Entry #7 #Consideration 10/07/2019

The event that I am reflecting on is when one of my students couldn't come up with an idea for designing the cover of her sketchbook. When I sat down with her to help her ideation process, the first graders sitting next to her actually turned around and started to chime in and inform me what she's interested in. With their collaboration on helping her, she was able to come up with an idea all on her own. This event made me think about the Reggio Emilia philosophy and how it relates to the student-centered and constructivist aspect that uses self-directed, experiential learning in relationship-driven environments. 

This event actually is a very good example for me when taking into consideration other peoples ideas about my artwork. Sometimes when I create certain work, I become very attached to what I'm doing which can make me have a closed mind to what others opinions about my artwork could potentially be. When my student opened up and let her peers share their ideas with her, she was able to take those concepts and them make them her own. She would probably would not have been able to come up with what she had if it weren't for those other students sharing their ideas and opinions. This can also go as far as taking into consideration to what my professors say about my work by providing certain resources and artist for me to look at and how I can use their ideas to create a more improved version of my work.

This experience helped me understand that students are capable of coming up with ideas on their own and can receive help from more than just me, which includes their peers. Sometimes I feel like I'm prone to assassinating students more than I need to when instead I should be following the Reggio Emilia philosophy more and allowing my students to take more control of their own learning. I also learned how important it is to create an open atmosphere in the classroom where students can feel free to give feedback and comments to other students. It was important for me to step back in this situation and allow the other students to chime in so that the one student who felt stuck could collaborate and build relationships with other students (receiving ideas from peers other than myself).