Creativity is very clearly at the heart of the philosophy of Curriculum for Excellence and is fundamental to the definition of what it means to be a ‘successful learner’ in the Scottish education system. (Education Scotland, 2013).
Today was the first session of the module integrated arts. I was looking forward to certain classes in this module more than other as I feel confident with dance and music however, I feel slightly apprehensive with drama and art. Through participating in this module, I believe I will become a better, more confident practitioner as I will be able to apply my skills and knowledge to the classroom.
Music
Music is a common phenomenon that crosses all borders of nationality, race, and culture. A tool for arousing emotions and feelings, music is far more powerful than language. (Mohana, 2016).
When I was a child, I used to play the flute. However, as my work load began to increase during high school, I stopped playing to focus on my studies. It has been many years since I have participated in musical studied but I look forward to increasing my knowledge in an area that I do not have as much confidence as I once had.
In today’s workshop, we discussed the emotions we can feel when listening to a piece of music. I thought this would be a good activity to do in school as not only does it get the child to think about the music but it could also then be linked into discussing more serious topic relating to Health and Wellbeing.
As music can make us feel a certain emotion, teachers can take advantage of this to help with discipline within the classroom environment. Last year when I was on placement, if the children had been kept inside over break or lunch due to bad weather, when the teacher would return to the class, she would find that they were very noisy and hyper. To calm the pupils down, the teacher would simply play relaxing music and allow the children to close their eyes whilst the music was playing. This was always very effective in bringing the pupils back to an appropriate calm state, making it much easier for them to learn.
Below is a link to why music affects our mood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR7hFm89nck
We also listened to other piece of music which had been produced with animations and, in small groups, we drew out what we thought the animations would be. I felt that this would be an excellent activity to do in school, with all different age groups, as it could be made more challenging for older, more capable children by adding writing- possible of speech or feelings of characters- which would include cross cuticular learning. This activity also allows for children to use their imagination to create from their own ideas and emotions.
Art
During the art workshop, we looked at and discussed many different examples of art work from all different ages. From this, it was clear to see the different stages of development, and how the art work changes as the children mature. Here are a couple pieces that I found myself drawn to.
Some of the pieces- particularly in early level- were more difficult to understand, however, I learned that a positive way of finding out is asking the children to explain their picture to you. “As children become more aware of others’ art they can begin to feel particularly self conscious about their work and their ow ability in art and design” (McAuliffe, 2007, p27). This is another reason why I believe teachers should be positive and encouraging about pupil’s work, allowing for the children to feel they have been successful and take pride in their art.
From looking at the work it became clear that art can be linked into cross curricular learning as, in many drawing, I found maths shapes being used. Below is an example.
We discussed the importance of allowing children to be creative in their art work and not just putting up a picture from a famous artist that they should copy. This allows for children to be able to use their own ideas and emotions to create and not just make a replica of another work which may just encourage low self-esteem as their work would be compared to peers as they are all to look the same.
References
Education Scotland. (2013) Creativity Across Learning 3-18. [Online] Available: http://moodle.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/532076/mod_resource/context/2/Creativity3to18.pdf [Accessed: 6 January 2017]
McAuliffe, D. (2007) Foundation and Primary Settings. In: Cox, S., Wats, R., Grahame, J., Herne, S. & McAuliffe, D. (2007) Teaching Art and Design 3-11. London: Continuum.
Mohana, M. (2016) Music & how it impacts your brain, emotions. [Online] Available: http://psychcentral.com/lib/music-how-it-impacts-your-brain-emotions [Accessed: 7 January 2017].
