to get lesson material integrated naturally while I tended to rush forward with barely a glance at where the students were.

I have to admit, it was shocking to realize that I put the lesson ahead of the children in importance. In the work I have been doing for the last three years in various educational settings, I make a point of putting the people first, regardless of the problem or the material that needs to be solved or taught. But I was missing that component with these students. With all of the demands teachers have placed on them, what has helped you to stay focused on who really matters?

In order to change this focus, we started out with a discussion on respect--both toward other peoples's art and toward their ideas. The students shared some great insights into why that respect is so vital and showed good emotional maturity as they recognized how the lack of respect toward their peers' work had caused difficulties. I felt like we were connecting on a level beyond that of technical skills!

From those difficulties, we went to a scene I compiled from an assortment of the students's previously created images (see below). When students saw their work displayed in a new format, they got really excited. It was awesome to see the kids happy and interested in this drawing.

We used their image to dissect and understand ideas about perspective and dominance. By using the students's own work, their creative community and learning environment were fortified.

One thing that I am still trying to understand is how to integrate true artistic practice and experience into the technology we are using. My digital expertise has to do with photo-manipulation, and I am unsure of how to encourage creative thought and practice within technology at this level of development.

As I have come to the above realization, I decided to try a creative prompt for the students to respond to. I wanted to tie in some art that could help the students process the difficult experience of last week without them feeling threatened or upset. 

This is the prompt I ended up presenting to the students: Imagine you are a robot who is having a bad day. What would you do to make your day better?

Here are some of the student responses:

Robot - by Adam

Popsicle on a Hot Day - by Eva

Really Bad Day to Good Day - by Trey

Robot's Bad Day - by Joseph

by Hattie

by Caitlin

Looking at these pictures, I feel that the students were able to express themselves more freely with the prompt rather than with the strict technical skills I was trying to teach them in previous weeks. I think this is great! However, some of them had content that I was unsure of how to react to. What is appropriate? What is not? Here are some of those drawings, each one chosen for different reasons:

Burning Man

I do not want to react poorly or overly aggressive when seeing or hearing ideas or content that is out of line. But then again, how do I balance that and still creating an environment of creative openness and trust? I believe part of this depends on the school, and part of this balance depends on me. However, looking back, I'm still not sure how I could have responded more effectively and less evasively.

In conclusion, I think the prompt is a good idea that I want to incorporate into future projects, but I need to think about more possibilities. I was partially unprepared for the scope of ideas the students would draw from. 

Now I think we are ready to move on to other ideas and other integration. Eventually, Mrs. Stone and I want to teach them how to give presentations, possibly book reports, with this technology. Now it's up to me to think about how reading and visual art can naturally integrate on a level that these students are on.