Teaching My Lesson in High School

So I finally did it. I taught my lesson at NFA on my very last day of field work. In order to fit in with the curriculum that they were already working in, I had to form a lesson around the project that would be coming up next. Initially it would've been ideal to introduce them to this project but due to all the crazy weather that has been occurring this semester, school was cancelled on the day I was to do my lesson and the students had to move on before my next visit. After some VERY last minute tweaking with my mentor teacher, we worked out that I would teach them moreso with a huge demo. So for the class period that I had with the sculpture students, I got to draw on my experiences this semester from ceramics. I taught the class how to wedge clay, the importance of it, how clay works, it's makeup, clay memory and all that god jazz. I was afraid that the students would be all "pshh whatever. Like you matter anyway" especially since my mentor had to go to his office and pretty much isolate himself from the class while I taught. I was petrified. 5 minutes in however, all of my fear was gone. Why? Well the students all were legitimately engaged. I mean eyes right on me, the talkers of the class were dead silent and paying attention, asking inquisitive questions and all. The art kids that were usually all about making were for once the talkers but when I called them out on it, they quieted themselves quickly and played along with my lesson as well. Overall, at the end of the day I felt highly successful. More successful than I ever felt in elementary ed that's for sure. Although I miss the collaborative effort that I had in C&I with Zoe a great deal, this was an experience to remember... and I know I will.

How I Would Ideally Like to Organize A Sort of Curriculum

I don't really know how to title this entry. I mean my ideas aren't based on anything formal or studied. They're based on my experience and what I've seen happening in the NYS school system and on my field work. My idea comes from my love of art and my interest in art history.
To backtrack a little bit into my college career, before I was an art education major, I was in the elementary education program. While in that course of study I was a concentration of art history. That was my failed attempt to try and obtain a degree in teaching while staying attached to the arts without switching my major which would result in more time in school. Obviously that flopped and here I am taking an extra year and a half at my undergrad.
Now fast forward, in my classroom when I am an established teacher, one of the things that I want to be part of my curriculum is art history. i would actually like to run a class where 1 of the days of the week is focused primarily on art history. I would want to focus on a different art movement every month or two and have students skim the surface of the meaning behind it and touch with the most noted artists of that time. With each grade there are endless possibilities and they are relatively easily approached. I feel like this would not only invite inspiration into a studio class setting, but it would answer to these major assessment things we've got going on here. There ya go, hard facts mixed with the learning that can occur only through creativity and exploration. How does this not seem like a good idea?

This Whole Assessment thing...

My mentor teacher during my Field Placement III at NFA, along with all of the other teachers in the school and New York State for that matter are all trying to understand this new NYS assessment thing. It requires a formal assessment in the beginning of the year followed by another at the end of the year. The test results in the end, have to illustrate significant growth for each student otherwise the teacher is in hot water. Now, the issue that was raised by the teachers that I was working around was how exactly do you formally test students in a studio art room? Where do you even begin when the formal techniques are usually told and exemplified as opposed to written and taken in notes like other subjects. On top of it all, what do you even test them on so early in the year? Well from what I saw, teachers were approaching it in the most logical way they could. Since this is really an assessment of their teaching abilities, many of the teachers made tests that were purposely impossible for the students to do well on so that when the time came at the end of the year, the test that they give will be easier and indicate "growth" based on the students' scores. Besides that this is pretty blatantly cheating the system, my question lies not with their morality of the situation, but why would you put in place more formal assessment of students or teachers? Why does it seem that there is always more and more of a focus brought on pure academic subjects to undermine art classes in ways like this? The arts seem to always suffer because they are a different form of learning. Just because this form isn't measured in numbers and formulas, the higher ups deem them inferior. I don't know, it all just seems a bit messed up to me. But no matter what happens with systems like these, I know that people like me, my classmates, my colleagues and my mentors all alike, will work hard and persevere to see that the arts are kept as important as the other subjects in school.

One of the Hardest Habits to Break...

I've noticed recently in my art education classes that one thing has been brought up a few times. This thing is like a little dark demon on my shoulder. It's a habit that I have found insanely difficult to break. It hasn't really been addressed in my Contemporary Approaches class and was only vaguely touched on in my Curriculum and Instruction class last semester. Theory and Practice however, has brought it to my attention and I've been so frustrated by it ever since. When I tell classmates in Contemporary Approaches about it and how they should start practicing to fix it NOW they all end up wide eyed and don't realize just how much they do it. A majority of them find it difficult and frustrating after about an hour of attempting to talk to a group without falling into the habit. Without fail, everyone has flubbed it so often that they cannot comprehend the idea of changing it. It became a game after a while and resulted in a lot of laughing about it. In Theory and Practice though, it was more of a semi- serious issue. We were trying to break ourselves so hard of this habit and a few people began to succeed about halfway through the semester. Some of those people had no problem whatsoever. Me on the other hand, I still struggle with it all the time because it's just so easy to forget about it. So what's this habit that I've just rambled on about for a bit? Well let's see if you can spot it in my opening sentence to a high school class:

"Alright guys, so we're going to start with a demo today about the basic usage of clay and how to move forward with your new projects. So if someone can hit the lights, we're going to start on our presentation."

Did you find it?
No?
Well how about in this phrase dealing with disciplining a few students who would not stop speaking during a teacher's presentation.

"Hey, are we supposed to be having a private conversation now? I don't think so, I need you guys to all pay attention. Come on now, let's get back to it."

Granted that wasn't the greatest depiction of a scenario but the habit was in there too.

Well? Figured it out? Come on GUYS, I know you can.

Forensic Sketch Artists

In Theory and Practice we were all approached with a lesson that drew inspiration from police forensic sketch artists. I found the lesson to be quite a challenge in a way that I never had really thought of before. Drawing something based on the verbal description of another was much harder than I had anticipated it to be. I don't really know what I expected to be honest, but my final product was not really something that I would ever look at it and be like, now that is a good piece of art. The lesson itself cold have used this aspect in the sense that it may have been nice for the product that we produced in class to have been our rough sketch and then to move onto a more final work from there.
But back to the idea of drawing from a verbal description. It's just plain hard. The whole thing made me wonder what the actual requirements were to become a sketch artist. Before I started looking into it, I wondered what kind of degree you would need. I mean, you're a police officer technically... but you're also a full time artist in a way. So do you go for an art degree or a criminology degree? Or maybe even something in between. I found out that you need a combination of all of the above. A certain amount of hours was required under an approved art school on top of the requirements to get into law enforcement.

I found an interesting video about sketch artists, well one in particular, and I've posted it right below.

Looking back at Field I

So today we had our final meeting for Field Work I where we were all supposed to gather and give a very brief presentation on our experiences. It was an interesting two hours that we got to sit through today. Everybody seemed to have a really good time at their placements for the most part. I did feel bad for those that didn't have as good of a time as others. I think that the students that were at Boys and Girls Club... really me and one other classmate of mine, had some of the most difficult experiences. One other classmate had a pretty rough time as well it seemed. With my placement, it was just difficult to go to a community program that was not solely based in an art kind of setting when that was what the placement called for. Everything seemed a bit disorganized yet at the same time it was understandable. They were constantly short staffed and always were more than enthusiastic to have us there to help out. The same fell true for another classmate that was placed at a different location. She arrived ready to work with an art therapist that did not exist where she was and had her entire placement flipped upside down right from the get go. She persevered however and ended up turning her experience into one that was helpful and chock full of good experiences.
I found it funny to listen as we closed our meeting and all of the students were addressed on how they will be heading into the next set of fieldwork in the semesters coming and then they have Field III after that. From my point of view, all I could think was good luck guys. Not saying that you'll NEED it but... you'll need it.

Newburgh Free Academy - My Fieldwork

Throughout the course of the semester I've been spending my Wednesdays before 3PM at Newburgh Free Academy with my mentor teacher. Although never really formally done, I learned quite a bit about working in a high school setting. It honestly solidified my ideas that when I go into teaching, secondary is the way to go for me. Not that I don't love the younger ones because believe me, I think they're adorable and more on the willing side of learning, but the older kids are WAY easier to relate to. I found that working with these students, I could be that middle person when students think of teachers. I was definitely an authority figure to these kids. They would all instantly stop cursing and talking when they weren't supposed to if I walked by which I would giggle to myself about after I had passed them. I was constantly treated with respect by 18 year-olds who were easily double my size. At firs tI found them intimidating and I was unsure of how I could establish an authoritative stance with them. I mean, I'm not that much older than most of them to be honest. The biggest age gap that existed between me and the students was maybe 8 years. Yea that was weird but I still look like them. I remember being in high school and thinking that whenever we had a visiting college student, or even  our student teachers for that matter, they looked so much older than me. These kids though, the oldest anyway, looked like they could be people that I would be friends with. I know that I have a few friends that I work with at my job who were still seniors in high school. Besides the fact that this alone blew my mind, I think it adds to how we can be easily integrated to these high school students' classrooms. I was that midpoint between authority figure and someone they could get along with. They treated me with respect but at the same time thought it was so cool that I knew about and listened to the same music or watched the same movies. Their faces were hilarious when I would make a comment about a movie that they were talking about. Even more so about how when we were having work days I would sometimes end up helping them while they worked and talking about music at the same time.
Overall, I felt like being in a high school was the place for me. I mean, the whole reason that i want to be an art teacher stems from my own high school experience. I had an amazing teacher who left quite an imprint on me in the field of art. He was the reason that I kept going with it throughout high school and the reason that I ended up being one of the 13 or 15 students in my entire high school that was allowed into AP Studio Art.

Fingerings in Chalk and Charcoal

So, Victoria and I executed our lesson in class the other day. Overall I think that it went quite well. Going into class I was nervous as ever for reasons unbeknownst to me. I mean, I've done years of theatre and acting and singing, but as soon as I need to get up in front of a class of my own peers, instant stage fright. That's saying something considering I've been in the spotlight on my own in front of hundreds of people before. I never would have guessed it, but it truly is a very VERY different experience.
Anyway, our lesson started just the way that we wanted it to and everyone was involved and seemed eager to get along with the lesson. We had a few drawbacks which I had noticed as the lesson was progressing. Between not having EVERYTHING totally prepared for the students before they came in and noticing weak points as we went on in what we had thought would be perfect when we were planning, I could easily tell what our notes would be during the feedback portion f the class.
Without a doubt, the issues that I noticed while in class were spot on with what the comments were and I couldn't be more grateful honestly. I felt scared about a few aspects and it just solidified what needed to be changed and how to do so. The comments were very helpful and I felt were truly honest. We've stopped trying to be nice and protect each other at all times and learned to give criticism where it is due with no hard feelings. In the end, we were both very happy with the way things turned out.

Lessons in Candy

One lesson that we encountered in class was a lesson based on language and its possible roles in conveying a message through a piece of art. The lesson dealt with taking song lyrics and re-interpreting them by creating an image entirely out of candy.
Needless to say, I walked out of class with a massive sugar high that had me bopping down the hallway on my way to painting class. The lesson itself was very fun and enjoyable but I don't necessarily think that I would execute or attempt to execute this in a school type setting. In my opinion there are waaaaay to many variable to take into consideration for a lesson like this. To start, using candy seems like it could go horribly wrong in a high school setting. As Aaron had stated, within 5 minutes the room full of 20 somethings all had their mouth packed full of candy. For younger students, I imagine that this would be the case tenfold. Unless specifically told not to do so, I could see an entire class just completely disregarding what they should be doing and scarfing down pound after pound of sugar.
The next aspect of the lesson that I was a bit unsure of dealt with the songs and the material choice itself. We were all given songs by The Beatles and then told to create an image based off of a lyric in the song. Why The Beatles? I'm not completely sure. Although it was stated during the feedback that they wanted something appropriate and easily relate-able, I did not want to be the person that stood up and said, but I really don't know a lot of music by The Beatles other than what was in the movie Across The Universe. For the most part, any songs outside of that movie have little to no meaning to me.
Lastly the material choice was a bit disconnected. it was stated a lot and I hate it but I have to agree, what did candy have to do with this lesson? I mean, I get the whole obscure medium thing we had going on but candy was not only obscure but a distraction. I feel that overall, if students wee told to bring in mind a song that meant a lot to them that was appropriate for school, then we could have had more of a connection to the songs in the first place. After that the array of materials could have been vast and included many different types of obscure media, not just the one. The materials could also be all related to music in some way or form to at least establish connection between the idea of music and language and different ways to portray that.

Creativity and Schools

I found this video yesterday and found it really interesting. It's about the importance of an education system that nurtures creativity instead of undermining it.

Contemporary Approaches to Art Education

In one of my other classes, I am pretty much looking at doing lessons from the beginning, meaning that it is being approached as if I have never done it before. Not gonna lie, it's a lot harder to think as if I've never taken the two classes that follow this one. I keep including methods and ideas that are from classes that come afterwards and I end up overdoing my projects. Going way too in to detail about particular aspects of a lesson and in turn doing way more work than is required of me. I guess it is only practice for me, but it's frustrating because they're just unnecessary and therefore go unlooked at.

On a different note however, I find it highly interesting how the administration and powers at hand have altered the course content. Contemporary approaches has replaced Intro to Art Ed and it's content, from what I've gathered, is completely different. I'm excited that I get to look at art education from the eyes of say a museum administrator or from the point of view of someone who works in a community based program. The field requirements have us in a non-academic setting looking at how art education takes place. My placement has been at the Boys and Girls Club and needless to say, it is WAY different than being in a high school art class, which I have also been doing for this past semester. Seeing all these different ways to approach a career path after I receive my degree id encouraging. I'm glad that I'm not solely locked into teaching in a school classroom even though I am interested in it. I guess my first goal though, is to see how to approach teaching in another country. That would be cool :)

Shadow Puppets!!

A lesson was done in my Theory and Practice class regarding the use of silhouettes and puppets. I found it to be entertaining and intriguing which is extremely important when creating a lesson for students in a high school setting. To begin with the lesson, my classmates put on a puppet show utilizing the project that they were going to have us create. Right there, they got the entire class involved and tuned in to what they were doing. The show was short but meaningful and showed just how versatile a puppet could be in telling a story. After the show they began to explain how puppets are used by other artists and then went into the technical "making aspect" of the puppets and the show. As a whole, their lesson, to me, was extremely well thought and planned out and I don't know really what I would've done differently.

Now, this lesson brought me back to an assembly that I remember seeing when I was in either elementary or middle school. A guest artist came in and did an entire shadow puppet show which has stuck in my mind ever since. I wish I could remember the name of the artist but she unfortunately slips my mind. I do remember, however, just how realistic and entranced I was. I remember thinking how excellently a story was executed and then how well it stuck with me for so long.

Things like this lesson and that assembly are aspects that I want to have when being a teacher. I want to stick out in the minds of my students long after they graduate. I hope that I can be a teacher that they remember as the guy who made them do that really cool project that they really got something out of without knowing it.

And then I found this shadow puppet show that I thought was really cool so I included it here too :)

Book Carving As A Lesson in High School!

Last week I was exposed to a lesson plan that dealt with carving a book and re-appropriating it to depict a scene based on the context clues that could be gathered from a few minutes of observing the book skimming through its pages. At first glance, a task like this can seem daunting and impossible. At least that's how I've viewed it in the past especially when I've seen ornate and intricate carvings done out of books. My initial question has always been how. Well, after this lesson that question was answered and this fear I had, has completely vanished.

The facilitators were two of my classmates and their explanation of how to go about working on the project was simple yet chock full of info and extremely helpful tips on how to make this book into an awesome sculpture. Furthermore, this project instantly became a favorite when I saw a book that I knew I would want to get my hands on to start with. Using context clues was a requirement in order to choose what direction to go in with this project. An economics book titled Awakening A Giant instantly yielded images in my head of Jack and the Beanstalk and every other fairytale that incorporates giants into the story.

Once I set to work, I never really wanted to stop. It's definitely been a long time since I've started doing work on a project that wasn't required for something somewhere and it felt amazing to get direction and then just be allowed to go with it without any requirement to finish it. this project however, had me ready to spend all night to finish it. It was fun and different and an awesome lesson for a high school setting. It was highly interdisciplinary and incorporated english and books in both a literal and a conceptual way.

After doing this lesson I wanted to go further into looking at how other artists do this and I stumbled across one artist who uses more of a subtractive method of going into the books to create amazing sculptures. This medium is one that's right under everyone's nose but few have thought to actually go there.

A Revisitation To My Feelings on Technology...

So, in the past month or so I have been working in a semi- local high school in various parts of the art department. The areas that I've been a part of have shown me a new light on the idea of technology which I have never seen in a high school setting. When I arrived at the school, the first classroom that I was observing was a sculpture class. To no surprise to me, the use of technology was almost completely absent except for the powerpoint that took up a majority of the class time. Powerpoint. that was all. I laughed to myself in the class because this was a pure and simple exemplification of what I had gone on about in my previous blog entry. I could only think to myself how this all just made it more concrete, the art room should be about physical and tangible works. They may start out on paper but there is a true technical skill that is required for this and that can be built upon and learned.

As the day went on I was observing in four more classes that were all the same with the title of Visual Communications or VisCom. The VisCom classes are primarily focused in a lot of graphic design concepts and basic design concepts... which are pretty much the same thing I think. The initial first third of the school year is all done on paper, measuring borders and layout concepts while exploring typography and letter history as well as the other 5 concepts of design. The remaining two thirds of the school year that I will not be present for are mostly done in the schools newly refurbished Mac lab. Each computer is equipped with the most up to date version of Photoshop, CS6. While watching my teacher struggle with the new program during a free time I thought to myself again, with ever changing technology, how am I going to keep up with teaching it in a classroom. My teacher/mentor who has been working in this school for years is having extremely frustrating issues with adapting to the new program, so how is this going to relay to the students?!

The remaining projects laid out on the syllabus seem interesting and challenging for students and teachers alike but it comes back to my initial question: Where does this all fit in? I can see that they are looking into advertising and graphic design but I am still unsure of how I feel about it all. It's interesting and cool but at the same time, I still feel that it belongs on a collegiate level. When you still have students sitting there playing around on computers when the teacher isn't looking, I feel that they look at it as an easy way out. From my point of view of observations, I feel like initial studio work should be the answer. Classes like this are useful but should maybe be reserved for students that go through a lot of studio training first. At least that's the feeling that I've been getting... otherwise there are students that are just there to play around on a computer and dish out some sub-par levels of work.

Art and Technology in a Pre-Collegiate Level - Milk and Cookies or Oil and Water?

How does technology come into play in the art classroom?

 A recurring theme that we have addressed in class is the idea of incorporating technology into the curriculum. Although I will say that I do see that uses and helpfulness of technology's incorporation in the standard academic subjects, I truly see very little place for it in the art room. Initially I thought that I was the black sheep in the class, the only one who thought that it was, not pointless, but highly irrelevant to what we are going to teach when it comes down to it. I learned, however, that I am far from the only person in the class that feels this way. While working together, I noticed small side comments about how technology in a classroom, although important, seems totally irrelevant to us. I can't help but to say that I agree. So where to begin?

SMART boards. Yes, they're helpful. Yes, they make going through class a lot easier. On the contrary however, WHEN IN HIGH SCHOOL OR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ART CLASSES DID THE TEACHER EVER USE A BLACKBOARD?! Maybe I'm an odd duck in this situation but I have never experienced and art class outside of college that involved the use of a blackboard more than once in an entire year let alone a computer. Any computer usage was always to find inspiration images or reference images. My teachers did occasionally throw in a good deal of art history to our lessons, but it was all spoken and never was something we had to commit to memory nor that we were tested on.

Every argument for technology in the classroom made thus far in our class has been extremely valid... but in the context of a classroom where you work at a desk. I don't feel like I will ever be teaching students to pain using a tablet or a SMART board. As an educator, if anyone is going to be making a power-point presentation in an art room it will be me in order to supplement a lesson.

Now, I get that we are required to prove and give examples of full evaluations and grading in order to show that the students have learned something. With this though, the product will be in their artwork and measured in a way that is subjective to each project. Furthermore, if there is a requirement for a more concrete form of something to grade, the most technology I can see being used is the internet for research if it is really needed. Even then, chances are that I'd prefer my students to get a book from the library because, from my experience in a college setting with college professors, getting a book from the library holds much more information and is an illustration of actually doing research.
Next comes the argument about certain art-forms springing from technology. Photoshop, graphic design, web design etc. Now to address these. First, I have rarely seen these classes offered in a class that was not on a collegiate level. I fully believe that in order to progress to utilizing these programs, one needs to have a strong grounding in the traditional methods. So many students come into college for art without a basic understanding of color theory and form discovery. Everything that we as art students learn in the foundations courses seems like the things that we should be initially introduced to in a high school setting. Learning these foundations BEFORE college seems to me to be a way to build upon knowledge in a consistent way. In order to use Photoshop, you need to be a photographer. So, students in high school should first know how to take a good picture before they learn how to alter them, right? Learning manual photography, for example, forces you to learn how to be a better photographer. With a manual camera, you have 24 shots and that's it. It's up to the student to use those 24 shots to create art. With Digital photography, the number of photographs that you can take is essentially limitless and it doesn't matter whether or not you can take a picture because you can just edit it anyway. With all this, I'm just saying that it just seems more logistical and to make more sense to learn the traditional way which may be more difficult before you learn to manipulate something that you can't even make to begin with.

On top of it all, I generally dislike the heavy reliance on technology in a classroom anyway solely because all you need is one power outage or an obnoxious kid to run up and pull the plug. Then you're left with nothing because it was all digital and nothing was concrete in front of them. Technology largely involves students looking at a screen and not working with something real and tangible. It turns art as a physical practice and craft and skill, into a theoretical subject that exists only when it is printed out.