Reading Assignment 2

As I read these two Eisner chapters I thought this is information we as teacher have heard and read about my times, but it is always good to review. I hear once in a psychology class that an adult must receive information 8 times in context before it is retained into long term memory. There where two main points Eisner discussed that made me think on my teaching skills.

One was “Art teachers need to know when to back off and to allow the student to find out for him or herself.” I feel I do hover over students too much. One reason I think I do this is my need for control. The other is because this past school year I have been teaching on a cart and have not felt completely comfortable in someone else’s classroom. This has caused me literally stand over students as they work. Regardless of the reasons for hovering, the result has been student feel they have to justify every aspect of their work with me before continuing, which is not only frustrating but extremely limiting to their creativity. This is one area of teaching I am determined to improve upon.

The other point Eisner makes that has me reflecting on how I teach is “Students should know not only what they are being asked to do, but why.” This past school year (my first year teaching) has made me realized how thankful I am that I am now in a district/school where I can write MY OWN CURRICULUM. Not to say that the curriculum set in CPS is bad, I just focused too much at achieving all its aims. This caused me to create some crap lessons to fit those aims instead of focusing on more thought provoking, meaningful lessons. Example: 4^th grade GLE PP3A4; VA1; FA1 Create an abstract portrait and still life by exaggerating, distorting, or simplifying the subject. So my brilliant idea- lets pull random objects out of a bag and create still-lifes and the draw them. Stupidest lesson ever! And big shock my students hated that lesson. This is an instance when the student and I didn’t know why we where creating this. So I have learned if a lesson is not going well scrap it or change it.

Sorry for my rant.

Freedman’s second chapter was a little bit easier to read then chapter 1. If students (artist) are going to be creating a work of art they need to know why, when, who, and what has been created in the past. This way ideas can be remade. Example if an artist had never heard of pointillism or Georges Seurat they may try to purpose an idea for creating a painting using small dots instead of strokes. We can’t reinvent the wheel but we can make a more awesome wheel or wheel like thing. As I read this chapter I thought of the spark in Imagination first rewriting history. What if a current artwork was never created or art movement never started? What would be the ramifications? Or would some other artist create that art or start that art movement further on in time?