Moving Beyond Western Middle Class Cirriculum

Learning in, through or about art changes when we move beyond standard, Western European based, middle class curriculum in the following ways:

• We become perceptive of other cultures and art can become more diverse, colourful and cultural.
• We become perceptive of each student's special gifts and needs and our lessons will be more accessible to all learners.
• From a new view on art we are opened to new possibilities for materials and subject matter in art.
• Through art we can learn about other circular areas or interests outside of the traditional western ideas.

This brings up central issues for educators:

• We must always assume we do not know as much as we think we do. This reminds us to be constantly looking for different perspective on our student's and what we teach.
• We should be well educated in all cultures and not confine our thinking to only one cultural pedagogy.
• Special cases in education remind us that not every student is the same and such, our teaching should be as flexible, responsive and varied as the student's needs.

Some of the things that succeeded in my child workshop included:

• Having Christian engage and become interested in art. Prior to my experiences with her she had not been involved in art experiences on her own time.
• She learned some skills which she had not known before such as:digital photography, powerpoint, iPhoto and fashion design.
• I believe I picked a topic which connected to Christian's interests.

Some things that did not succeed were:

• Christian could not focus for long periods of time. I could not find a way to have her engage for longer. In the future I would try things like taking breaks to go outside or having music playing or changing the task frequently to keep her attention.
• I did not have enough time to do a good job at introducing the projects. In future I would plan my lesson better so that I could explore everything with her more easily.
• If I were to work with her again I would have had more evocations and provocations to peak her interest initially. As well I would find ways to keep her engaged and excited.

Community Based Learning

Community based learning is most often voluntary by the participant. This ensures that it is learner focused and not curriculum focused in most areas. It usually has smaller class sizes which makes the learning more individualized. In this setting children will be able to learn skills they may not be able to in school (swimming, music, skating...) as well as focus in on areas they want to learn more about. It can foster their talents and interests. Teaching in a community based setting allows the educator to develop their own program. They own it individually and can often tailor it to their philosophy and needs. There are exceptions where certain objectives need to be met, but the educator has an easier time because the learners want to be there in most cases. In a community based setting an educator can have more expertise in the area they want to teach.

Nicol Arts Museum Visit

Developmental Issues Grade 5-6:

• Obsessed with realism
• Able to discuss content and meaning
• In this step we could have students make sketches of their favourite work in the museum and show the examples of sketches by Marriam Nicol and Kent Ochhead. This shows students that the sketch is important to famous artists and can be considered important works of art.

Dream State (First Impressions):

• Examine the red and green hypnotic painting, "Dialated Garden" and the textured paintings including "White Threshhold"
• These works show the students the importance of teture, colour, pattern and even sound. We would have them give their first impressions and then have them look deeper into the pieces.

Play State (Analysis):

• In this step we would have students go on a scavenger hunt to look for the images of chairs in the different work around the museum.
• The teacher will pick a few to discuss in further detail to compare the different perspectives on the same subject matter.
• Back at school the student would create a paint by numbers for a friend to complete.

Research Activities:

• When looking at the Native art exhibit we would compare the artist's cultural backgrounds, their meaning and choices of mediums.
• There would be research done on Native culture prior to visiting the museum.

Metaphor State (Interpretation):

• In this step we would examine the comic book painting called "Bummer" by Chris Cran and compare this piece with "Scarecrow" by Maxwell Bates.
• In comparing these works the students would not know the title of the painting, but would have to tell us what they think it is about.
• One painting is obvious and one is not so obvious so their scope of interpretation changes.

Concept State:

• This section would have us examine the John Snow wood block prints and see how he used positive and negative space.
• Artistic process would be considered as well as content.
• Back at school the students would create their own prints.

Child Workshop Issues

Some issues that arose in testing my lesson plan:

• I started out by teaching Christian about how to take a photo and how to try different compositions when taking photos. I had her try close shots, shots from below and shots from above. We took several pictures and then loaded them onto my mac book. I had to prompt her to try new things with the camera because I believe she is used to just pointing and shooting instead of considering the picture first.
• When we loaded the pictures onto my computer we use iPhoto to edit them. She had never used the program before so I had to teach her the basics. I showed her how to crop, add special effects, change the colouring through things like saturation, exposure and contrast. I took a succession of pictures of her sliding down a pole on the playground so we used those to try different effects. She liked changing the colours and seemed to have a lot of fun with the process.
• Next, we took the altered photos and put them into Keynote where we added different animation effects and transitions to show her journey down the pole in an interesting way. She seemed a little less interested in this step. Christian tends to have a very short attention span and looses focus on tasks if they aren't changed or altered frequently. I found this occurred several times in our experiences.
• After doing the photography with Christian I sent her home with a disposable camera so that she could take some photos on her own. I was hoping that we could then take those photos and alter them manually with paint and drawing materials. When I got the photos back from being developed I did not see any photos we could do something very meaningful with so I just gave her them to keep.
• I was thinking about the things that Christian is into and remembered that she likes to play games on the computer where you put different outfits on virtual dolls. This lead me to my final project with Christian. I decided to explore fashion design with her so I brought some templates of different clothing items for her to colour in and design. She only spent about 10 minutes on this activity before she wanted to move onto something else. I decided after this that I would leave my lesson plan for her to do the rest at home.

I believe that now every detail of situations can be anticipated. Planing breaks for play is important for a responsive teaching approach because it keeps the student focused and energized for the task at hand. There are no safety issues that I could see arising.

Emily Carr

My most meaningful experience in an art gallery was after high school when the Emily Carr exhibit was at the Glenbow Museum. Emily Carr had always intrigued me as an artist. I had basic knowledge of her work before I visited her exhibit at the Glenbow. As I was going through the gallery looking at her paintings I was amazed at the variety of painting styles she tried in her lifetime. I had only ever seen her later work and liked to see her experimentation stage. As I moved through the gallery I was inspired by her craftsmanship, and ability to capture the beauty of Canada in her paintings. The most meaningful part of the show was when I listened to a presentation about her life an experiences as an artist. I learned that she was not always the easiest person to get along with and she was a teacher for most of her life so she could pay the bills. She had lots of mental health issues in her life and had unusual pets. I really connected with her story and it was the first time that I ever explored the person behind their art. In relation to Dewey's notion of a "good" experience this gallery visit allowed me to be interested in artists and art history and the story behind their work. I my art school experience this has helped me to find meaning in all the ut.

Sculpture Documentation

Vince showed us a sculpture project which included an animated provocation of acting like our creatures, developing our own character based on Greek myths, and exectuing our project in wire and plasticine.
The project was very open ended and creative which made it fun and engaging.