“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
–Albert Einstein
Everything in life is created. The books we read, the furniture we sit on, and the car we drive. These things needed to be created by creative people. We need creative people to take us into the future and show us things that our generation has yet to achieve. The greatest inventors from around the world studied a various amount of subjects and the one thing that they all have in common is that they were creative enough to work through their problems and solve them. Art connects and teaches us about every curriculum in a school. It integrates these subjects and various cultures into the world of the student, separating the distance between them. Learning skills in multiple ways also affirms their permanence. As students learn to observe their world, they are learning to see better, think differently, and solve problems. Guiding students through different processes of art will help them to advance in everyday life.
Although not all students will go on to become inventors or artists, they will be able to understand their world better, connect with themselves, and make a mark in this life. I will introduce my students to a safe environment to express themselves in. Being comfortable in a space and with the people around us can determine how much we will grow. Students will be able to express their thoughts and diversity without judgment.
Visual art communicates our diversity. Assessing the student’s work in class will open the their minds to not only the cultures around the world, but in their neighborhood as well; breaking down walls between people. Everyone is different, and it is our differences are what make us interesting. Famous art works are not necessarily better than others; however, they stand out from the others because they were different. I will inspire my students to express their individuality and put it to good use, motivating them to show the world something that we have never seen before.
To insure these things will happen in my class I will set guidelines:
-Student's must respect each other.
-Student's must express their own ideas, not others.
I will try to:
-Inspire my student's.
-Talk them through problems.
-Share my experiences.
-Incorporate knowledge.
-Seek for fun, new things.
-Show examples to get them started.
Throughout the semester I have been working with Sam, Rachel, and Logan in my team. We have had to meet at odd times, collaborate together, and help each other through this hard semester. We worked on unit plans together but each did two lessons by ourselves. After each lesson we all would stay and help clean as well.
It was nice to get to know other people in the class. We had to meet a lot in order to get things done. Sometimes we would clash with ideas. Each of us is creative and had many different ideas. Ultimately we worked well together and got things done.
If I hadn’t worked in this group, I would’ve had a hard time this semester. It was nice to know that there was someone who had the same problems as me, or who could explain something to me if needed. Now that we know each other well, I think we will be able to continue to be friends through our time at Wayne State University.
Every person is different. We all learn in different ways, too. Visual, Audio, and Kinesthetic ways of learning should be incorporated in every lesson taught so that every learner can understand what you are trying to communicate.
Howard Gardner discovered that people have multiple intelligences.
The possibilities are:
Visual and spacial skills are an intelligence.
Art teaches kids:
Complex ways to solve problems
Things that words cannot describe
Small differences have large effects
To say what cannot be said
Art is not just a pretty picture on the wall.
The most important thing that I have learned through my experience at Saturday Art School was how to break down lessons and make them interesting and concrete for children. I had no idea what to expect when I first signed up to teach elementary students. I’ve always have wanted to work with high school students and so this was a new challenge for me.
My first lesson was collage masks. I did not realize that some of the students would not know how to cut with scissors or know how to poke through the paper to create an eye. I expected them to know more than they did and didn’t give enough direction or demonstration. Students constantly were asking me how to do things and it became chaotic.
The next time that I taught was much better. I had learned to break down the lesson step by step and how to apply the information to the life of a child. We made clay relief sculpture tiles. The students learned about ancient Egyptians relief sculpture and how to make their own in clay.
Breaking down a lesson into every step can become time consuming but in the end it is very beneficial. It will remind me what needs to be discussed next and it informs the students of every aspect of the lesson as well. Thank goodness I had this experience before going into student teaching.Clutter in a classroom really bothers me. If the room is well organized it helps me to focus and be inspired, better. Otherwise I’ll just be thinking about what I need to do to clean up the room. I’m sure that some students feel the same way. Having students help clean up is essential because I can’t do it all by myself.
The first time I taught, the lesson took longer than anticipated and we ran short for time. The students left as their parents picked them up and I was left with a huge mess to clean. In a real classroom setting this would not work very well. I will only have about five minutes in between classes and that will not be enough time to do it all on my own.
Students need to be assigned different areas to clean at the end of each class, everyday. I found a cleaning chart online that assigns people to different tasks. It was a magnetic board and labeled the different tables in the room with numbers. Magnets with tasks such as “sweep floor” or “clean sink” could be moved to different sections when needed.
Look at this beautiful classroom I found at: http://www.1canoe2.com/2011/03/during-the-day-i/In my classroom I could assign tasks to different tables and change the tasks weekly or monthly. Everyone will know his or her job without having to ask me what to do. I will evaluate each job before they can be dismissed from my room. This will help to keep my room clean and organized, making it a better learning environment for everyone.
They were able to choose form many different bright colors to print with and they seemed to have a lot of fun.
This painting is a flower from my sister's wedding a couple of years ago. It took me a year to take the time to do the painting (2011). I got it done in about 9 hours. Monotone paintings are a lot easier than full colored ones. I did a series of flowers for awhile. I like them, but really I just did it so that I could have a series of paintings. 
This lily painting is the only painting that I've ever done for myself (2006). I wanted to have a black and white room in my apartment and I wanted to paint a lily on one wall. Then I realized that I wouldn't be able to take it when I left if I did that. So I put it on a big canvas instead. A few of my friends saw it and wanted to buy it from me but I wouldn't let them. Then one day I needed money really badly so I called them up to see if they still wanted it. They did. Now it lives in Cincinnati but I recently got a tattoo of it on my shoulder so it is with me always now.
This rusty car painting was my second painting in college (2003) and is what I consider my personal best. I worked on this one for about one month. The night before it was due, my entire class stayed up all night working in the studio. We brought in coffee and snack and even movies for when we needed a break. It was a fun time to hangout with everyone. 
The DIA has been doing a program called “Art in the Park” where prints of art from the DIA are displayed around the metro Detroit area in local parks. People are encouraged to walk or ride their bike along paths to the next artwork. Each Friday the DIA then has been inviting different communities to come to the DIA for free.
See what else the Detroit Institute of Arts has going on here: http://www.dia.org
This last Saturday was my turn to teach at Saturday Art School. I taught the students about ancient Egyptian relief sculpture.
One thing that I wanted them to understand was what “ancient” means and just how long ago these people lived. I had a timeline, but I didn’t think they would fully grasp a line on a poster board. I then came up with the idea of collecting pennies (451) and having the students create a line with them. Each penny represented 10 years. Some of my students are 10 years old so they were able to understand how long that is. Putting the pennies in a line took a long time and we had to wrap the line around the table a few times. I explained that we would need to do that 10 more times in order to have the amount of pennies/years it is between us and the ancient Egyptians. It got the kids involved, out of their chairs and interested in what I was talking about.
Instead of having a regular poster board, I created a pyramid out of cardboard and put all the information on it. It was a crowd pleaser. :)
Our art project was to create a clay relief tile that tells a story about a proud moment or memory in our lives. We have learned the history of the ancient Egyptians because they carved stories of their lives, their kings and the culture around them. We can also tell others about us by creating art.
I really wanted the students to be able to add color to the clay, which is really hard to do in just one hour. We had enough time because we used slips instead of glazes. Now all I have to do is add a very thin layer of clear glaze to the top and fire the pieces at a "low fire" after they are done drying. The clear glaze should make the color pop!
A couple of weeks ago my team introduced mosaic tiles to our art students. They learned about symmetry, making an exact refection on each side. The culture they learned about was the Zillij people of Morraco. They are Islamic and don’t create art with images of people. Instead they represent people or meaningful things in the colors they choose.
Art history timeline taken from: http://www.lorenmunk.com/portfolio.htmlEquip children with the qualities and capacities required to cope with the problems of a fast-changing world. It would produce alert, balanced, critical-minded individuals who would continue to grow in intellectual and moral stature after graduation.
The Progressive Education Association, inspired by Dewey’s ideas, later codified his doctrines as follows:
1. The conduct of the pupils shall be governed by themselves, according to the social needs of the community.
2. Interest shall be the motive for all work.
3. Teachers will inspire a desire for knowledge, and will serve as guides in the investigations undertaken, rather than as task-masters.
4. Scientific study of each pupil’s development, physical, mental, social and spiritual, is absolutely essential to the intelligent direction of his development.
5. Greater attention is paid to the child’s physical needs, with greater use of the out-of-doors.
6. Cooperation between school and home will fill all needs of the child’s development such as music, dancing, play and other extra-curricular activities.
7. All progressive schools will look upon their work as of the laboratory type, giving freely to the sum of educational knowledge the results of their experiments in child culture. These rules for education sum up the theoretical conclusions of the reform movement begun by Colonel Francis Parker and carried forward by Dewey at the laboratory school he set up in 1896 with his first wife in connection with the University of Chicago. With his instrumentalist theory of knowledge as a guide, Dewey tried out and confirmed his new educational procedures there with children between the ages of four and fourteen.
One thing that I observed that was interesting was how visual images helped the children stay focused. The first day I observed the teacher used words and pictures to describe what to do that day in class during the Morning Meeting. On a different day she only talked about what to do that day. I noticed that the first day, the children were more engaged with what she was trying to tell them. They sat quietly on the floor, trying to figure out what she would draw next. On the second day the children were load, talking over her and getting out of their seats.
Having multiple things to do around the room during free time allows the students to explore things that they are interested in at a higher level. Everyone is different with different abilities and talents. We need to let children discover what they enjoy and encourage them to learn more about it.
I liked the small group that I observed because it involved having children asking questions and processing thoughts about the questions. It got their attention, made them curious and at the end they get to discover the answers to their questions hands on. This encourages learning. The students will develop curious minds. Curious minds ask questions and then seek to find the answers.
Patience that I saw in the teachers at the Learning Center is another thing that I will need to use in my own classroom. They were calm throughout the all conflicts, asking questions to discover the problem, stating what should be done and what the consequences are if that action is not taken, and being persistent. Some children were easier than others to resolve conflicts with, but in the end justice prevailed.
Acrylics are new to me. They dry really fast, which is so different than oils. I like how fast it is because it is easy to layer paint. It makes it harder to mix and blend paints though. I've been experimenting with different ways of how to use the paint. 
Our elementary students for the Saturday Art School are in first through fifth grade. Our first art project with them was to paint themselves at a life sized scale! They loved it! First they sat down on the large paper and traced their own legs. Some had a little bit of trouble with this. They then had someone help draw their upper half of their body. They drew in details and then got to paint! Each student got to select two extra colors other than primary colors to paint with. They loved working BIG.
