Revised Teaching Philosophy

I believe that the visual arts overlap and connect all aspects in one's learning, interactions with culture and society, and one's self discovery. The visual arts are ways to document history, describe culture, express emotion, inspire technology, critique society, and examine individual ideas. Appreciating, creating, and talking knowledgeably about art are valuable tools for every individual. By studying art, students can look at the world they live in critically through different points of views. Our world is made up of art, and because we are surrounded by it, we should explore it. I believe teaching art should be a combination of studying the aesthetics and meaning behind other artists' work, and the students' interpretations of art through their own creativity. An art class should be a place where students feel fearless in their work, knowing that mistakes are simply tools for their success. Teaching art gives students the rare opportunity to break boundaries and truly analyze and form their own definitions of the world they live in.

To be an effective art teacher, I need to understand my students. I must take the time to show them that every individual student matters, and that their work is valuable. By developing a personal relationship with my students, I will be able to help guide them throughout their creative process. I will treat each of my students with equity rather then equality. Every student is an individual learner and creator, and they should therefore be assessed individually. Success is measured by personal improvement rather than competition amongst classmates. Also, to be an effective teacher, I need to be an artist as well. I must acquire the proper knowledge and the skills in order to teach them. Modeling the techniques to my students is a key component to their learning and for setting them up for success. Learning is an ongoing processes, and I will never stop improving as a teacher and an artist. I must continue making art so that I maintain my passion for it. If we do not believe in the power of what we teach, we are doing our students a disservice.

To demonstrate my ability to teach, I will need my personal art work, my ideas, and my experience as evidence. My teaching ability will improve from continuously interacting with real students. I believe learning how to teach is most effective through actual hands-on teaching. I will need to have many ideas and lessons plans already prepared before I gain teaching credibility. These will be rich with content, meaning, and big ideas that students will use as driving forces for their creative production. Also, the work I have created over the years as a developing artist will be the proof of my capability of executing techniques and conceptual ideas. Most importantly, learning from my mistakes in order to make improvements will positively impact my teaching ability. 

Put simply, I wish to better the lives of students everyday through teaching. No one can deny the strong correlation between education and success. Every teacher's philosophy will differ in one way or another, but we must share the passion and determination to make a positive difference. Teaching is a privilege, a calling, and an upmost responsibility. Ultimately, the youth's future rests in our creative hands. 

Summative Reflection

Throughout my semester in the Overview to Art Education course, I have learned so many valuable things about what it means to be a great art educator. Although I was always passionate about art's impact on students, I realized that there is so much more to teaching than simply regurgitating the elements and principles of art. I learned that art is more than an elective, a hobby, or an easy A. Teaching art to students is not only cross-curricular, but it also demands the highest level of thinking.

From my experiences, I realized the importance of being prepared. As a future teacher, I have learned to expect the un-expected; preparation and planning is crucial. This calls for organization and effective classroom management. Regarding the class topics, I learned that viewing the work of artists to build knowledge and context is something that I will absolutely implement in my classroom. The method of Visual Thinking Strategies is a powerful way to allow students to think deeply, analyze, and make their own connections to artwork. Also, the creation of art should always have a purpose behind it. Unit plans and students' work should stem from a big idea to ensure meaningful making. I will always model  techniques for my students and provide exemplars to show students what success looks like. It is important that my expectations always remain clear through the use of rubrics. Finally, I feel that an art curriculum should have a balance between concept and technical execution.

I now have a clearer idea of my identity as an artist teacher. As I gain more knowledge, my confidence in my ability to teach grows stronger. I think communication with students is a strength of mine. I have a sincere desire to develop a strong relationship with each of my students. I will continue to develop my skills in different media, as well as develop innovative ideas for meaningful units.

I intend to add more artwork, more reflections from teaching experiences, and revisions to my philosophy to my portfolio in the coming semesters.

Teaching Portfolio

I assembled my teaching portfolio on a separate blog. It contains evidence as well as a full synthesis of what I have learned throughout the Overview to Art Education course. 

Click here to view.

Unit Plan

Journal: Reflection on Classroom Management

For my field experience, I am in an elementary school, and I get to spend class periods with 1st and 3rd graders. Classroom management in an elementary school is crucial in order for an art class to run smoothly. I think my field teacher has great classroom management, and it all revolves around organization. Students sit at tables all with a different assigned color. Supply containers and folders for students' work are also color coated and correspond to the different tables. The students at each table are also given a number one through five. Each number is responsible for different tasks when gathering materials and cleaning up. Having this system of categorizing students is very helpful for the teacher because every student knows their role and their responsibility. She sends the students to get materials by color so that everyone doesn't crowd around at once, and she does the same when she dismisses them to line up. This is a tool I would love to use in my own classroom. Also, to monitor behavior, the teacher is good at demanding the students respect and attention in a nice way. I think it is so important for elementary level teachers to come across as warm and welcoming. There must be balance, and teachers must be careful not to be intimidating and scary, while still maintaining authority. The students in my field classrooms all work together to receive a maximum of six points if they display good behavior. The class points are compared to the other classes and are used as a way of friendly competition. The students seem to respond well to this method, and they all are motivated by the idea of earning points. Throughout the class, it is important to sometimes stop the students, get their attention, and evaluate their current behavior. The students are then aware of what they need to do to correct themselves as they continue working. The main things that I will take away from my teacher and apply to my own classroom are to establish an authority position, to maintain a positive and cheerful attitude, to practice patience, and to master a system of organization. If I have good classroom management in my art room, I then have the ability to create meaningful and rich unit plans. If I earn my students respect and trust, they will feel more comfortable expressing themselves and challenging themselves to be more creative.

Blog entry #4: Assessment

Why is it important to employ several assessment strategies when teaching art?

Assessing art in a classroom is perhaps more complicated than assessing students in other content areas. Within a class, students are at many different artistic skill levels, so it is difficult to grade all students on the same scale. Students will have different strengths, and some will pick up techniques easier than others. For some, art might be a passion of some students and they will feel intrinsically motivated to create good, meaningful work. Other students may not only struggle in executing skills due to their lack of exposure, but they might also simply dislike art. As an art teacher, I wouldn't set higher or lower standards for these students, but rather I'd set different standards. Instead of comparing a student's work with to their classmates', I think is is important to look at their personal growth. From seeing how a student progresses and improves throughout lessons, a teacher can determine what they have learned. It is also beneficial for the students themselves to see how they have grown throughout their art work. I also think that it is important for art educators to communicate with students that mistakes shouldn't be viewed as "bad." In other subjects, students are used to thinking that a mistake means something is incorrect, and therefore a failure. However in art, mistakes are simply learning tools for success. Without first making errors, an artist doesn't grow. When assessing students in my classroom, I think it's important they have a part in the process. For every unit, I think students should view their classmates' work and exchange suggestions and feedback. I want my students to be able to talk openly about their work. Furthermore, I think it is vital for students to self-critique through reflection. By answering questions about their own art pieces, they can recognize what they have learned and realize what they can improve on.

Artist Statement

Big Idea: Beauty

Beauty is one of the most coveted qualities humans strive to achieve, especially in today's society. There is an overwhelming pressure to look a certain way in order to be accepted and desired. The idealized image of beauty has strict criteria about what facial features and body type is ideal. These images are overwhelmingly repeated in the media, and viewers perception of "normal" is tainted as a result. My purpose for this book is to question the idea of beauty. Beauty is often associated with perfection, however, perfection can never be reached. The process of altering ourselves in order to be beautiful coincidentally, make us artificial.

Book pages 7 & 8

Pastel and India ink

Artist Statement:

On pages 7 and 8 of my book, I'm again dealing with the idea of perfection. I feel like people in today's generation strive to be and look perfect, but that it is all subjective. Women especially constantly feel criticized; we constantly criticize others and ourselves. Page 7 shows different facial features: eyes, noses, and mouths, as well as different body types. Certain features are circled, crossed out, or paired with others to symbolize how individuals constantly feel the need to edit and change their appearance. This idealized version of beauty is sometimes impossible to achieve. On page 8, the text in red reads: "If nobody is perfect...and beauty cannot be perfection...then why isn't imperfection beautiful."

Blog Post #3

Why teach art?

After watching the Crayola videos, it furthered my opinion on the importance of art education. When students learn about and create art, they are learning so many valuable skills. One of the most important things students learn, in my opinion, is how to be creative. Creativity is a vital 21st century skill, and is beneficial in all subject areas, not just art. Art also teaches students to think critically and allows them to interpret the world they live in. In life, there isn't always a right and wrong answer. Art helps students realize that there are shades of gray, and that there are different ways of viewing and responding to something. When students get to be creative and produce their own artwork, it allows them to have a voice. Art promotes confidence, self esteem, and self worth in students. 

My philosophy for teaching is to make sure students can be fearless in my class room. Every student's artwork is important. I want my class to allow students to express themselves visually. Finding big idea in art and creating real meaning is something I will focus strongly on. Art teachers have the power and the responsibility to facilitate a rich learning environment, full of creativity and free of judgement. 

Guest Artist pages 5 & 6

Host artist: Lauren
Big Idea: Identity

Lauren is interested in the idea of curiosity driving the discovery of her identity. My two pages bring my interest about the individual. Page 5 says, "in a world full of people, how will you stand out?" Our identity is how we differentiate ourselves from others. Page 6 is a close-up of a face painted in multiple colors. This is emphasizes the uniqueness of the individual and all the qualities that make up one's identity.

Page 5

Page 6

MUMAA artwork

 MUMAA piece:

"Lovely Maiden" Mask (mwanaphwo)
Angola, Chokwe people Wood, raffia and other flibers.

Muesum description: 

Mwanaphwo literally means "young woman." Masks like this depict an archetypal ancestral personality who died at a young age. The mask's eyes are rendered as narrow slits, indicative of a dead person. Only male dancers wear these masks; women never do. The masks are used in village performances for boys' initiation, or "coming of age," ceremonies. Such masks also symbolize the prominence women enjoy in the Chokwe's matrilineal society.

          Image Board

Big Ideas in MUAA artwork "Lovely Maiden":

-Story --> Character

-Identity

-History

Utilizing this in Tiger Artist Lesson: 

Drawing from the big idea of story, I would tiger artists look at this piece and try to make inferences about the person being depicted in the mask. I would have them focus on the character of the mask. Students will then create a mask of a character they create and develop themselves. 

Essential Questions: 

-What is a function of a mask?

-In what cultures and time periods do we see masks? 

-What types of facial expressions depict certain emotions? 

-What do the material or medium say about the character? 

-How can we show personality through accessories?

-How does color play into character? 

Artistic Concepts:

-Form

-Texture

-Line 

-Color 

How do all of these express different emotions? 

Big Idea Book (pages 3 & 4)

Media: charcoal, colored pencil, watercolor

Artist Statement: 
The artist I chose to collaborate with is Daniele Buetti. He works a lot with photography and advertising, focusing on the role media plays in our lives in relationship to our identity. Using images of fashion models, he adds light and alters the image to show a juxtaposition between beauty and despair. He uses light to enchant the viewers and manipulate them in the same way the media tricks our society into forming stereotypes about beauty. The image shown below is one of Buetti's pieces that I used to influence the pages in my book. Using charcoal and colored pencil, I drew a similar-looking woman. However, even though the viewer may perceive her as beautiful, she looks at her reflection in sadness as tears fall from her eyes. Her tears fall into a pool of water that spell out the word "flaw." Over everything else, the woman does not see a true reflection of herself, rather only her flaws. On the fourth page behind the text is a golden framed mirror. I believe that in today's society, women especially, have an obsession with how they are perceived. Because of the images we are exposed to, beauty to many people is a strict term with guidelines and criteria. It is this this coveted quality that is impossible to achieve when we are constantly comparing ourselves.

Big Idea Artists (Journal)

Big Idea Book (pages 1 & 2)

Cover

Page 1 and 2

The big idea my book is focusing on is beauty. I am really interested in how people perceive beauty in different ways. I also want to draw attention to society's view on beauty and how the media and our culture influence our ideas on what it means to be beautiful. I especially want to focus on the pressure women feel to look a certain way, and how we feel the need to alter ourselves to meet a certain standard.

On page one of the book, there are two sets of text. The text on the top is the dictionary's definition of beauty. On the bottom, I have written trivial questions about beauty: "Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Is beauty only skin deep? Is beauty on the inside, or on the outside? Is there a such thing as natural beauty? What is beauty?" Page 2 of the book shows a collage of magazine images. These are all faces used in advertisements showing the viewers what is considered beautiful in today's society.

Journey Map

This piece is a visual description of my journey to art education. The collaged images are my artwork over the years; some of them were projects, others were taken out of my old sketch books. I included a couple of post-it notes from a previous art teacher giving me feedback on drawings. The comments represent how my skills progressed during my journey through art. The most important part of this piece to me are the two photos of my sister, Lauren. In both photos she is shown working on her own art. My sister has influenced me so much; she was my first un-official art teacher. When I was little, we would have little lessons together and she would make still-lifes for me to practice drawing in my bedroom. She is such an inspiration to me, and I always wanted to be just like her. Lauren helped me find my love for art.

Reading Reflection

After reading "Signs of Change: Art Education in the Age of the iKid," my eyes are even more opened to the importance of art education for our future students. The next generation, the "iKids," are going to require a completely new approach to teaching from every subject. I think that art to these students, now more than ever, will arguably be one of their most influential and beneficial subject areas. As art teachers, we can utilize their knowledge in technology, and push their capabilities and creativity. According to the text, "art education can make a difference in an increasingly complex, interconnected world." Understanding art gives the next generation a way of making connections and decoding culture through visual interpretation. The world we live in calls for much analysis; it is not black and white, but rather quite subjective. Art can teach students to be thinkers, problem solvers, and innovators.

The article "Interpreting Connotations in Visual Culture," allowed me to make further connections between art and the way society thinks. We are influenced on a daily basis by the images we see, and we sometimes mistake them for fact. Even those who are poorly educated are visually literate. They make inferences from the content they see in images and media, and then form opinions. Certain stereotypes have remained in our culture because they are confirmed by art and advertisements. I thought an interesting comment made in the text was that "learners as young as 3 and 4 years old were able to use the construct of denotations and connotations." As art educators, we can give our students the knowledge and the tools to make educated decisions based on the images that surround them. We can essentially teach open-mindedness and discourage ignorance for our future generation. That is a huge opportunity and responsibility that art teachers have.

ART:21 Big Idea Lesson: Paradox

1) Opening Discussion:

-What is paradox?
-What are examples of contradictions?
-How can we physically creating paradox in the process of art making?
-In what aspects of life do we see duality? (Socially, Physically, Culturally)

2) Show Art:21 video on Mark Bradford
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/mark-bradford

3) Take a closer look at Bradford's work:

"The Devil is Beating His Wife"

-Discuss the idea of two conditions happening at the same time

• Example: sunshine during rain. What could this mean metaphorically?

"A Truly Rich Man"

-Discuss contradictions regarding utopia

• "A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms even when his hands are empty

-Discuss collage vs. de-collage 

• What expressions are evoked from one technique versus the other?

4) Assignment:

-Choose a particular paradox or contradiction 

-Using Mark Bradford's work as inspiration, create a mixed media

collage that depicts the chosen contradiction 

-Must use at least three different mediums 

-Materials can include, but are not limited to:

• paint 
• ink
• paper
• photos
• found materials 

-Create an artist statement explaining your work

Watercolor Blog spring '12

This is my blog from my intermediate watercolor painting class with Claire Stigliani. Claire did an awesome job emphasizing the importance of concept and theme in order to create a body of work! I loved her class.

Art Blog Link

Journal: Big Idea Lists

Entry #1: Response to Walker and Gude readings

As art education moves in to the 21st century, the structure and formality in which art is presented in textbooks and through description is less important. Rather than emphasizing the memorization and understanding of the elements and principles of design, art educators are now teaching overall themes, concepts, and cultural connections. According to Gude, discussions on the meaning of art are "more likely to center on the context within which the art was made and seen and the cultural codes the artists chooses to reference and manipulate." As a teacher, it is important to understand that if our students can only formally describe art through vocabulary, they are missing most of its purpose. Without understanding concepts and big ideas (like Walker describes in her text), they are not truly analyzing art in the way the artist intended. By finding personal connections to the works of different artists, students can apply that inspiration into their own creative processes and throughout their own art making.

Teaching Philosophy (draft 1):

I believe that the visual arts overlap and connect all aspects in one's learning, interactions with culture and society, and one's self discovery. The visual arts are ways to document history, describe culture, express emotion, inspire technology, critique society, and examine individual ideas. Appreciating, creating, talking knowledgeably about art are valuable tools for every individual. By studying art, students can look at the world they live in critically through different points of views. Our world is made up of art, and because we are surrounded by it, we should explore it. I believe teaching art should be a combination of studying the aesthetics and meaning behind other artists' work, and the students' interpretations of art through their own creativity. An art class should be a place where students feel fearless in their work, knowing that mistakes are simply tools for their success. Teaching art gives students the rare opportunity to break boundaries and truly analyze and form their own definitions of the world they live in.

To be an effective art teacher, I need to understand my students. I must take the time to show them that every individual student matters, and that their work is valuable. By developing a personal relationship with my students, I will be able to help guide them throughout their creative process. Also, to be an effective teacher, I need to be an artist as well. I must acquire the proper knowledge and the skills in order to teach them. I must continue making art so that I maintain my passion for it. Modeling the techniques to my students is a key component to their learning.

To demonstrate my ability to teach, I will need my personal art work, my ideas, and my experience as evidence. My teaching ability will improve from continuously interacting with real students. I will need to have many ideas and lessons plans already prepared before I gain teaching credibility. Finally, the work I have created over the years as a developing artist will be the proof of my capability of executing techniques and conceptual ideas.