Week 1 - Teaching Art

Overview: In our first session of class we discussed what we wanted to be able to do as teachers, and what kind of teachers we wanted to be. We also talked about teaching art, and our Professor - Dan Barney - modeled an example of a lesson plan.

Goals of a Future Teacher:

1. Integration - there will be many different types of students in your classroom, students with different abilities and ways of learning. Integrating arts into the classroom enhances learning for all types of students.
   
2. Make it practical - Make lesson plans that are applicable for students, that have real world ties.
   
3. Make it Individual - Structure your lessons in a way that gets the students actively engaged and allows them to find their own meaning in the lesson
4. Collective/share - Make room for class discussion and group work, it lets students learn from each other and to gain new points of view.
   
5. Don't stop learning - Keep learning as you teach, don't stop your knowledge at a third grade level. The more you know, the more you will be able to teach your students.

Dan Barney's two important Roles to being a teacher:

1. Love your students: Utilize the Holy Ghost in the classroom. It is a gift. Use it in your classroom because it will only make you a better teacher.
   
2. Love your self: self explanatory. Take care of yourself. Continue to allow yourself to grow.

Teaching Metaphors:
Rhizome: grows in all different directions and continues to grow as it builds on what is already there. Teachers help children to build off of what they know and continue to help them grow.
Sword in the Stone: Just as Arthur already has the potential to be king and pull the sword from the stone, students have all the potential to be what they want, they just need help discovering it. Teachers need to be Merlins, allowing students to discover their true potential.

Teaching Art:

Never say that you can't do something. You are capable of anything. The only reason people think they can't do something is because someone has told them they can't.

Never say you aren't an artist, or you can't do art. What is art? Anything can be art.

Example Lesson Plan:

What is art? What are the qualifications?

For this lesson we explored soft sculptures. They are simply sculptures made with materials like cloth and foam rubber. Some artist who have used soft sculpture are: Claes Oldenburg and Annette Messager.
This lesson can be used when talking about recycling and the environment. Students can learn about recycling and then find materials at home or outside that can be used to help make their sculptures.
This lesson can also be integrated with English by having students make up a poem or story about their sculpture. For example: to the left is Cami the Camel from Cambodia. You can't tell from this picture, but Cami has a little round tongue and she loves to lick things like lollipops and Popsicles.

My Thoughts
I really like the discussion that we had in this class session. It really helped me to zone in on what my goals are, what kind of teacher I want to be, how I want to teach. I definitely want to integrate the arts into my classroom, children need art. And I definitely will not be the talking mouth at the head of the classroom- my students will be involved in their own learning. They will discover things on their own, with my guidance of course, but they will be working for it.