Week 7: Gude Reflections

While reading Playing, Creativity, Possibility I noticed that I related to many of the situations that she described. Anxiety being a prevalent one. My art one class is really divided between those that really enjoy art and those that are just taking it for the credit. So often, I find those that are just taking art for the fine arts credit are so apprehensive about what they are doing and it seems like the have anxiety about being good at something in general. I encourage them to think for themselves and rarely do I answer the question, is this what you are looking for. I have anxiety about answering questions like that because I have been on both side of the coin. I want to have my own voice but I also want to make sure I get the grade that I want. I stress to them that as long as they are doing the work and putting thought into what they are producing they are going to get the A's that they want. They are so worried about pleasing me that they forget to create on their own.
 One that I have a specific story for is Resistance. Oh my the resistance I see every day in a high school art room. Again mostly with art 1. Two days ago I was trying to get a discussion going about popular culture and about how images are thrown in their faces every day. I was trying to get examples from them about what is popular now. I was expecting technology, sports brands, clothing brands, etc.. I GOT NOTHING!! The stuff we are talking about is about them and their lives and what they encounter on a daily basis. I am sure there is a better way to go about this discussion, but I gave them some examples and then I got some examples that had to do with hunting and guns. A few of my students said that those examples were not right. I KNEW I HAD THEM!!! We then discussed how guns and hunting were popular culture and one student said well it may not pertain to everyone but it is what these particular boys see every day. They hunt regularly. Then I brought the subject of how guns are in the media right now and then we had a great discussion on gun control and then various other subjects like that. It was fantastic. I almost gave up to their resistance, but I didn't and it was a good thing that I didn't. They are thinking abou their projects a lot more deeply than projects beforehand.
I think that cultivating creativity is so important. I think that I sometimes fall into that rut of, ok, I need to see this many sketches my the end of the hour, just to keep them busy. I think that hinders their creativity, after reading these articles and reflecting in my head I may try other things. Like maybe instead of having them sketch right off the bat, I can have silent time. Where they just sit and think. No drawing, just thinking and creating possibilities in their heads, then they can sketch. Any suggestions on how that may work??
In many of my classes we utilize play. It is a monthly, sometime more, activity that I introduce something new to my art 3 and 4. Or I tell them to go into the closet and bring something out that they have never used before and play. We have jokingly deemed these days "play-dates" I know that I have turned the other art teacher at my school to doing this with her classes as well. We are planning, right before our painting unit in art one to have a play-date where the students get to try painting techniques on their own and just play. The students are so relaxes and in such good moods when they get to do things like these. I do not discourage in any way if the student wants to play with something not on those days, because they discover new materials to improve their work. It is amazing how play affects them.

Things that inhibit me would be my want to start and finish things in one sitting. Once I get into something I am in it, however schedules do get in the way of that as does the fact that I apparently do need sleep to be a functioning person of society. I have started to try to fight off the urge to say that I am finished with something because generally I come up with ways to improve it when I am watching my students work.

This is the second or third time that I have read Postmodern Principles and I still think that they are fantastic. I find, now that I am actually in a classroom teaching, that I relate to these differently than in the past. I now look at what my students are doing instead of my own work, and thinking about how they fit in. As I was grading pieces yesterday I found myself paying attention to the pieces and thinking about the principles that Gude describes are in all of them. My students are so in tune to the world around them. They use images that are so readily available all of the time. I think that says a lot about the times that we are living in. Imagery is all around us and it is up to us on how we sort it out. I like how at the end Gude states "I do not hope to see a generation of art education texts that merely add a few postmodern principles...to their lists of modernist elements and principles and then proceed to use them to structure and justify a curriculum." (p.13) I completely agree with this. You cannot just go part of the way and expect to get the most out of your students. They will reach this point hopefully at some point but, by explaining these principles you can help them along the way.

Self Video

Thoughts before watching: The lesson that I chose to record was one with my Art 3 and 4 classes. We are starting a unit on story telling where they will be choosing a piece of artwork by another artist and creating a piece that goes before the original and one that goes after the original I got my inspiration for the unit from this piece: http://imgur.com/Yc2Nh. I Decided to do an activity with them to ge their story-telling juices flowing. I picked 4 surrealist pieces and had them write a story for 2 1/2 minutes each. They could only read the the last paragraph of previous person's story then they had to continue the story. We came up with some pretty good stories. My reflections before watching are that it went pretty well. I was nervous about it because this class tends to like to complain about work at 8 am. But, they really got into it. One thing that I was not expecting is that one of my hispanic students, we will call her Gabby, getting really upset. She speaks english fairly well, however her writing is still a bit hard to read. One of my other students was reading her paragraph and made some comments about the piece of artwork she was writing about. My Gabby thought that this other student was making fun of her writing instead of the piece. I took Gabby out in the hallway where she started crying. I told her that the other student was making fun of the piece and not her writing and that if she needed another minute to collect herself she could take it. I went back into the room and continued the activity. Gabby did not participate anymore. After the activity was finished I told them a little about the project and then I read the stories out loud to them. Over all I think it went well.

After watching: After watching the video there are some things that I noticed. First, I think that I gave too much background info about the pieces prior to letting them write. I think that had I not said anything about them the stories would have been a little more creative. I also think I just cannot stand still in my class. I was circling them over and over. I think I was probably making them nervous. I would have been. Another thing that I noticed, is that Gabby was in my video, and she got upset way before I noticed. I feel awful that I didn't see that before I did. As much as I was circling you would think that I would have caught on. I also think I should have gotten a piece so that all of the students were writing all of the time. When the students didn't have anything to write on they became a little distracted. But the good thing that I noticed that matched what I reflected about before is that the majority of the students really enjoyed the activity and I think that it was  a wonderful segway into the entire unit.

If I were one of my students I would have enjoyed this lesson/activity. I would have gotten bored with the times that I wasn't writing. I would have been self-conscious about starting out a story, I would have felt pressure to write something funny. However, once I got into it I would have really enjoyed it.

Week 5 - Traditions

After reading chapter 5 of reflective teaching and reading about their takes on teaching traditions and reflecting on what kind of teacher I am, I have not nailed it down. I, like Zeichner and Liston, believe that many teachers, including myself, dip their toes into all of the different teaching styles probably daily. Mainly in my classes I stress the importance of problem solving. I make a point to tell them that there are many ways to do a given project and that I invite innovation. I purposefully create lessons that are not step by step, mostly because I hated those when I was in school. I want them to learn to function without direct instruction. Now, I don’t just throw them supplies and say go, I do give them introductory instruction and do demonstrations, but many of my projects a interpretive. They are always made so that the students can make it their own and we don’t just have 25 of the same project hanging in the hall. We have so many students from all walks of life and I can see the difference in them. Many of my students have a severe lacking in self- motivation. They feel so entitled to everything and they don’t respect much in the school as a whole, to the point that when I ask them to pick a piece of trash up off the floor, they ask if they will get bonus points for it. Most of these students that I have described are ones that were born here, white, Hispanic, black, any color that is how many of them act. The students that are self-motivated or have motivation outside of the school are my students that were not born in he United States. They have discipline and respect. I have been trying to figure this out and I have talked about this many times on my blog, but it just baffles me. I ask my students, not to talk openly about spirituality to the point that they are talking about their beliefs on Sundays, but we talk about spirituality in the sense that we look inside ourselves and figure out what we believe as a person and translate that into art pieces. Sometimes it is about religion, but many times it is about society, self-image, and things like that. I really do think that I go through every tradition on a daily basis.

As far as chapter 6 goes I again don’t think a teacher can simply fall into one category; job, profession, or vocation. I see it as all three. Teaching is my job, I get paid to teach, I have rules and regulations to follow and make sure my students follow, that is my job. It is my profession, I teach so that my students think, really think about what they are doing. I take it from just doing a job to taking everything that I have learned about content and pass it to my students. It is my vocation because I daily try to inspire my students to do their best. I try to tell my intro art students that all they have to do is truly put forth their best effort, I encourage my advanced students to create pieces that are meaningful and pieces that will prepare them for their futures in art.  So, I feel like a broken record when I say that a teacher cannot just fall into one category and reach every student.

Visual Metaphor

Alright, so this is what I have finished so far on my Visual Metaphor.  I have thought a lot this week about how my classrooms affect what my students are learning and how I "structure" my room. I teach 3 levels of 2d art and 3 levels of 3d art at the school that I teach and I always find myself saying to my students and having discussions about making their art their own. Finding new ways to do something that we have practiced, discover a new material, use this tool in a different way. The first thought that I had for a visual metaphor for this was an untouched jungle. That thought hasn't left me so I went for it. I am trying to find a way to tie this into discovery. I like it so far because at first glance this piece looks a little ominous, but the more I look at it I see beauty, and that is how I feel like my students are when I ask them to delve into something new. They are questioning me, they are a little afraid to fail, but most of the time they find out how great it is to try something new to them. Any advice on how to put more of a "Classroom" spin on it would be appreciated. I think, like my students, I am afraid to do something that will ruin it!!

Reflective Teaching... Reflections...

Questions that caught me:

P. 4: “Do you think that teachers should play leadership roles in curriculum development, program development, and school reform or just stick to their work in the classroom?” A: I think that teachers need to be at the forefront of development of curriculum, programs, and reform. If the teacher is not investing in what they are teaching the students will not be invested in learning the material.  

P. 13. “As a student, could you discern these qualities in your teachers? As a beginning or practicing teacher, can you see these qualities in yourself or in your colleagues? A: My colleagues are on two spectrums it seems like. Some of them are looking out for the students and only the students. They spend all their time at school, after school, before school, everything is school. Then there are the ones that are… seasoned… They seem to be on autopilot, not improving on what they are doing and completely against change even if it is for the students.

After reading and for many of the paragraphs, re-reading Reflective Teaching: An Introduction I have to admit that I feel that I need to work on my reflection. I have always thought of myself as a very reflective person, however I think there are some things that I can work on.  But first, I want to go over some of the notes that I wrote in my book.

            One thing that resonated with me throughout the reading is the fact that they kept mentioning, “What goes on inside schools is greatly influenced by what occurs outside of schools.” (x) This relates to all teaching situations and I can see it so much at Marshall, where I teach. There is a very high population of Hispanic students in Marshall. Many are immigrants from El Salvador and are just learning English. Now you would think that this would set most of them behind, and some of them do fall behind, but many of them in my art classes are some of my best students. I am not sure if it is because of where/how they grew up but they are deep thinkers and not afraid to express themselves artistically. This is a stark difference from many of my white students. Again I am not sure why this is, but I can only guess it is because of their environment outside of school. They are pushed so hard to succeed with the opportunities they are given, when many of them wouldn’t have gone to school past the 8^th grade.

            This also ties into social conditions. I remember when I transferred to Mizzou my junior year I had to make up some hours during the summer. Since there were no schools going on at that time I have to get my hours at a food bank in Columbia. I have to say that I was so confused as to why I was there. After reading this, I think it makes more sense. The time I spent at the food bank showed me people from a different situation than I grew up with or was around. Seeing people only being able to buy food that was just about to expire can open person’s eyes. I see this a lot with my students. Some of them are working jobs to make money so they can help pay bills. They have so much going on that it amazes me most days that they can get through the day without exploding. 

            I also took notes about the quote that “Not only do students walk into schools with expectations and assumptions formed as a result of life experiences but so do their teachers.”(xiv) I came into a situation where the former teacher did not leave on good terms and she was a well-liked teacher by her students. I think my students come into my classes assuming that I was going to, to use their words, “suck”. But I also went into the school year assuming that all of my students were going to have that expectation. However, as the year went on we all learned that our expectation were wrong. Beliefs from my experiences of having new teachers led me to believe that all of my students were going to be like that.

            The three attitudes for reflective action are open-mindedness, responsibility, and wholeheartedness. I think that I am rather open-minded, especially being a first year teacher. Not only do I think that there are better ways to approach what I am doing, I know there is. My mentor at school, who is the other art teacher at Marshall has been my ally and the person I discuss what I am doing and why. With responsibility I think I could be better. I don’t necessarily ask myself why something is working and who it works for. I find myself asking myself why things are not working. Wholeheartedness is one of my strengths. I think my students pick up on how passionate about art I am and about their art I am.  

“When they make mistakes they are not overly harsh toward themselves.” (13) <<< That is where I fall very short!!

My curriculum was reworked by my partner teacher and I this summer. When I looked over the curriculum that she and the former teacher develop, it was not really a curriculum. The school district does not keep an eye on the art departments in the district. This is a good thing because it allows us expand and change our plans at any time, but it is bad because, as I witnessed while looking at the plans from the years before because it turned into a grouping of random projects that used almost no cognitive skills. We improved it over the summer but it is not perfect by any means. It was similar to my experiences in high school in the sense that in advanced classes they were basically just expected to stay artistically busy.

 GOALS:

• ·      One goal that I can see developing is not being so hard on myself. I tend to put a lot of blame on myself when things don’t go as planned. I think that I will start being more open-minded that not everything can be planned and not everything will wok out perfectly. I just want to keep trying new things.
• ·      Another goal is improving my reflection in my advanced 3d classes. I am not a ceramics person, I mean I enjoy it, but it is not what I a best at. I think that since I am not the best at it I tend to let it go, it is just easier to not think about it. It is an area that I can afford to be a little more critical.
• ·      After the past couple weeks, I want to give more effort to myself, and my education than what I have been. I want to give a larger percentage of time to my own learning.

Week 2 Responses

Response to Ashley
Your goal is one that I hadn't thought of. I teach at the high school level and I too am not very good at follow through with consequences. I am a very laid back teacher and I think my students know that. Recently I have been having to really pay attention to what I say to students as far as consequences go, and as much as I hate to, I have started following through if they aren't complying with the rules of the room. My building also has certain rules that I do not necessarily agree with and this semester I have been having to crack down on that as well. I think I may steal your goal!

Response to Adair:

I think that you and I have something in common that we have that inner drive to be better. Many of my students love what I am doing with the art program and the teachers have come up to me and said what a difference they see in the students but I have trouble seeing it as much as they do I think. I am sure you are doing great and the fact that you are striving for better even when coworkers and students are doting on you makes you an incredible teacher.

Week 2 Parker, Palmer and Marzano

Reflections:

Parker and Palmer – Reading this article brought me right back to many of my gen. ed. college classes. Lecturing for hours, no discussion, 2 minutes left after class for the 50 questions we had in class. Then those stupid flash cards… I have made so many flash cards, and while they helped me pass my classes, I think many of the teachers “failed” me (not literally) by making me completely uninterested to take any class in their field again. Had the classes been engaging, it would have been something for me to consider, but I guess it’s a good thing, I wouldn’t want to do anything except art!!

One thing that struck chord with me is how, on page 39, the article talks about the students finding security in the passive way of teaching. That never occurred to me, but now thinking back, it is so true. It is the way we (or at least the way I) learned. I knew how to “get through” these classes; it felt normal. Not until I saw other teachers in action did I know that other ways of teaching even existed.

Objectivism, bringing in your own experiences. The story about Abba Felix was very interesting. I have had a couple teachers who have been a lot like Abba. They encourage play, thought, individuality, and they embrace the silence and value its thought provoking tendencies. I have made my best work with these teachers and I try to mirror them in my own class with my students. However, I am nowhere near their caliber. I get so passionate about my students’ pieces when they are passionate because they have so many ideas that can be made into wonderful pieces of art. The thing that gets into the way of their ideas coming to life (and this happens to me as well) is themselves. Their insecurity is so high, they are afraid of failure, they are afraid to show too much too of themselves.  In high school, I believe that is the biggest thing is the insecurity they feel that holds them back.

Marzano, Chapter 3 – To Say I was a bit overwhelmed while reading Marzano is a bit of an understatement. “a teacher need a rubric for each scale for each element. Scales for the forty-one elements are provided…” (p. 37) This seemed a bit daunting when I started reading. After I read the chapter and I was contemplating over the types of responses I employ in my classroom I was a little bit surprised that I generally only use two types of questioning and responses in my classroom. A lot of my time when students are working on projects is spent discussing what they are doing. I don’t necessarily go into a conversation looking for a particular answer, I am just gauging their understanding. Elaborative interrogation is something that I use a lot, I ask questions like “why did you choose that design?” or “How does that connect to our content?” Many of my students have gotten used to me coming around and can usually carry on a conversation about their work, but it took some time.  I also use many of the retrieval questions in my intro classes because many of them are learning the vocabulary for the first time. I ask them to use the vocabulary when they are talking to me which causes them to have to think back to the games we played for them to learn it in the first place.  I use many of the questions in the “Multiple types of questions” section. Maybe I should try to bring some new practices into my classroom.

As far as rating myself went, I found that I was scoring myself with mostly 3’s. Because I am a new teacher, I think that I do know these strategies, but I have not had enough practice with them. I feel, after reading this that, I am cheating some my students out of truly understanding the content that I am trying to teach and I feel that I am not encouraging them to think deep enough with what I teach in the classroom. Some of my students pick up on things so quickly, and some get left behind. Especially in one particular intro class where I have 5 out of 25 of my students in the special education program.  Most of them do not have the ability to do a lot of the units as they were designed but they love art so we let them do portions of the work but have to alter it greatly, I feel like I am not teaching them anything. I think that after reading over these chapters, I will be able to better reflect on how I teaching these kids and hopefully improve their experiences.

That got a little off topic, but the main similarity I noticed between the 12 characteristics and these ‘rubrics’ was the focus on the students. It is all about the students. They are what we are there for. Engaging the students, making relationship with students, communication with students, are all parts of being a 21^st century educator. We all know these things, how come it is so hard to put it into practice sometimes?