What events/moments/experiences change or refine on my past perspective to look at teaching and learning now?
A main theme that I saw throughout this last class was the expression of personal values, interests, and important figures in their lives. The students connected the learning target to their creation of sketchbook drawings. In the past, I used to think that students just created art just for the concept of creating it. After this experience, I learned that the students in fact were drawing from ideas and concepts they observe in the world around them. They drew figures that were either family members or characters they recently have seen in a movie or read in a book. This showed me how important it is to make relationships with the students to know what is going on in their lives to further understand their art and help them ideate.
How can I utilize art to represent my change or revision?Â
In this specific case, I used this artwork to correlate the colors to evoke emotion in representing how I was feeling during the teaching experience. The colors that one chooses to use in a work of art is important in how it can communicate a specific message to the viewer. Art in it of itself is a form of communication and the colors that you use are crucial to the message that you are going to convey.
How can different materials/forms assist me to express the change or revision? Just as I learned how the students use figures and ideas from experiences that happen in their daily lives, I decided to create a piece that represented the emotions that I was feeling in the class when I was teaching. For this painting, I added shades of red and yellow which represented the happy feeling that I was having while teaching while the crumpledness of the paper represented the obstacles that I faced during the lesson.
How does this experience influence my path of be/coming an artist and educator?
This experience of teaching helped me realize where the ideation stems from in the art making of the students. Sometimes as artist we forget to recognize and appreciate the process of our ideas which is vital in the understanding our students. The more we understand what is going on in our students lives and community, the more we can help the students ideate and appreciate why they are creating the pieced they do.
