The importance of not only the first 5 minutes of the class, but the last 5 minutes are just as important!

So today Julia and Katie gave their presentation/ thematic lesson plan. It was a little bit messy and unclear but their idea and hearts were in the right place. The one thing that stood out to me was at the end when we gave feed back we talked about the importance of not only the first five minutes of class but also the last fives minutes of class. This struck me as something that was ever so obvious, but can be hard to plan for. It's like writing a paper and you have your thesis that lays down the the topic and what you will be talking about, and then you have your conclusion that wraps everything up and brings you back to the main idea of the paper. This is what we as educators should be doing in our class, now, I know one can't do this for all the classes, like everyday. BUT, I think it could be important to this once to three times per lesson. Maybe once the first day you do the lesson, so people are sure of whats going on and what to be exploring, another time towards the middle of the lesson and the one big conversation at the end of the lesson, this could even be considered your critique.

Something Aaron talks about a lot is staying away from talking about their feelings especially in a middle or highschool setting. They are already going through a lot and don't really feel comforitable talking about their feelings with their cohort, I mean that makes sense, not a lot of college students or adults really like talking about how they feel in front of big groups of people. So something to stay away from in that last 5 minutes of class would be saying something like " how do ya'll feel about that?" or "So what do you all think", instead ask them questions that lead back to the core elements you involved in the lesson and using that time as a motivator for the next time the students come to class.

Why am I only being trained to be a public teacher?

So I was out the other night, sitting at the bar minding my own business eating the best batch of Thai mussels, i've had, ever! I couldn't help but hear the conversation that was happening next to me, it was between a man, his girlfriend and their friend. They (mostly him) were talking about how his student teaching was going, and what the state wanted out of him when he was doing his elementary portion of S.T. I couldn't help but involve myself, so i swiveled my chair and jumped in, talking about the common core situation within classrooms and how it's all about the language of your lesson. He seemed to have agreed with me on this mater, and said that a lot of his mentor's lessons were already up to par, they just needed to reword the whole thing. We started talking about the differences between Europe and America and how abused teachers can feel. He then was telling me about his recent S.T situation and how he so fortunately got to work in a private school, Storm King School to be exact. I'll admit I was jealous, because when I talked to my S.T advisory about being placed in either a private school or a charter school I was told my chances were slim pick'ns. But he was saying how amazing it is and the amount of freedom the teachers have, and the information they are allowed to share, and the freedom of lesson plan structures and how the students like to learn, and are learning a lot. This is a high school class! Now I don't want to come off as a uneducated dumdum, I mean I know students will want to learn if you can capture their interest, but it's hard at times when you have a lot of things standing in your way, and to be honest a lot of the students I dealt with had already made up their minds on not wanting to be in the enviroment they were in, aka school. I mean if teachers had the freemdom to teach what they wanted to and they wanted to and were doing it right, there would be a lot more time for individual understanding of the students and what they need from you, compared to trying to figure out how to word a lesson so it fits into some standards.  He was also telling me about how being exposed to this private school, he's also being exposed to many other networking opportunities and shared a few sites with me. One being NAIS, this is a site for educators looking for alternative education jobs, whether it be charter, private, workshops, tutoring, etc. He also shared with me carney sandae, this is a site that is like a job searching networking site, it surveys what you have to offer, hands out your resume to other schools, and gives you information on how to find a job and where they are. You couldn't imagine how shocked I was that these sources are not being more widely spread for future educators, especially with everyone constantly telling you that there are no jobs out there. You also couldn't imagine how grateful I was for this information, I then noticed though that I had completely monopolized the conversation and his girlfriend was putting her jacket on, trying to escape the grasps of our teacher mumbo jumbo, not to mention the complete absence of the one friend. He was very nice though, and very happy to inform me to help with my future. His name was Chris and he was a history teacher in the making, and after his S.T. he is going to work with his cousin in the city at a charter school. We wished one another good luck, he told me to share the networking sites, and we went our different ways.

Now I know we are being trained to be contemporary art teachers in public schools, and it's harder to be trained for a public school because of all these standards and regulations that we have to deal with., but I don't think once any of my professors have said theres an option of charter or public, I've heard traveling abroad or workshops, but I'm wondering what everyone's stigma is about private or charter. I also wish there was a note taker for NAEA meetings, this way you can get the information without being there, because some of us have jobs and can't be there for these meetings. I mean I could see this information being bounced around in these meetings and not making their way to the majority of us.

Transgender teachers! ahhhh tolerance, equality, knowledge!

So I was sitting here thinking to myself... are transgender folks allowed to be teachers... I mean of course yes, but does it happen often and are they protected from hatred from parents and administration. With that thought I went straight to google and typed in "transvestite teachers" and came across this great website, exposing bigoted point of views on this subject. I understand that our society lays a heavy blanket of responsibility on teachers to be a good role model of society, but does sexuality choices have to be considered a bad trait of character, and if so what are we saying to our children? "Hey Billy, you like to wear dress's, you can never be a teacher, hell, you can never be a good citizen." Now I know of course this isn't the case all over, but being an educator one may come across such situations.

While I was researching more on this subject I came across a great, positive article about a male teacher making the transition over summer break to become the gender that they have felt more suiting. The support given to this teacher has been very inspiring to me, it also reminded me of my field work this semseter. I got a chance to see tolerance of all sorts be practiced, there were signs and stickers spread throughout the whole school on sexual tolerance, and a lot of gay couples holding hands just like the rest of the high school couples. I mean, when I went to high school, I was lucky to be in a small, mostly tolerant school, where there were not any hate crimes against those of different sexual orientations, but I do know it exists. The next article I talk about I think will allow the reader to really see the differences between Europe and USA.

Here's another article about a teacher in California. The information I find interesting in this article is the fact that the school protected the teachers right to privacy. This is comforting to me that this is apart of teachers rights. Something I've noticed with field work is that students are constantly asking questions about your life, and if you live in the same town as the school you work at, you see students all the time and their family. This can put you in weird positions, just like stated in the first paragraph, society really expects you to be the best role model to our future. It reminds me of a story a professor told me once, about when she was working in an elementary school and lived in the same town as she worked. One night she decided her and girl friends were going to go out drinking, so they all got dressed up in the Friday hot dresses, and go out to drink and dance. While the night ended they were heading back home and the D.D that was driving got pulled over for some reason. The cop that pulled them over was one of her students father, and she was dressed to the nines in heels and a short skirt. She said she was mortified, and the policemen was uncomfortable, and it's all just so vulnerable. So to know the school and government understands how vulnerable our lives become, it's nice to know we have a right to keep some aspects of our lives secret. The one thing that bothers me about this article in particular though, is that that teacher didn't want his students to know what was going on. I mean this seems like a good opportunity to display her good role modeling and practice communication and honesty. Show courage and comfort in his decisions, and to prove that what is happening is not wrong.

op! just found a great debate on this subject. Love when the Andrea talks about school being for the children! Of course it's for the children, that's why we should be honest and truthful about all types of people, and show that everyone deserves to do a good job at what they love doing. Allison says repeatably that we should no discriminate people for what they look or what they do outside of their jobs, but by how they preform their job. This to me is perfect, can I severly mentally ill person do their job so well to the point they are the favorite teacher within the school (Like the article about the teacher in Essex). This debate was discussed two years ago, so I'm interested to know whats going on now with this situation.

So it seems that it's still the same, but becoming more tolerant. There seems to be a good mix between teachers AND student teachers being fired or forced out of some schools, but not all. I still feel it has to do with the district and/or state. I did find this great scientific article about how having a transgender teacher within a school, you are exposing and teaching the students about tolerance and equality. What a surprise...

using the body as a tool to learn and constantly having an eye on the class.

So yesterday Justin and Victoria did a lesson on the body using it as an example of symmetry. When we walked into the classroom the first thing you noticed was the dishevelment of the classroom. Tables were located all around the walls of class, leaving the center floor open and empty. Once their lesson began, we were instructed to count off my two, and then to stand in two lines (ones on the left, twos on the right). We then looked at the person standing across from us and claimed them as our partner. The ones were then instructed to strike a pose any pose, of course the students did silly ones, then the twos had to mirror this pose. We were then instructed to all face the teacher in these poses, and were informed that were making symmetry. It was such a great way to display this vocabulary word, as well as get our blood pumping and our brains moving. The only thing was I felt that it could have been focused more on, because right after that definition we were informed to sit at our tables, I felt this could have been a great opportunity to talk more about the body being symmetrical, and asymmetry. Though I really love this idea of intensely involving the students in their learning process, by using them physically as a tool of learning.

They based their lesson on the fantastic artists Judith Braun (the artist above) and had us practice her techniques on a smaller scale. It was a lot fun working in this technique, we got dirty, had freedom of figural or abstract imagery, and really got to explore something that may not be explore enough, our body and how it works while making art. After the lesson we discussed how this relates to our brains and the way we process making art. This is another aspect of teaching art that I find really interesting and would like to keep in the back of my mind when I'm creating my lessons.

Something that came up from this lesson was the idea of having an eye on yoru class as a whole, because middle school and high school students will constantly be trying to pull the wool over your eyes and escape the classroom. Something I thought about doing to assure your classroom stay with you, is doing the attendance at the end of the class. Another thing we discussed is putting attractive sounding bells on your door and always closing your door for class. We also talked about positioning your body when speaking to individual students so that you can see the whole classroom constantly. It's sometimes overwhelming thinking about all the aspects of being a teacher and the dynamic of everything you have to do to create a safe environment and a productive class.

Classroom Rules and ideas to adapt

When I have a classroom I would really like to create an environment where students feel comfortable and empowered to learn. I believe one of the ways this can be achieved is through creating a common ground together as a team. The way I'd execute this is by having the class on the first few weeks come together as a whole and to create rules together. There of course would already be a few rules like no cellphones in class, respect, tolerance, no bullying, etc.etc. Besides that I'd really like to encourage the students to practice democracy by opening the floor up to the students to allow them to self motivate a comfortable environment for learning.

A topic I'd really like to scaffold during this rule making process would be the idea of failure and finding comfort within it, as a tool of education. I would really like to have a sculpture class, and a large factor in sculpture is experimenting and exploring what a material can do for you and how it will help you convey your voice. With this in mind I find that this kind of medium and environment can really create a great base for finding comfort in failure and learning from it.

I also would like to make a rule of not turning anything down, like advice wise. This I believe will help the student practice adaptation, open-mindedness, and for the students are going to art school, the idea of acknowledging that they don't know everything and should listen to others. This was something I found typically challenging when I went to art school at first, thinking that being an artist was all about artistic expression, and how could anyone else educate me on myself better then myself... but that's not the reality of art all the time, theres a bigger challenge for artists to step outside of themselves, experiment and allow control to be lost.

Something else I'd really like to practice within my classroom is the idea of research and concept behind art. Learning about the world is important to survival and adaptation and art can be a great tool and buffer for this to be practiced. I'd really like to include a small research aspect to all of my lessons. This would coexist with the common core issues schools are having as well as a great practice into the hard, tedious, torturous world of college. I feel a big part of my job as a art educator within a high school environment is to prepare these students for college and how serious it can be if you commit, allow and respect the mentality and philosophy one gains in college.

Finally I'd really like to add appropriate and constructive feed back on others art work during critiques. I don't believe that enough art educators teach students the importance of giving and receiving criticism on their art, as well as practice an environment where this is possible. This I believe can expose students to how they can adapt others ideas to this, how they can vocalize and communicate what they are thinking in a constructive, honest manner. This I believe can be practiced if the environment is appropriate and the students feel safe.

An outline and reasons why I think Charter Schools are important to offer.

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Charter schools (an innovative public school) are better for some children’s character development and all around future compared to private, home and public schools.

1. Charter schools tend to have a higher level of dedication to the students individual needs.

1. Most charter schools have a topic that they specialize in, allowing students who are interested in that subject to have full attention on the subject.

1. Subjects vary from art of different forms such as music, painting and writing, to math, to agriculture.(McGrath)

1. An example of an art charter school would be the Albemarle County Public School in Charlottesville, VA (Albermarle).
2. Another example of an art charter schools would be the Bart Art Charter School in Berkshire county Mass, which was just identified as a “High growth school in English language arts and math(Bowen).

2. Charter schools also pay attention to students who have troubles in public schools with learning.

1. This follows the no child left behind rule (NCLBA).

1. The No child left behind act was created by President George Bush in 2001.
2. It makes it so that all students have to meet a certain education level to pass high school.

2. Most of the time it’s a requirement to have troubles with curriculum, socialization, or to learn in a different way compared to what normal public schooling offers.(Chen)

1. A different way compared to what normal public schooling teaches would be more hands on, or being in a smaller community of schooling.

2. Most students tend to have more educational, personal achievements after going to charter schools.

1. These students have more of a chance of achievement because, they are allowed to experiment and figure out what learning techniques help them, compared to being forced to do the same techniques as the “average” student understands.
2. Many charter high schools are breaking the mold by emphasizing rigorous academic standards and college preparedness.

1. Students who attend charter schools in Boston make significantly larger gains compared with students who attend traditional public schools (The center for Education Reforms).
2. High schools students who attend public charter schools in Chicago and Florida have higher graduation rates and a greater probability of attending college than their peers in traditional public school.

1. There is an increasing probability of graduation students by 7 to 15 percent, and an increase in the probably of the students enrolling in college by 8 to 10 percent (Zimmer).

3. A lot of students, who graduate from a charter school, go onto college more prepared of college compared to public schooling, because that’s part of their rigorous practices.

1. The Syracuse Academy of Science announces proudly that there main focus is to prepare their students for college math’s, science’s and technology (Syracuse Academy of Science Charter School).

3. All together these children help make a better community just being who they are and using the knowledge they’ve gained from being in a charter school.

1. These children are forced to be in the same learning room with children with social or learning problems.

1. This allows them to understand others disabilities and accept them for who they are.
2. This can conclude with no one being hurt or segregated for their problems.

2. They are also introduced to worldly and social problems on a regular basis.

1. The teaching then offers them different ways to go about their problems; academically, socially, politically, emotionally.

1. This could be by using art, science, or math. Whatever techniques their taught, they can then apply to their daily lives (perspective).
2. This allows different ways to approach problems, then maybe creating new, better ways to improve or approach problems (perspective).
3. This can then conclude to a more open mind of the students, and different opportunities for education to advance (Chen).
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Citation
   
   
    Abermarle county, Public Schools. "Albermarlt County Public Schools." Community Public Charter Schools-What's New. 12 Oct 2009. Community Public Charter School, Web. 22 Nov 2009. <http://schoolcenter.k12albemarle.org/education/components/whatsnew/default.php?section detailid=85911&showDetails=show>.
   Bowen, Julia. "BArt Students Grow More than Other Berkshire County Students in MCAS." http://www.bartcharter,org/images/MCASgrowth.pdf. 28 OCT 2009. Julia Bown, Executive Director, Web. 1 Dec 2009. <http://www.bartcharter.org/images/MCASgrowth.pdf>.
   Chen, Grace. "What is a Charter School?-Public School Review." Public School review. 04 Dec 2007. Public School Review LLC., Web. 24 Nov
   2009. <http://www.publicschoolreview.com/articles/3>.
   McGrath, Jim. "Green Charter Schools Network." Green Charter Schools Network. 2007. Web. 24 Nov 2009. <http://www.greencharterschools.org/>.
   Persepective charter, schools. "Perspectives Charter Schools Educationg students for college... preparing students for life." Persepectives Charter Schools-Hear our stories. 24 Oct 2009. Perspective Charter School, Web. 24 Nov 2009. <http://www.perspectivescs.org/contact-us>.
   "Syracuse Academy of Science Charter School. A college preparatory Jr./Sr. High School." Syracuse Academy of Science Charter school. 2002-2009. Syracuse Academy of Science CS., Web. 1 Dec 2009. <http://www.sascs.org/>.
   "The Center for Education Reform Boston Charter Schools." http://www.edreform.com/research/CER_BostonCharterStudy. 2008. The Center for Education Reform, Washing, DC, Web. 24 Nov 2009. <http://www.edreform.com/research/CER_BostonCharterStudy-mar08.pdf>.
   Zimmer, Ron. Charter Schools in Eight States: Effects on Achievement,
   Attainment, Integration and Competion. Rand
   Corporation, 2008. 160. Print.
   
   

Making art history fun?

So while doing my observations my mentor teacher had an AP art history class. Now I know this is going to sound terrible but I found myself dozing off during class, I tried my hardest not to, but i'd feel my eye lids get heavy and that feeling to just lay my head down while i took notes and "rest my eyes". I probably shouldn't be admitting this to the public, but it happened. At the end of the class I'd scold myself but wonder... how could this have been different? How could he have created an energy, organization and knowledge based on fun within this curriculum and class. I was comparing his class and my art history class with Pro. Kerner and noticed that both of them lack the idea of student participation. Kerner though has much interest in her subject and even though it's very lecture based, her passion on the subject catches your interest, as well as her story telling techniques, and for me it's almost trying to find a question she doesn't have the answer for, since she seems to know everything on this topic.

Being an art ed student who doesn't really enjoy art history, but definitely understands it's importance and place within an art class, I should prepare myself for having an opportunity to teach a class like this. If this does ever happened I definitely want to attach my energy and enthusiasm to the subject, as well as incorporate not only information based lessons, but combining all aspects of art within the subject, performance, exhibition, carreer options within the art world, and process/technique. With all of that in mind I did some research on how other teachers have tried to make art history a fun topic to learn about. Some of their responses and experiments seem like they could really be effective.

One of the reasons I believe they could be effective would be the idea of incorporating play within the lesson. This is something that all my professors have talked about as a tool for educating. One of the techniques I read about was having the students act out famous paintings, or hold "un-birthday parties" for artists by researching the artists, creating or finding 5 objects that could represent that artist, wrapping the gifts up with hand-made wrapping paper depicting the style the artist used and then as a class have a tea party and have the student who did the research, unwrap the gifts and explain the research they did through the character-related gifts. This to me sounds like it could incorporate all the aspects of what I want to involve in my lessons for art history; there would be research, public speaking/ performing, art making and the idea of exhibiting your knowledge as well as your skill. I also believe having them participate in a physical and cognitive manner will really create a energy within the classroom that would be almost considered out of the norm for an art history class.

Another fun way I think you could execute an art class would be by having the students create art related to the art history period, acting out being the artists, or acting out a specific painting, or putting on your own museum gallery; having the students find art, print it out, you could even teach matting teachniques, and then have them create the information cards under the painting, afterwards, bring in a box of scarves, canes and hats and have the students act like sophisticated gallery goers, and some of the students could act like the artists and have a art show opening with cheese and crackers. This could help the students understand what it is to be a art curator, museum or gallery owner, as well as a art gallery visitor or artist, thus playing out different aspects and careers within the art world. Something to keep in mind with all of this is the appropriateness of the art or artist's concepts, how to keep it constantly educational and fun, organization of information and process, as well as assessment of progress and process. I do believe though the role playing and creating aspects of learning could seriously be a benefit to what is considered a boring aspect to art.

some websites that may interest a art history educator
and this one.

Researching

          I'm working on my thematic unit and I'm having a lot of fun, but a tough time with figuring out what to teach about within my theme. My partner and I chose insanity as the theme, this seemed, at the time to be a quirky and fun topic, but that's nonsensical to choose a topic that's quirky and fun compared to informational and awareness offering. So with the definition of insanity within my lessons being mental illness, I want this to not only serve as a process based unit, I want it to be a tool for the students to better understand our world and how art is apart of it.
           So in my lesson that I executed with my classmates I introduced them to the artist Judith Scott and used her as an example of the technique of wrapping in a repetitive manner. This allowed the students a sneak peak of the capability and mistreatment Judith composed and went through. I'd like to do the same thing with each lessons, but have a progression up to some point. So I'd like my unit to posses an aspect of material manipulation, a research aspect, more material manipulation with a connection between their material and their concept, and then a large instillation incorporating all the lessons in one big lesson... but how to compose something like this.

"wrapping of wire" Teacher Sample from lesson I

"Pinching Wire" Teacher Sample for Lesson I

         
                










                    I've been doing a lot of research on outsider artist's and classics that were considered artistic genius's due to a mental illness. This is a website that gives me a good history and progression of the understanding of insanity within art. From this website I found a art gallery/ museum located in a historical asylum in London called Bethlem royal psychiatric. This is now a gallery/museum where a lot of shows are based on mental illness within the art's, not as a genius but as a theme. Within this theme there are shows based on treatments such as LSD to those with schizophrenia and how it effect's there art, homages to Louis Wain, and collaboration of works done by patients.

         I really would like to base this unit as if I were running a sculpture class compared to a studio. I want everything to work up to the importance of sculpture within the art world because I feel it is under appreciated within the schooling system. I feel this could be a perfect medium and style for this theme, I just need to figure out how I want to put these lesson's in order and what it will lead up to. With this project I have learned how hard it is to create a coherent unit, how to be sensitive within the lesson making world and overall classroom world, and the amount of studying, researching and investigating creative teachers go through every time they make a unit.

Comics could be the next text book, and how it's important to communicate with the whole staff once you work for a district.

        
       So I went home for the holiday week and on my way back I thought I'd stop in at one of my favorite little city-towns, Hudson. When I was there I realized this guy that I went out on a date with once was also visiting from Chicago. I took this as a sign to meet up again, since our first date was so fun. So we met up at a great bar/restaurant called the Red Dot and started catching up immediately over some Makers Mark... now your probably wondering why the hell is she blogging about this for her Theory and Practice class. Hold on to your trousers, I'm getting there. So we started talking about comics, because he's a big nerd and Chicago supports a lot of comic stores. We started talking about comics and jumping from that to my education experience. It reminded me of the guest speaker, who I so terribly have forgotten his name, but we had this great speaker come in and talk about the importance of comics and how they can change the classroom! I thought it was a great idea, but didn't think much more on it, until this nerdy cute date I was on.
                   Nerdy date was telling me about this great comic called Understanding Comics by Scott Mccloud. He was saying that there is this great tension of narration and visual representation, and how reading comics creates a different train of thinking as well as a completely different path way in your brain to travel compared to just reading a book or looking at  picture. This was very intriguing to me, because being someone who doesn't very much enjoy reading (it puts me to sleep), and has had a hard time their whole life with finding comfort with reading, this could be a possibility for me to find a hidden path into enjoying a narrative on paper. Then this got me to thinking about the decrease in reading skills and English skills within our school systems.  Now I'm not saying get rid of books or picture books, but why not have a book that applies to both learning styles of visual v.s literature. I know I personally am a visual learner compared to literature, but my friend Emily is the complete opposite. I also remember reading To Teach: the journey, in comics in curriculum and instruction, and being so excited when ever a chapter was assigned. I'm not saying get rid of the old, but I am saying embrace and accommodate with the new.
                    This all branched off to our discussion on the comic Maus, and how comics are a great bridge into relating, and finding comfort from a lack of shock with a topic or emotion. This specific comic is a illustration and narrative of the authors father being in the Holocaust and surviving from a death camp. This got me thinking about the idea of how important it is for Art educators to represent their curriculum and the importance of their subjects to their coworkers of other subjects, and how important to the students well rounded education that all the teachers are on the same page, as well as layering and weaving everyone curriculum and lessons into a universal unit. Now I know that's wordy, and I know it seems ideal, BUT I do think that this is something that could be practiced with small movements, like talking over lunch with your history coworker about a great comic including visual arts and narrative called Maus that you believe could really help the students engage and almost be more comfortable with the topic due to it's humorous imagary of mice and cats, and subtle ways of creating the terror and horror of the victims lives. I believe that a student will learn from shock, but this will be forced and rushed, compared to if a student in engaged and comforitable, they will want to dissect and dig deeper into the topic. I also feel this is a good example of why comics would be a good tool for learning, because having the control over the time you are exposed to the images and if you want to go ahead or back, is a great practice in self motivation, researching and enjoying the time you have with a piece of literature. Things that I feel are not practiced in schools as much, or are not succeeding within the system. Something I like to remind myself constantly when living life is, if it doesn't work, fix it. Maybe we should try something different that may seem so strange and so out there, but really is very relevant and close by... comics and communication.

I want to be a sculpture teacher within a High school, I think that it's not offered enough to high schooler's, and I find it to be one of the most problem solving, research based art mediums... thus creating more effective contemporary artists or art researchers.

How to start off a lesson?

    So on Friday, Taryn and Amanda gave there lesson on positive and negative space using chance and gesture. It was an over-all amazing lesson that I would definitely love to include in my classroom, I'll be honest I don't remember what their thematic unit plan is about, but I did get what vocabulary and process they were programing into our brains. They did something a lot different then I had seen in any of the other lesson (Even my own), and it was really quite refreshing.
   They started the class with a very brief discussion and then allowed us to dive right into art playing and experimentation. Compared to beginning with a lecture-like discussion on artists, concept and vocabulary words. I remember wondering how this was all going to work out. What I mean by that is, when we do have to have a lecture-like discussion, will the class be too pumped to concentrate and participate, or will our blood be moving so much that we will want to talk more and be involved?
    So as the class progressed and we had to sit and talk about the interesting artists and their process' I noticed that the class was very involved and interested in what we were going to do next as well as how what we were talking about was going to be applied to the big white paper and our ceramic sketches. I feel like the tension between the art making at first, the discussion and then more art making was very conducive and effective. We wanted to learn, we wanted to listen, we wanted to play. It was also a good lay out to allow the students to digest a little bit before they got involved again with action and creation.
      I feel this lesson was a great example of lesson and classroom construction to keeping students involved and intrigued as well as energetic but tamed all at the same time. We were given the freedom to create and move, but then had to practice patience and calmness so that we could once again have that freedom. This is definitely something I'd like to involve into my philosophy and practice within my own classroom.

Nurturing in the class when looking at the teachers gender difference.

           Looking back at the past few semesters I've noticed this fantastic progression of nurturing by the professors that the program did, maybe without evening noticing. We had Beth for intro, who was the sweetest most animated out of the professors, which I feel was good for us who were transfers or just youngin's in general. Then we needed to get interviewed to get into the program, for me that was my introduction to Jessica and Aaron... Whoa was I intimidated, but after the interview, I was very excited to work with them and learn from there. After Beth we were introduced to Jessica and Curriculum and Instruction. Jessica still embodied the sweet, nurturing aspects as Beth, but also had sarcasm and tough love to thicken our skin. I feel it was also a good balance of her sarcasm that was a subtle introduction to working with older students, even though it was all elementary that we learned about in her class, it was still in a good characteristic and concept to have mulling over in the back of your mind, preparing us for the secondary students we would be dealing with the semester after. So senior year comes for some of us, and it's time of Practice and Theory with Aaron. Aaron has a different kind of nurturing, it's the kind that is tough and harsh, but has great intentions on truly preparing us for whats to come in student teaching and possibly our own classroom. I was very intimidated and puzzled by this immediate difference of teaching from both Beth and Jessica, and it took me a while to get use to it, but I now appreciate and respect Aaron's way of teaching.
         I find the way I am learning and what I am learning to be really impacting and challenging, which is something that I don't ever feel I encountered in such a stressful manner. Which of course doesn't sound like a positive remark, but it truly is, because I know watching my mentor teachers, that this is the name of the game. This will be my everyday life with lessons, bureaucracy, and life, and I will need to constantly be changing with the times and the core concepts and the mentality of my students. I also know, and this isn't to belittle my mentor teachers, that I am being trained to be a contemporary art teacher, which is different then what I am seeing with in my observations. I need to find ways to teach students about the world through art, not just teaching them about art and the techniques and the end result. I feel there is more metaphor and symbolic relevance within our lessons that we are creating, compared to what I've seen in the observations. This to me is more of a challenge and Aaron is drilling it into our heads to be constantly thinking about this.
      So this semester the majority of my professors are men, this is something very new to me. I've barley had male art teachers in my life, it's always been hippy woman that are super nurturing and soft when it comes to learning, a lot of coddling and positive reinforcement. Now that I am surrounded by masculine ways of teaching and learning, I have a good base to compare and contrast the difference's I see. Now I know that is teetering on the edge of generalizing, and it may be, but I'm just going to put this down in permanence to have a reference to look back at later in life to see if these observations are still in play. So something I've noticed within this semester is that male teachers tend to have a lot of sarcasm and sass within there attitude towards there students, thus creating a playful, but harsh environment. This I believe can be good for the students to be constantly on their toes, thinking about what they are doing, but still having a good time learning and communicating. I don't know if this is good for all students, but something I've also noticed with my male teachers is that they are really good at reading people and their emotions, they will push you hard, but when they see that you are about to break they give into the nurturing aspects seen with my female teachers. This is includes listening, consoling and giving advice. I almost find it to be more conducive when the male teachers do this, it shows you that they are being very supportive in that moment by showing you a different side of their personality. Reminds me of how cat's are, they are to themselves for most of the time, but when they choose to be affectionate, you really appreciate it, because it doesn't happen often.
     I've also noticed a few more characteristics within the gender difference's of teachers. One being ambition. In this article I was reading called Gender Differences in Secondary School Teachers' Control over Classroom and School Policy, the authors talk a lot about how the schools are run by males compared to female, and this has to do with career ambitions and juggling school life with home life. This is something I've noticed with multiple professors this semester, they contain a lot of ambition on their behalf and expect a lot out of themselves, this then is channeled through to what they expect from their students. This can be a positive approach and a negative approach. I know for me, this semester has been very strenuous due to heavy work loads and strict standards, I sometimes wonder if the professors take into account that students have lives outside of the classroom as well as 3 to 4 other classes. But it's good to be pushed hard and challenged. I've noticed though that the classes I find to be the most time consuming are those that are run by male professors, I then think about the loads they carry and how this may be why they believe students can carry the same load.
       I find this whole observation of the differences I see within the classroom concerning gender and nurturing to be intriguing and hope to keep ya'll informed as my research and observations conclude.

Thematic Lesson Reflection

So this was one of the most challenging lesson I've ever had to create and execute. I very much appreciated being challenged, but with time being involved I was terrified and discouraged by the idea of failure. It was a good chance to be tested on practicing what I preach, “Failure is a tool of learning, and do not fear it”. So with that in mind and meditating on this notion, I found comfort in the idea that this is one of the only safe zones to experiment with failure within my art education career, and then have the comfort of my cohort to receive feedback and support.

Katie and I went through so many lessons, three to be exact, and had no such luck on them being successful and it all lead back to the idea of “what are we trying to educate the students about” using the theme of “Insanity”. I think Katie and I didn’t consider the sensitivity of the topic and the amount of awareness we could offer on the lives of those who have mental illness's and are considered insane. So once that was noted, my brain started brewing up a lot of ideas. One being the characteristics of the people with aspergers and autism. They tend to find comfort in repetitious motions and actions which coincidentally was one of the keywords our students came up when we did our first discussion and worked on our circle chart.

So we started to research contemporary artists who incorporated the principle and element of repetition in their art making and concepts, to our surprise, there were many artists who used this element, including Judith Scott (a female fabric artist who also is diagnosed with down syndrome and autism, as well as being deaf). This was a perfect opportunity to talk about mistreatment of those with mental illness's and how art can help! Aaron said something that really resonated with me through this lesson making, and that was, “Being an art teacher isn't about making art, it's about using art as a tool to educate about the world.” This makes more sense to me, then the idea of a final product, even though the idea of a final product being attractive is always a confidence booster for everyone. This is a philosophy I wanted to incorporate in our lesson and as well as in my own classroom when the day comes.

So we came up with the idea of having our students manipulate a medium using a repetitious technique that is predetermined by chance. Katie had the idea of making the lesson into a game-like atmosphere filled with surprise and problem solving, which fit in perfectly with the lesson. I also just loved the idea that the students were being tricked into using materials and process's that they may have never used before, or even thought about using in the manner they were assigned. If I had the chance I'd take away the clay that we had them use and substitute it with another material like plastic cups, pencils, or Paper plates. We didn't really get to experiment with the clay to see how it would react as it was a last minute, lack of material, decision. I'd also have thimbles for the students who were using pins as an adhesive, because I heard a lot of the students complaining that it was hurting their fingers.

We started the lesson with a brief recap which went well, our small class recalled ideas discussed in our first presentation. We then went into our new concept of “madness” within art and repetition. Our intentions were to involve the students with defining the vocabulary words, we did this strategically with “fill in the blank's” in our bodies of definitions, but with our nerves on the edge, we totally flew past that idea and filled the blanks in for them. I feel if I could do it again I'd definitely leave room for more student involvement and discussion. It got very lecture-like and one sided, and I don’t feel the connects with the philosophy of the specific art making we wanted to have them execute, which I was hoping would open a lot of dialog and problem solving with their cohorts. Another thing I would have liked to have done was to have the rubrics in the box's so that when they opened their material box, they would have been surprised with a friendly reminder of how they were being graded. I think this a) would have been helpful for them to see, and b) have a humorous touch that this assignment was full of surprises, even ones that were haunting.

If I also had a chance to do this over, which realistically, I will, I would have liked to have saved more time for the recap and discussion at the end of our lesson.I knew we only had five minutes left and people were still cleaning up and rushing, and I choked and lacked the thought of bring back the discussion to our concepts. But what I really wanted to talk about was; some of the problems they had and how they resolved it, and how they could prove their pieces possibly embodied the concept of “madness”, and what the effect on the viewer and artist of repeating something technically as well as aesthetically created. But the truth of the matter was we didn't have enough time to do this, and I never received the answers. I was very pleased though with the art making skills and what came out of the lesson as a final product. I really think it's a great lesson as well as teaching students the idea of process and problem solving within art. I feel this could result in some really great pieces within a high school and could even offer the idea of creating an instillation, expanding the students mind on the amount of space their art can take up. Over all, as nerve racking as it was, I feel really good about going through with this project, getting a better insight in sensitivity within a topic, experiencing time management first hand, or lack of, and finally how good it feels to see a class excited about what they are doing and learning as well as having a beautiful display of final results.

Surrealist Lesson

     Today Jenn and I taught our lesson to the studio class at the high school we are observing at. Our mentor teacher was really great in the regards of allowing us total control and freedom of the class and lesson, as well as documenting us interacting with the students and giving our lesson. He of course gave us guidelines as to what he wanted so that we could help keep his process of teaching the students about elements and principles of art going. His guidelines included the aspects of Texture, collage and surrealism. So we were stumped at first, but sat down and really brainstormed and did some research on surrealist artists and how they inspired themselves. So we figured we would include a game of some sort, such as exquisite corpse, or "free-writing". That was the snowball formation of our lesson plan, and from there we came up with the idea of creating a textured Dream-scape with collage, allowing students to explore the play of dreams, manipulations of materials, and diving into dissecting and becoming acquainted with surrealism.
    We included the movie Destino 2003 to start the lesson off with. We felt this was a good choice so we could capture the students using a familiar style of animation and pop culture (Disney) as well as unusual, "weird" images that represented Dali's work, and a few aspects of Surrealism. The few surrealist aspects we made sure to discus was metamorphism, metaphor, and common iconography used in Dali's as well as other Surrealist artists work.The students really seemed to enjoy this video, even though a lot of them were confused by it, and technology was not feeling like being on our side. We kept explaining to them that being confused about surrealism was okay, that it was a lot of nonsense to begin with, as well as there being deeper meanings to some of the images.
   We got to teach the lesson twice. Once at the first period of the day and then the other was the second to last period of the day. Whoa what a difference. The first class was docile, cooperative but lacking enthusiasm during the group discussion, but did seem to really understand the lesson. There was some really great juxtaposition happening through the images once we started to create, an example would be that the one student who seems to have ADHD created a face using the head of a chicken carcass, it was humorous and interesting looking. The last class, I was blown away by the group discussion we had, they had some really great observations as well as deep thinking into the meanings of the icons and images they saw. As a group, they were all really thinking about dreams and as I walked around the classroom heard them all sharing stories about their dreams while working.They also seemed to really enjoy the free writing word game we played, compared to the first class that just stared at us.
    I'll be honest I was quite scared that we were trying to shove a lot of information into our lesson and with that being said it would confuse or overwhelm the students. I then remembered that they are high school students, not pre-schoolers and have a larger attention span as well capabilities. This was proven to be true. I'm not sure if my mentor teacher allows a lot of room for group discussion, but he should because the students seemed to really be effected and enjoy the freedom to learn together as a whole. I find that the idea of group discussions as a good outlet to speaking your mind and stating questions to the class to either get an answer that a few students are looking for or to just voice their opinions.
    I also feel like the idea of not having a set result of their art can really be an eye opener for the students, this way they can see other peoples outcomes, strategies and processes and then possibly learn from their peers and execute it later on in their art. This I think especially for high school students allow them to work on creating their identities and individualism, as well as take notice of their peers individualism. This seems to be a reoccurring issue in high school attitudes and dilemmas.  
    With that being said, I find it hard to see myself as a high-school teacher, the idea of them not being comfortable with themselves or using their ego centric attitudes in a negative manner by making other people feel bad just frustrates me. As well as the fear of being compassionate and vulnerable or even cooperative aggravates me. I feel I need to understand their mentality and how to guide them more into them being comfortable being open would help me feel more comfortable and capable of directing these students. But then there are students that really make you happy to be there and hopeful, for example theres this one student in the second to last period studio class, he is cooperative, open, comfortable and creates some really great stuff. I feel as though sometimes there are students that can help you direct the whole class just by setting a good example for all the students to follow. They do this without the vocal support from the teacher, it's almost like they embody the answer to all the other students insecurities. They just seem so comfortable with themselves that they aren't afraid to be wrong. I just now can reflect on the idea of how hard it was for me to be comfortable with the idea of failure, and how to learn and teach through it.
   Maybe I could be a high school art teacher if I had my own classroom and could really set an environment of comfort through mistakes. Its definitively different when you have your own classroom as well as your own freedom to set the mood and environment of the teaching techniques. I think in my classroom I'm going to encourage a lot of discussion, process compared to end product, peer learning and metaphors for the students to explore their individuality as well as social problems and traumas they are dealing with everyday through.