Hello to all of the creative people on this blog,
I am inspired by your enthusiasm and your creative research! I wanted to share my research over this past week.
I am an art teacher and this is my first year teaching and I am overwhelmed! I hear that it will be much better once I get all of my lesson plans in place and I get my rhythm, whatever that means.
I have struggled over this week grading artwork, entering grades, dealing with discipline problems in a couple of my classes, and trying to take care of things at home too. Busy life right now. Seven different art classes!
Researching the 5 books seems to fall into last place, since everything else seems to demand my attention right now. Although, I have been reading about the atelier methods in the Juliette Aristides book called Classical Realism Drawing. I have studied this method at Tacoma Fine Arts Academy with an artist named Hans Nordlund. I learned so much from drawing from still life and how light is intrinsically linked to form and light. I wanted to share this knowledge with my high school students, but they are not ready to try this. I have taught at art school where I was able to successfully tutor students who wanted to draw better. They are very talented and have continued in their art lessons. I am no longer able to teach them because I moved from there, but I know they were able to have a good start. Good research put into practice has given me more experience than before.
I am looking forward to going to Junction to learn from others how to teach art and try new techniques! That is what I am looking forward to. This creative research is a stepping stone on to new adventures waiting for me. I am hoping to learn more about oil painting and create an oil painting that I can learn and develop from. I have very little time right now to create art of my own, but I have to create examples of the artwork to inspire my students to create their own artwork. It is challenging and as they say, "what won't kill you will make you stronger." So, today that is my motto for life.
Art is Life.
Paula
Paula,
ReplyDeleteHow did your last week of teaching go? Just an "fyi" for you: I am in my 12th year teaching at my current school, and there are days that I still scratch my head trying to figure out the best ways to engage my students, how to get them interested in a project and allow them the opportunity to take it to a place where it becomes "their own". Each group of students is unique just as each student is unique.
I had a pretty good week, but one of my students got in trouble and I had to write him up for disrespect and for leaving the class. I have a hard time engaging them in my first year. While I am excited, it doesn't always translate into engaging lessons yet. I need to find a better way. Some of them just want to make things without learning any vocabulary or have me lecture. So, I will just try to connect with them with hands-on projects and try to teach them while they are drawing, painting, etc. They challenge me and compare me to the last teacher they had.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about how each group of students is unique,so much so that it feels like the room is totally different. It feels like it transforms. Strange, I know, but that is how dynamically different they are. I love when they want to be there to create, but my challenge is to encourage the ones who don't want to make art to try something they never thought they could do. I did find one or two of those so far, and they surprise themselves.
Anyway, thanks for the advice, and I would love to hear from you about your experiences teaching.