After spending a semester studying different theories and putting them into practice with students in our service learning groups, it was made clear to me just how involved everything is with making sure students have the best education that can be provided. There were several instances where I overlooked something only to realize that it would could have made a crucial difference in how the lesson would have played out. However, there were an equal amount of times where I noticed the theory working out the way we had discussed in class and how it was reviewed in class discussions. Everything from readings, essays, notes, and explorations will help and have helped us better understand what it is to be a teacher and I will refer back to these moments in the years to come.
Food for Thought
With the semester reaching its end, and looking back everything that was covered, my head is still spinning from the amount of information that was passed on to me. What I've found to stick with me are a few things that deal more with open-ended creativity and lesson planning. I see a classroom as a place for students to do what interests them by working with topics that excite them rather than the teacher deciding everything. This would help promote students with their "originator instinct" along with how they use signs, symbols, and metaphors in their work; partly because they would be working with ideas on their own without worrying about specific guidelines and because it would become more personal to them. It would do them well too to work with their inner critic and discuss with other students to gain feedback from a source other than a teacher. The part would be how art should be akin to how a child's is universal and self-taught along with allowing students to see their schemas in art and what stereotypes they follow.
Advancing forward, I want to bring back the originator instinct where students do not focus on making something the way the know it to be and more on how it looks in front of them. Somewhere along the line they begin to lose the originality of just making marks and putting materials on surfaces, and focus on what is "expected" of them to make in art. Part of this is on what they see and what feedback they are given when they ask about their artwork. Someone might say "That's not the way a horse looks" when in reality it's a horse to you and then you abandon that style because it "wasn't" what it was supposed to be.
This works with the inner critic, as well, with how students criticize themselves internally for how something doesn't look quite right like they wanted. I feel that the inner critic become more of a criticizer than a commenter the more the originator instinct goes away because it focuses too much on the "what it should be" rather than the "what it could be". By focusing the lessons on what students want to work with and explore, this would allow them to open up and create what they want. In turn, it could be used to help guide them back to the way of children's art where it just works with what they intended and doesn't rely on the influences of others' thoughts.
The biggest thing that I've taken away from the semester to make sure the students grow without hindering their ability and capacity to create. They should not have to worry about what others are going to think about it because all art is made for a personal consumption and understanding. It shouldn't become something designed for only the public because of the way art started as a way of personal expression. That's why I want to continue researching these ideas so that I can better understand them myself and pass them on to future students.
Advancing forward, I want to bring back the originator instinct where students do not focus on making something the way the know it to be and more on how it looks in front of them. Somewhere along the line they begin to lose the originality of just making marks and putting materials on surfaces, and focus on what is "expected" of them to make in art. Part of this is on what they see and what feedback they are given when they ask about their artwork. Someone might say "That's not the way a horse looks" when in reality it's a horse to you and then you abandon that style because it "wasn't" what it was supposed to be.
This works with the inner critic, as well, with how students criticize themselves internally for how something doesn't look quite right like they wanted. I feel that the inner critic become more of a criticizer than a commenter the more the originator instinct goes away because it focuses too much on the "what it should be" rather than the "what it could be". By focusing the lessons on what students want to work with and explore, this would allow them to open up and create what they want. In turn, it could be used to help guide them back to the way of children's art where it just works with what they intended and doesn't rely on the influences of others' thoughts.
The biggest thing that I've taken away from the semester to make sure the students grow without hindering their ability and capacity to create. They should not have to worry about what others are going to think about it because all art is made for a personal consumption and understanding. It shouldn't become something designed for only the public because of the way art started as a way of personal expression. That's why I want to continue researching these ideas so that I can better understand them myself and pass them on to future students.