Developing Reflective Teaching Techniques

In the article “Developing Reflective Teaching Techniques with Preservice Art Teachers,” Frank D. Susi identifies the benefits of using reflection as a vehicle to improve teaching methods. This idea is one that I support fully as my experience with reflecting, and more specifically, documenting my reflection via a blog like this one or a visual journal has helped me navigate some challenging issues so far in my art education.

Susi identifies reflection as:

• Looking back on one’s behaviors, strategies, and goals as a process of self-analysis and evaluation
• A basis for increasing self-knowledge about educational practice and improved instructional performance
• Promoting understanding of educational concepts while addressing perplexing aspects of classroom life

I think that it is very important that he points out the need to be open-minded and willing to consider the possibility of error. Leo Tolstoy said “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of
doubt, what is laid before him.” Reflecting on our planned lesson and its subsequent success AND failure, then adjusting accordingly is what will help us grow as educators and will foster student reception of the lesson. Once we believe one method is the best and only way to present a lesson, we fail the students who may have performed better had we paid more attention to their needs rather than our lesson plan. Reflection is cultivating awareness of what is needed to make the lesson successful.

Susi suggests questions we can ask when reflecting:

• To what extent did students understand direction and expectations?
• What factors helped or hindered during student work?
• What changes in classroom arrangement and space, sequence of lesson events, or use of time could be improved?
• What role did instructional resources play in motivation and clarification of procedures?
• What went as expected?
• What effect did critique and interpersonal communication have on individual students?

I think as I begin teaching I will develop questions of my own to apply to this list to help me evaluate my performance and make it better. Susi also discussed limitations that sometimes inhibit successful reflection such as recalling everything that happened during the lesson accurately, recognizing problematic events, allowing sufficient time to reflect, and not discussing the experience with others prior to documenting reflection. This is something very profound to remain aware of when deciding to teach reflectively. Reflection should be done as soon as possible and before discussing it with others. When I worked at the bank, part of our security training was to intensely observe the behaviors and appearances of individual(s) we were serving and in the event of a robbery, document those details before discussing it with anyone else. I find it crazy-ironic that I am actually going to get to use a bank experience skill I have honed for the past eleven years in my classroom!

For me, reflection’s most rewarding function is allowing me time to, as the author states, “come to grips with personal thoughts, frustrations, and concerns.” As you have all witnessed in my blog posts and potentially other places, I am a venter. I almost always say what is on my mind and I always throw a personal connection or spin on whatever it is that I am learning. This is not always a constructive thing! Having a reflection blog or journal helps me filter my thoughts into something useful. This method of self-study was introduced to me early in the art education program and I am a fan. I have already begun to use it in other aspects of my life as I believe it is a healthy way to deal with life…not just the classroom!

Becoming a Behavior-Minded Art Teacher

I rarely print out articles that I can view on my computer, but this one I did. "Becoming a Behavior-Minded Art Teacher" by Frank D Susi (1996)tackles the diverse realm of managing student behavior. I thought Susi set up a good framework to consider when creating art room curricula. I like how he acknowledged the work and consideration that goes in to planning classroom activities well before the first day of class and how to consider student behavior during that process. When he discussed the "humane and democratically oriented beliefs and values" set forth by Kindsvatter, Wilen & Ishler (1992)I felt he shared with us ideal qualities and actions of the perfect art teacher. So although I agree with that these practices outlined are proper and necessary goals for all art teachers to strive to reach, I do not have faith that any educator has ever successfully met 100% of these prerequisites. To exemplify my thought process here, let's consider some of the phrases/ideas shared in this instructional list: showing respect,preserving dignity,personal responsibility,not making a troubled child's problem worse, providing realistic opportunities, personal success, emotional comfort, expecting class members to cope, reasonable conditions and responsibilities, inappropriate behavior, dealing with misbehavior fairly, consistently, clearly, and finally, enlightened and well intentioned. That's a pretty excessive list of things that could have any number of definitions depending upon the ideology of the student, the parent, the educator, the individual. I think the probability that the stars will align during every instance of misbehavior and every individual will agree with the efforts put forth to resolve the problem is pretty slim. My students will probably be completely out of control because I carry quite a bit of insecurity in taking any disciplinary action on other people's children. I have also heard horror stories about lack of school support for their employee when faced with a parent angry over a teacher's use of disciplinary action. That kind of stress and confrontation is not something I think many of us considered when deciding to become teachers.

Play, Dreams, and Storytelling as Creative Development

This week’s reading from Golomb’s The Creation of Imaginary Worlds: The Role of Art, Magic & Dreams in Child Development discussed the roles of play and dreams in children’s imagination. I greatly appreciated the breakdown chapter two gives of child development in relation to the play activity common for specific age groups. Even with limited parenting/caretaker experience I recognized the activities as ones I had observed children participating in or recalled participating in myself as a child. I think that will help me with my interaction with my students because I will have some grasp on what level of discovery and play they could be expressing to me. It seems that there is a lot more understanding today of a young child’s need for play time interaction and space, but that understanding quickly diminishes as a child hits pre-adolescence. I was intrigued by the case study of Brittney, age 16, who participates in play in her own elaborately created imaginary world inhabited with the pipe cleaner action figures she had been creating since she was 7. My initial reaction was one of appreciation for the artistry and imaginative endeavors of this child…wait…she’s 16? My appreciation for her creativity was overshadowed by my socially-programmed ideology that a person of this age should not be playing in her room with action figures and imaginary friends. Ideally, such creative/abstract thought should be fostered shouldn’t it? Golomb notes that when emphasis is placed on “…continuity, sameness, and the preservation of the status quo, pretense play might not find much support” (p. 129). As an artist I am conflicted now with how to feel about Brittney’s activities because what she does is really pretty cool, but at the same time I am aware that popular opinion could be she is behaving abnormally. We kill childlike creativity with our expectations of acceptable adult behavior. The role of dreams in creativity I feel is such a broad topic. I think Golomb does well to reduce the coverage in her book to children’s dreams, remembered dreams, nightmares, dream interpretation, and daydreams. Though neither of this week’s chapters discusses art making much, dreams can serve as springboards for visual representation of imagery or as a response to it. I read an article a few years ago about Stephanie Meyer, the author of Twilight, a popular series of teen fantasy novels involving a vampire who falls in love with a human. Meyer reported having a dream about a specific scene played out between her two main characters. When she woke, she typed up a written transcript of her dream which became a chapter of the first novel. As an adult, Meyer was able to interpret her dream scene as fictitious and expanded upon it to create a fantasy novel. A child may process dreams of vampires differently, most likely as scary and not so loveable! The imagery could similarly inspire the child to create artwork or an expressive narrative but this could be in an effort to interpret and manage fear or other emotions triggered by the imagery in the scary dream rather than an effort to expand upon the experience. Imagination is influenced by so many things. Practically every experience we have contributes to our collective ability to imagine and create. I agree that play and dreams play a very significant role in the development of a child’s imagination and creativity. I hope to provide environments and interaction with my students that encourages all stages of their creative development.

Observational Drawing for Fifth and Sixth Grade

Cassidy Young, Jin Yi Kim, and I have been assigned to teach fifth and sixth grade during this fall’s Saturday Art School. I requested the older group of students on our placement questionnaire due to the assessment I have made that I enjoy interaction with older children slightly more than that with young children. Thursday after completing our first in-class group interaction I left feeling a little insecure about the notions I hold of 10-12-year old children’s interests. Our group project involved drawing a picture to illustrate a story-time narrative prompt that was somewhat a kin to the Candy Land board game. I feel our age group of children are bordering their teenage years and while most still participate in play, make-believe, and discovery, it is at a richer, more mature, social, and scientific level. These are our Harry Potter and Percy Jackson readers, our iPod listeners, Minecraft building, Kobe Bryant and Taylor Swift fans. I hold that they are capable of negotiating more mature fantasy realms as well as adult concepts and circumstances and should be allowed some opportunity to express and think critically about what they are learning about life while still enjoying the innocence and shelter of childhood. After reading Smith’s Observation Drawing with Children (1998) I feel a lot more confident in my expectations of fifth and sixth grade as some of my notions were validated in the chapter specifically about our group of kids.

I agree with Goldstein’s (1977) approach to observational drawing as responsive drawing. Observational drawing requires the artist to observe closely details of the object(s) that may have gone unnoticed if not trying to represent them on paper. It also draws out the artist’s experience and or inexperience with the object by challenging them to recreate the unique, personal understanding they hold of the object. As explained by Smith (1998) “…a 7-year-old’s figure drawing carries sufficient information for her, but not for many adults” (7). Observational drawing is about communicating one’s individual experience with the object presented. As the child grows in age and experience, their representation of items they draw will change and evolve communicating new meanings representative of their collected experiences and knowledge. Smith (1998) explains the developmental framework of fifth and sixth graders as being “on the edge of adolescence…beginning to struggle with the inner conflict of establishing their own identities and becoming individuals separate from their families” yet also “scrambling for acceptance within one group or another” (86). I remember being eleven years old and making that conscious step from being a little girl who loved playing with action figures and stuffed animals to a girl who chose to play with make-up and listen to rock music like the rest of her friends. It was rough! It seems this is the age when many children trade imagination and make-believe for social activity and seeking out truths about life. Having realized that while reading and reflecting, I question how our group will tackle that challenge of provoking participation in creating imaginary worlds in a group of kiddos who may be experimenting with a separation from that sort of play.

Children's Artistic Development

The Creation of Imaginary Worlds by Claire Golomb begins by discussing the evolution of child art. I found that the imagery discussed in this chapter were all familiar examples of child art. The connection the reading made for me was how that specific imagery often falls on a timeline of common ages and experiences. Also differentiating mark making and drawing was helpful to know because I had always assumed children drawing were trying to depict something they observe. I had not considered that they were making marks just because they had recently discovered the crayon, pencil, marker, etc. could do that! I also appreciated the acknowledgement in class by Mrs. Brinn that age doesn’t always correspond with the stage of art making the child is at as speed of development into these stages varies from child to child. I know when I was four years old, I was drawing Fred Flintstone and Woody Woodpecker quite well. I was well past the tadpole and trunk figures stage at that age. By the time I was ten I could draw very realistic human figures and I continued to develop my art skills through high school. My friend’s daughter also excelled past the beginning stages of art making quickly. I believed she would do as well if not better than I did in art. But she is a teenager now and never really progressed further than where our book shows a seven or eight year old artist's skill to be. So I feel our reading this week gave structure and understanding of the progression a child makes when learning to create art, but I don’t believe I will I will tie on an age to that expected level of development. I also don’t feel inclined to believe all children who excel early in their art making will go on to become great artists, much in the same manner I choose to believe children who develop slowly may in time take their art making practice much further than a child who excelled early on. What a great revelation to have.

Fall 2013 M301 Saturday Art School

In the past I have used this blog to share experiences and things learned from prior courses. Mostly I have shared lessons learned from using new technology. You are all welcome to look at my prior posts if you like. For the duration of this semester I will switch my posting purpose to sharing Saturday Art School experiences. This is new territory for me as our class begins to study the evolution of children's art making and its function. I have very limited experience working with young children. I believe my comfort zone is helping older students: middle school through adult. I'm excited and scared at the same time at the task of caring for a large number of young children. I feel the experience may rid me of some insecurity I feel when viewing myself as someone capable of caring for young children. I don’t believe I have any problem doing so, but I have never been afforded the opportunity to prove it. I have no children of my own. Even though that has been my choice for a variety of personal reasons, I carry a suspicion that my friends and family who have or care for young children on a daily basis have little faith that I am capable of doing the same nor do I want to be bothered with participation in child rearing discussion or practice. This is probably an opinion I have projected on to them, but nonetheless it is an underlying fear I have that their assumption of me could be true. I hope my experiences here help me to not feel that insecurity anymore, because most people who choose not to or can’t have children are capable of caring for them and shouldn’t be denied the opportunity to do so based on the assumption they don’t like children.