I am teaching in my mums school for three days. I have a bunch of 12 year olds. 6th class. Already they have lost the innocent magic of the really young and now are worried that they can’t draw and anything they do will not live up to their own exact standards. Its kinda frustrating especially since I love what they produce, so fresh still and naive. I am doing an art project where they have thought of who they would like to be when they are older (outside any considerations of backround, whether they think they are clever enough, gender, in short anything the mind reckons is a reason not to do this) there are quite a few beauticians, an architect, a trillionare (I asked how she was going to get there and she said win the lotto, right…), a vet, and of course the usual few who shrug the shoulders and mutter ‘I dunno’ .
Tips for art in the classroom, particularly this age group
Talk about what you are going to do beforehand. Talk about the story or poem you want to do. Discuss with the class the kind of things they could put in the picture, ask them how they think they could illustrate the scene. They will give each other ideas. It helps to have a starting point, a theme a goal you can work towards. You can ditch the goal but its good to start out with one. Tie it in with music. The sorcerers apprentice, peter and the wolf, the nutcracker suite are a few good ones.
Stress most strongly the importance of drawing BIG. I find they gravitate towards small. Especially 10 to 12 year olds who are using pencils. Younger than that give them big chunky crayons and markers. I told them today I wanted the head at the top of the page and the feet down the bottom. Ask them whats in the backround, what else could you put in there, fill the page.
Get them to choose one scene or one character and develop it. In a scene maybe try to pick three characters and talk about how you could show the action happening. The thing is to get them thinking about the picture before they start drawing. To expand their ideas on what could be in a picture.
When using paint give them a tutorial in keeping the paints separate and washing the brush properly before they use it on the next colour. Give them big brushes.
At home you can give your child a wall and let them loose. When its full take a photo, paint it white again and they start over on a fresh wall.
For me its a balancing act between giving new skills and encouraging creativity and staying out of the way for them to discover it themselves. They get great satisfaction from gaining more control of the medium they are working in and discovering new ways of manipulating it and my job is to give them that and at the same time push them past the ‘I can’t draw’
They will draw the picture and then we are going to stick fabric instead of paint. I have buttons and sequins for them to sew on and wool for hair. Should be fun.
and there is no such thing as not being able to draw
June 11th, 2008 at 11:26 am
I think its great that you believe in “giving new skills and encouraging creativity and staying out of the way for them to discover it themselves.” I think that one of the most important aspect in teaching art is for student to discover themselves. In this, it is necessary to find out how a students background, style, and interests can be used to enhance his/her works of art. In my K-12 art experiences, we were always given the assignement with little room for individual, creative thinking. With any assignment, I think students should be given the opportunity to put their own “twist” on the requirements in order to make the piece reflect their style.
I also think that it is necessary to build students confidence, and emphasize that, while drawing is sometimes an innate ability, it can also be learned, and everybody can learn to draw with time and the right teaching. I am currently reading a book called “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,” and this book emphasizes the notion that drawing is simply a manner of training one’s eye to see the technical components in art. Emphasizing this will help students get past the “I can’t draw” stage.
I am currently a student working on my degree to become an art educator, and everyday I am learning about the little things that influence a final piece of work. I think one of the most important things in improving a student’s artistic ability is being able to recognize his/her learning style. Are they a conceptual or perceptual artist? How does their background reflect in their works of art? What are their strong mediums and weak mediums? Etc.
I think that one of the biggest problems facing art education curriculums, besides lack of funding, is the tendency of art teachers to stick with traditional assignments and ignore the need to incorporate art history and changing technology into their assignments. In addition, I think that many art curriculums lack the motivation to prepare students who are looking to encorporate art into their future endeavors, for art beyond high school. Based on your experiences, what is the biggest improvement you think needs to be made in typical art education curriculums?
June 11th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
good luck with your studies, teaching art is amazing, I love it. To answer your last question… time, just not enough of it is given to art or crafts or just creating anything. too much emphasis on facts and logic. For all the teaching you can give children nothing is quite the same as just doing it and having the materials and space and time and encouragement at hand to do it. I think if a sense of creativity is fostered then the rest will follow, they will go looking for new materials, new ways of expressing themselves, for tuition, for learning. I suppose this applies to everything really, from arts to mathematics.