REFLECTION

The importance of organization and consistency is one of the many lessons I learned in this course. Students, especially in the art room, need to be able to have an understanding of where to find materials and the expectations of how those materials are to be used, cleaned, and stored. In an unconventional setting, such as the classroom we visited, I can understand how it would be hard to obtain this type of organization, but I still feel it to be just as important.

If this order is achieved, then I believe consistency not only in classroom routine but also in expectation of achievement will soon follow. Students in our field experience did not seem to be able to rely on their teacher in the sense on following through with requests or being knowledgeable of finding what they needed. Even searching for an everyday item such as a sharpened pencil or pen seemed like a continuous struggle. Consistency in order will allow students to feel the classroom to be a reliable environment for their creativity, without this stability the greater the chance of unproductively among the students. Honestly I feel that a more structured classroom, with guided discussions and planned lessons, would benefit the artists of the high school we visited. The school does has certain circumstances that happen more frequently than others, but I still feel that the organization and consistency will lead to and environment that as just as caring, and emotionally connected as it is now, but with a new sense of reliability in which students walk in the door knowing that they will be learning something new and exciting that will result in a finished product.

What surprised me the most about this experience was the amount of maturity these students demonstrated when I learned about the circumstances they were living under. They have been dealt cards that I know as a seventeen-year-old I would not have been able to handle. Once I am an educator in my own classroom, I hope to communicate an understanding that students can come to me for help. I plan to create an atmosphere in which students can feel that I am a reliable, trustworthy, and caring source for knowledge and that I will help them in any way possible. Teachers need to be ready for whatever may come their way because students will look to us for guidance even when they will not show us a shred of respect in the classroom. Educators may not be counselors, but they are the adults that students see every day, encouraging and supporting them, making the effort to build bonds in the classroom that will hopefully give students a feeling of consistency in knowing that their teachers are there to help.

This experience has made me want to continue to explore self destructive tendencies in teenagers as well as cultural differences that may clash in a classroom setting. I would also like to explore the strategies used in art rooms from a multitude of alternative high schools in order to compare techniques and find which benefit students taking into consideration elements of nurture and productivity.

REFLECTION ON TEACHING EXPERIENCES

At our field site I taught a few students the process of creating a stain glass piece. We began by sketching a geometric design that would be simple enough for a first piece. I explained how important it was for the pieces to all fit together and be big enough to grind out and solder. After the designs were complete we made a few copies so that they would always have an image to refer back to. Next the students picked out their glass and glued the design shapes so that they would be ready to cut out the shapes. Students were given a lesson in how to cut the glass and then grind it down to size. This was a long and frustrating process for the students when they realized I was not joking about how precise the pieces had to be in order to fit together. “Like a puzzle,” I explained and from there on out the students did not cut corners in trying to grind down each shape. The soldering process seemed easy for them compared to the length grinding period. Wrapping the copper tape around the shapes and taping the puzzle together to be soldered were the quick steps. But remembering to use the flux and solder neatly seemed to pose a bit of a challenge. It took almost the entire trimester for students to complete their pieces, but the patience and determination that was demonstrated was astounding.
When the students were finished I felt successful in the sense that I knew that they understood the process and would be able to repeat it to create more pieces as well as teach it to peers so they could do the same. But what I felt was unsuccessful, was the amount of time I had to spend with them each week, as well as the organization of the classroom I taught them in. I felt so bad when materials that were crucial to the next step of the process went missing. Even when I tried to label and even hide the supplies they would still go missing. A lot of time was wasted searching for the necessary materials and that took away from the time I could have spent demonstrating so the students would be more prepared for the days I was not at the school.

ITM EX 19: COOPER & OPPENHEIM

Thomas Joshua Cooper, Moonlight - West, Southwest - The Mid Atlantic Oce, 2004 -

The photograph has a mystical feel to it. The composition is balanced by the rock formation and the white line. If the glow behind the white line did not light up the background, then all of the attention would have been focused on the formation in the foreground. This glow also explores the depth conveyed by the composition, showing that there is space beyond the rock formation. Clarity of each surface of the rock formation is created by Cooper’s choice in exposing the photo for a longer period of time so that the light source could be utilize to highlight each uneven edge. Cooper took his time to capture this mystical setting which allows me to imagine him in a trance as he set up the composition for this photograph. The formal elements infer his encapsulation by each detail of the formation and the light that surrounded it. He fell in love, as I would like to say, and it is evident in the time he must have spent to set up the aperture, shutter speed, and focus to capture the state of mind he was in while viewing such a site.

From the description provided about Oppenheim’s process of creating Wolf It Down I can infer that the artist was using similar machinery and tools of those who are stripping the Earth of its resources. In his statement I envision Oppenheim reenacting the process of tearing up the Earth’s surface for selfish desires, but in the end using the same materials to fill the holes in order to make a statement about those who actually do this sort of act on a daily basis. The process described led me to believe Oppenheim to be in state of disbelief as he reenacts the same process that he is trying to speak out against, while still proud as others get the message he is trying to convey in an extremely large dimension.

BUILDING COMMUNITY IN YOUR CLASSROOM

I plan to build a community in my classroom through a variety of projects which encourage students to present their identities to one another as well as work together to create a variety of collaborative projects. My unit for our Advanced Methods class actually was designed around building a community. The first lesson is centered around creating identity boxes and then working as a class to build a super structure of the boxes to represent our class as a community of different identities coming together to form one large representation. The second lesson focuses on working in groups, now that they should have learned more about one another, for a common goal. Students will be designing logos for their Homecoming Week and will be competing to create the best logo to be chosen to represent the school. The third lesson involves a similar campaign element, but students will use the strength of their own community to inform the world about certain issues that they feel inclined to advocate for.

The personal exploration as well as group work that is involved in this unit was planned in order for students to better understand one another and learn to work together, putting aside their differences, for a common goal. My desire was to have them learn about one another so that gang activity, social isolation, cliques, language, discrimination, disability, and socio economic status would no longer separate students from one another as they focus on a project they can all relate to.

Now I know this goal may be a far fetched utopia, but I believe that if students are given a chance to work with one another and are encouraged to explore their identities and share their discoveries, then students will be supported in the steps to understanding one another. We need to foster lessons that support students in a journey to meet people different from their own backgrounds and learn to connect with them on a multitude of levels. It is my goal to achieve this understanding through conducting lessons that are valid to students’ lives with purposeful meanings that are clear to both teacher and class.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

At our field site there are issues in classroom management related to structure. Since the environment is rather unorganized and type of free for all, the students encounter frustrations in looking for specific materials they wish to use as well as projects they have began and are missing when they return the next day.

The organization of materials is also accompanied by a lack of structure in terms of learning lessons. Students have total freedom to explore a variety of mediums and to work on most projects that their imaginations can think up, which is successful in the sense that they are supported and encouraged to follow the flow of personal creativity. But even with the small class size it is hard to answer every student's questions when they are all working on different projects. This freedom also makes it hard to monitor the progress of every student since they can start and stop projects without warning or explanation. Sometimes it is a struggle just to get students to work; often there is at least one artist who will sit unproductively during a class period.

I think it would be great to encourage the class to think of one art form, as a group, that they would really like to learn about and simultaneously create projects in similar mediums so they can get feed back from each other in the process. I would hope this resulted in the class building a stronger creative community through the process of learning a new art form as a group.

Tate Gallery

MOTIVATION

Lack of motivation seemed to occur the most when I was in Spanish IV my senior year of high school. I lacked motivation on nearly every assignment because it felt like no matter how hard I tried or how often I came in for help my answers would still be wrong. The point at which I lost almost all motivation was when I would have the exact answer as the student next to me and he would get it right and I got it wrong. When I brought this to the attention of my teacher she said that he just got lucky. When this kept occurring I did not even bother talking to her about it and basically did not even want to open my mouth in class. This experience turned me into the type of student I had never been before, a student who had shut down. I was only like that in this particular class and the only thing that motivated me to try at all was that fact that I could fail, something I had never come close to doing.
I believe I can help students overcome a lack of motivation by staying consistent in my practices and showing that I care by investing time in their success. At our field site there is one student in particular who seems to lack motivation and does not even consider herself an artist. Once I confronted her claim of not being an artist by pointing out her series of successful portraits as well as her on going practice outside of school she began to see that she was not only an artist, but an artist with a body of work to be proud of. I asked her to bring in some of her photographs from home and the day she did, a group of students came over and started going through her work and lavishing her with the compliments she deserved. Her work was good, plain and simple. It took telling her that she has talent and the confirmation from her peers to get the student to see that she is a skilled artist, particularly in photography, that should continue her practice in the classroom.