Today we found out the various aspects that the Integrated Arts module would cover. These are dance, drama, music and art. I am slightly worried going into this module as I do not consider myself to be a creative person or to be particularly gifted in many areas of the arts. I have experience of Drama from doing higher drama so I am particularly looking forward to those inputs

  MUSIC  

I am not particularly gifted with music and I do not play nor have any interest in playing an instrument. However, my boyfriend plays in a band and I enjoy going to his shows to watch him perform.

The music input today looked at what music can aspire within us. I was excited by this as it avoided my fear of having to play an instrument. The class began with us listening to five pieces and writing down how each piece made us feel. I liked this as an idea to use in the class because there is no correct answer and allows for the childrens individuality to shine through as the music will make them feel different things.

Eisner(2002) believes that ‘the arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and to interpret the world’. The activity we then did proves this. We were to listen to a piece of music as a whole class and then to break off into groups and create a story board depicted a scene we thought could be happening whilst this music played.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPLh0oeNLLg

No two groups had the exact same idea. Their may have been some common themes than ran through all the storyboards but never the same idea. Which proves the point that art is subjective and everyone will see something in their own unique way.

I liked this as a lesson idea because it develops music, art and literacy at the same time whilst being fun.

ART

For this art lesson we looked through a vault of artwork. The work was from P1-P7 and has been collected over many years. We walked around looking at all of the artwork from these various stages and making note of the pictures that stood out to us personally.

                                                                                        

We were encouraged to consider the conditions the pictures were created under; did the children choose what to do or were they told? Why did they choose that colour paint? Why did they choose that colour paper? Etc.

We also discussed the idea that as the children move into upper primary a lot of their creative freedom is taken away as they tend to be given a particular image to copy rather than choosing themselves what to do. There are positives and negatives to this; being given an image possibly helps those children who are very insecure in their work and own creativity as it means they don’t need to come up with an idea and as such reduced stress. Being given an image can also bring exposure to artists the children won’t have known previously. However being given an image squashes individuality as all the work will come back looking similar. CFE places a lot of emphasis on individuality so giving an image to copy does not meet this standard.

References.

Eisner, E.W. (2002) The arts and the creation of mind. New Haven: Yale University Press