Holly McFarlane BA2 Integrated Arts Blog

(This blog post will combine week 11 and 12)

In week 11, we had our final drama input where groups in our class continued micro-teaching. We also had another dance session where we planned a dance that we later performed and filmed in week 12. The final music input intended for week 12 was cancelled due to Julie’s illness.

Drama

As my group had already taken their turn to micro-teach last week, it was interesting to switch roles and see it from an audience’s  perspective. This way I could reflect as a teacher by observing my peers and watching what teaching methods they chose to use in their drama lesson, this further enhanced my practice as I can see what methods worked best and which ones did not. Three groups in total conducted a drama lesson to our class, however one group’s lesson I found deeply meaningful. This group decided to that their target audience for their lesson would not be aimed at children or young people but adults. They decided to base their lesson on the fictional novel Room, which we studied last year for one of our modules. As the story is based on a woman and her young son being help captive in a enclosed space by a violent rapist man, this content would be not be suitable for using in the early years. However, as we are all adults, using stories made for children did not have quite same affect as this story did. For example, they used the drama convention hot-seating to place the “Old Nick” at the subject of the audience’s questions. His principles of being sexist and discriminative to women provoked many people in the audience to feel offended, angry and uncomfortable.

Even though the aim of this module is to enable us to successfully teach the expressive arts to children, I feel this session allowed me to really understand why drama is such a powerful art form. It makes us feel in ways and experience situations we have never came across before and this can make people realise how they truly feel about an issue. After this session, I truly felt as if it had made an impact on me, which is how we want children to feel after experiencing drama. This has informed my practice greatly as I understand that we as adults need to protect children, however we also need to prepare them for potential problems that they will face in their future. After all, as Booth (1985) suggests, “storying provides students with a natural human process for finding essential meanings in the experiences of themselves and others”. It is our job as teachers to nurture children’s and support learners’ capacity to make-believe.

Dance

Our lecture was based on the importance and the benefits of providing dance education to young learners. Cone (2009) suggests that when children create dances using their own ideas, they are empowered to explore their thoughts, feelings and perspectives; building on their ability to use aesthetics to think creatively. All children should have the right to compose, perform and appreciate dance (Smith-Autard, 2002), as they can utilise these experiences to express their creativity in ways that they cannot through more traditional subjects in school.

This week we choreographed a dance related to the theme of christmas. We were given ideas of a dance lessons, such as a game or a stretch routine, and we had to come up with ways in which we could relate to the theme. This activity required us to consider the characters, a storyline and a title for our dance, as well as to consider any props or costumes that we plan to use. This throughly informed my planning and teaching skills as I thought of fun and unique ideas to implement a lesson to children. We also received feedback from our peers on what was good and what could have been improved about our ideas. This was particularly useful to me as an important part of teaching is being able to work in a team and share ideas and this activity helped me build on these communication skills.

After seeing all aspects from each of the groups we had come up with a full lesson and by the end of it we had choreographed a full dance routine. After practicing this dance over the following week, we recorded the dance in the next session. Overall, I feel like the dance input of this module has significantly developed my confidence and skills to be able to integrate dance into a child’s education. In addition, this has made remember how much I love being involved in the expressive arts and want to keep participating in these areas in the future.

Overall 

My participation in this module has shown me how art integration is a valuable and complex approach to learning and teaching. It is crucial for the expressive arts to be promoted as an imperative subject area in its own right but also as a way to compliment other subject areas, as Strickland (2008, p.21) proposes, arts education acts “as the emotional glue that makes sense of the analytical world”. By nurturing children’s creativity and encouraging their creative process they will lead richer lives and, in the longer term, make a significant contribution to society.

References

Booth, D. (1985) “Imaginary gardens with real toads”: Reading and drama in education. Theory into Practice. [Online] Vol.24(3), pp.193-198. Available: Taylor and Francis. [Accessed: 6 November 2017].

Cone, T. (2009) Following Their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances. Journal of Dance Education. [Online] Vol.9(3), pp.81-89. Available: Taylor & Francis. [Accessed 2 December 2017].

Smith-Autard, J. (2002) The Art of Dance Education. London: A & C Black Publishers Ltd.

Strickland, P. (2008) Teachers Arts Education: Integrating in the classroom. [Online] Available: https://search.proquest.com/openview/951ab9d82e4667822a3d33d0923581c6/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y [Accessed 6 December 2017].

 

Art

In our final visual arts session, we discussed our experiences of placement so far and reflected on our thoughts and feelings towards the integrated arts lessons we had observed. Some experiences varied from others, however I found that the majority of lessons that we observed in our schools shared the same processes and limited artistic freedom for pupils. I recognised that many teachers simply routinise teaching the arts, by not seizing the moment or taking risks  in the lesson the children’s creativity will in turn not flourish to its full capacity and create barriers. A recurring theme in everyone’s lesson experience was their teacher using template in their art lesson to which our lecturer felt nothing but frustration and disappointment for.  Initially I did not see how using templates is a “lazy” method of teaching as I thought it provided children with a useful structure. However after reflection I understand how too much structure can make children feel locked out of their creative process and restricts their self-determination (Craft, 2007). Below is a picture I took on placement of one child’s finished product using the halloween puppet template:

Other useful discussions around tolerance when teaching the arts and being open to mess were all very useful towards informing my practice as teacher and helped me see a different perspective. Also I learned that have a better tolerance to noise is useful children when they working in the arts, because noise is simply thinking out loud.

Music

This weeks music workshop was all about learning to keep a beat and read music. Everyone was given a pair of drumsticks to practise with. We discussed that when teaching children music, at first we use connotations. For example, we used ‘circle’ and ‘square’ to show the notes that were being played. Strategies like this made it easier for me to read music, as I do not have acquired a lot of prior experience or skill in it. We then practised different songs using the drum sticks to keep the beat. I was able to identify what areas that some children would struggle with and what methods can be used to explain the notes in a simpler way, such as saying the words ‘coffee’ and ‘tea’ to demonstrate crochets and quavers. We later moved on to using instruments such as the glockenspiel to challenge ourselves by playing real notes. In respect to teaching, I believe this activity is a great, practical way to introduce the concept of basic music notation. Hallam (2010) suggests that music builds on a person’s perceptual, language and literacy skills and learning an instrument enhances the ability to remember words through enlargement of the left cranial temporal regions. This activity has shown me how even in areas I do not have much experience in I can effectively teach other children expressive areas, as long as I acquire the correct knowledge and skills I will be capability and confident enough to become a great facilitator of arts education.

References

Craft, A. (2007) Creativity and Possibility in the Early Years. [Online] Available: http://www.tactyc.org.uk/pdfs/Reflection-craft.pdf [Accessed 14 November 2017].

Hallam, S. (2010). The power of music: Its impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people. International Journal of Music Education, 28(3), pp.269-289.

 

This week’s learning in Integrated Arts revolved around micro-teaching. As a student I have not been given the opportunity to experience micro-teaching before so I found the experience very exciting.

Drama

My group had the chance to teach a drama lesson to our peers, as though they were children. We told to use a form of children’s literature as a foundation for our lesson, we chose to base it on the story of the ‘Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf”. A widely familiar story within children, we thought this would be useful as by the children already knowing the basic plot of the story it leaves more room for them to comprehend the drama conventions easily and not feel out of their depth. We also made the decision to use the following drama conventions: teacher-in-role, flash back, hot-seating and thought tunnel. Using teacher-in-role, one group member got into the character as the mayor of pigs’ town and asked the audience (the pigs) what ideas that had to stop the bad wolf from blowing everyone’s houses down. We chose this convention because it can help deepen the belief and commitment in a young class, the questioning gives direction and shape to the learning activity as well as stimulating their minds in areas they may have not thought about before (Barrs et al., 2000). I was given the responsibility to lead the teaching of flash back within the story. Using questioning again, I asked the class their input on the reasons why the wolf wanted to blow the pigs’ houses down, in other words what experiences of his had turned him into a villain?  In groups, I allocated the groups a short time to discuss their ideas that they would later perform as an acting demonstration. Participation is key in drama, making sure everyone got up and performed was essential for me. I feel this is so important when applied to a classroom environment because not every child will be as expressive or in favour of performing as other more confident children will be, therefore all pupils must have the same level of opportunities in drama. After all, as Neelands (1990, page 6) states, “drama is to do with the child experiencing rather than performing”. This session really helped me to reflect as a teacher and gain experience in planning and actually carrying out a real drama lesson. This opportunity further informed me on how to use CfE expressive arts experiences and outcomes in my planning, for example “Inspired by a range of stimuli, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through drama” (EXA 0-13a / EXA 1-13a / EXA 2-13a). I used this experience and outcome all thought out my lesson as I allowed the pupils to have the chance to show their creative ideas through the drama convention.

 

Music

In our very special music input today, we worked with Primary 6/7 pupils from Greenmill Primary School in East Ayrshire. The pupils were there to teach us how to play their string instrument. I gained a range of new knowledge about the cello such as what note each string was and how to remember them using a rhyme “Aunt Debby Goes Crazy”.  As well as this I learned the correct way to hold the cello and where to place my fingers on the string. Later, the children spoke words to help us play different rhythms on the instrument which we brought altogether in a song. I felt the role reversal of the learners becoming the teachers was very interesting to watch and I could see firsthand how it can build on a child self-esteem and confidence. In reflection, I see how collaborative approaches between children and adults, such as this music lesson today, is beneficial in nurturing a learner’s and teacher’s creativity. By the child sharing their skills their barriers came down and gave them a lot of self-motivation, this is a great way to increase comfort and capacity to creativity (Harris, 2016). I really admire the work of Greenmill Primary School String Project as they go above and beyond for giving children opportunities to learn music. The attitudes of the teachers behind the project were very inspiring to me, they are the role models that young teachers need to recognise the importance of teaching the arts in primary schools. I plan to take this positive experience on as a teacher and apply this concept of helping children find their passion as it will have a valuable impact on my learners.

Link to Greenmill Primary’s String Project video: https://vimeo.com/176221212

References

Barrs, A., Barton, B. and Booth, D. (2012) This Book Is Not about Drama…: It’s about New Ways to Inspire Students. Portland: Stenhouse Publishers.

Greenmill Primary (2016) Greenmill String Project. [Online] Available: https://vimeo.com/176221212 [Accessed 7 November 2017].

Harris, A. (2016) Creativity and Education. [Online] London: Palgrave Macmillan. Available: UWS Library. [Accessed 7 November 2017]

Neelands, J. (1984) Making Sense of  Drama: A Guide to Classroom Practice. London: Heinnmann.

Drama

Continuing our learning of using drama in the curriculum,  the lesson had the same structure as previous weeks of learning new drama conventions. This week we learned how to use flash forward, flashback, slow motion and narration. Narration allows the children to fully understand what is happening in the story, Booth (1985, page 1) suggests “children’s ability to make sense of the messages that flood them is often beyond their ability or willingness to communicate their understanding of those messages”. This can be applied to the convention use of narration as it provides children with the help to easily comprehend the thoughts of the characters and the meaning of the story. Flash back and flash forward provides an insight to different periods of time out with the story’s time period. This can teach children all about how events and people progress to be what they are at present and how those people and events can affect the future. A valuable lesson of showing how actions have consequences is highly useful in a classroom. Finally using slow motion in drama scenes lets the children explore in detail how their character would feel and react to something in the story and how it would be represented at a very slow pace.

We incorporated all of our new learned drama conventions into our own halloween-themed story. Using teacher in role, we all created a story about a haunted house that none of townspeople dared to enter. Each group within the class then made up their version of the story using the drama conventions, to which each performed in front of the class. For example, my group acted out a tale of trick-or-treaters wanting to knock on the door of the haunted house where they came across an evil witch who froze children to stone. After three session of learning about drama, I am confident in saying I have overcome my inhibitions about performing in front of an audience. I think one of the main reasons for this was the entire class grew more comfortable with engaging with the acting and sharing their abilities. Group drama really made a difference when beginning to act scenes in front of others. By my group members putting in their best effort I felt I would be motivated to do the same. I believe this would take place in a primary classroom as well , according to Baldwin (2009) children soon recognise that for a performance to be successful, everybody must make a positive contribution and have full co-operation.

Music

The main focus was learning to use our voices as teachers. Our voices are the primary source of communication to pupils, therefore taking care of your voice is essential. The General Teaching Council for Scotland advised helpful tips for teachers to manage their voice. One of which being ‘avoid shouting’, of course every teacher will have to shout to get their classes attention more often than they would like. However using other methods such as using an intimidating look for attention will put less strain on your voice and allow to get on with the curriculum.  It also advises teachers to protect their voice by trying a number of things: warm up your voice before prolonged usage by humming gently or doing some voice exercises, relax shoulders and neck, breath from the diaphragm, drink water regularly.

We used this learning to carry on to our next activity: singing. Now I have always enjoyed singing as a child, mainly in choir and having lessons in high school, however I felt reservations at the thought of singing in front of my peers. We used useful song resources suitable for early level music learners such as Choonbaboon. We took part in a 15 minute teaching video of a song, after a while everyone in the session eased into singing out loud and became more confident. In reflection as a teacher, I see now I can simple videos like this as a main part of my lesson if it carries out the pupil’s learning intention. I intend to find further resources like this to help inform my planning and teaching.

A useful example of a Choonbaboon video lesson – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KzQpQ5HLMI

Finally, we explored using grids within music. One of the most important and challenging part of learning music is knowing how to read a score sheet, therefore simplifying its appearance into a grid will make things much easier for children who are being newly introduced to music. Us, the learners, were encouraged to consider sounds which they would relate to a certain theme and how they would represent those sounds using different instruments, their voices, and electronic sound effects. In our case, we used the topical theme of fireworks for Guy Fawkes night. Therefore our sounds were described as a bang, whizz, hiss, boom, etc. After deciding how many beats were in each box and what instruments were categorised with each sound, our teacher conducted us to play our instruments along the grid.

Then into groups we came up with our own theme and repeated the activity on a smaller scale. I feel this lesson would be very effective for IDL learning as I associated the grid with maths learning. Learners could use their knowledge of grids in another lesson revolving around using co-ordinates.

One of the main points I took from this week was the importance of allowing children to have choice and input in an arts lesson. Both inputs of today’s module showed how the educators altered their lessons (whilst still using their own planning) to fit how we, the learners, changed the direction. I would say that before I thought teachers were in strict control of lessons and pupils did not have a say in what they were learning, but I am starting to realise that children can only express themselves if you allow them to. Craft (2009) highlight that in practice which fosters creativity by contract our focus to ensure that we encourage children’s ideas and possibilities, and these are not suffocated.

References

Booth, D. (1985) Imaginary gardens with real toads. In Reading and Drama in Education. Theory into Practice. [Online] Vol.24(3). Available: Taylor and Francis. [Accessed 31 October 2017]

Baldwin, P. (2009) School Improvement Through Drama: A Creative Whole Class, Whole School Approach. London: Network Continuum Education.

Craft, A (2007) Creativity and possibility in the Early Years [Online] Available: https://www.tactic.org.uk/pdfs/reflection-craft.pdf [Accessed: 31 October 2017]

GTSC. (2017) Voice Management. [Online] Available: http://www.in2teaching.org.uk/hints-and-tips/View/952.aspx [Accessed: 31 October 2017]

(This blog post will combine week 6 and 7)

I would say that in my past experiences, as a child, I definitely loved having the opportunity to take part in drama and dance. I would find myself using and watching these art forms as a way of indulging in escapism, a very common process that young children do to find a relief from their realities. However, as I matured I strayed from my interest in dance and drama, thus spurring feelings of uneasiness prior to these sessions.

Drama

In our drama session we explored new conventions that could be used within a lesson, namely: vox pocs, role on the wall, thought-tracking, voice-in-head and mime. We integrated our learning Anthony Browne’s ‘The Tunnel’ , a story of the relationship between a brother and sister. After familiarising ourselves with the plot of the story, i.e. the brother and sister do not get on and the brother seems to bully his sister, we were asked to create a role on the wall for the two characters. Drawing an outline of each person, we wrote words on the outside to describe what the character appears to be and on the inside what the characters feels about themselves.

Using this convention within a drama lesson I feel would be useful because it allows the children to learn the valuable lesson of seeing other people’s points of view and that a person may not be what they appear to be. I understand now that the main intention of drama lessons in early education are allow children the opportunity to pretend and to have the freedom to to express themselves, however moral lesson about stereotypes can always be useful when teaching children. We later moved on and finished reading the story to be able to apply the other conventions in our lesson. As groups, we acted out segments of the story and used voice-in-head, which requires a character to step forward out of the scene and the actor explains the thoughts and feelings of the character which the audience may not have picked up on. This gives children an opportunity to relate to the character using aesthetics to help recognise how feelings can make people commit certain, potentially hurtful, actions. Grainger (2003) suggests drama is essentially associated with creating and solving problems, therefore children can create their critical thinking skills through their role in the drama experience and use ways of thinking they may not used before. In respect to teaching, I feel after seeing all of my fellow peers take part and have a role in the activity, that group drama is the best way to ease children into performing and to involve everyone in the lesson. Ways this could be adapted is maybe less confident children could have non-speaking roles, however everyone getting up in front of an audience will start to build on their confidence. Andrew pointed out that a common worry of teachers, when asking pupils their thoughts and answers, is silence from the class. This results in the teacher ending the silence quickly with telling the class the answer he/she were looking for. In reflection I see now that patience, especially in drama lessons, is key when allowing the children to think for themselves and that being scared of ‘the silence’ is something to overlook. Additionally, flexibility is a skill that goes a long way in teaching drama lessons, if the lesson veers away from the path you had initially planned it to take – just go with it. The use of drama in curriculum is for the child to express themselves without limitation.

‘I have the freedom to choose and explore how I can use my voice, movement and expression in role play and drama.’ EXA 0-12a.

Dance 

As much I considered all aspects of the arts to be important in primary teaching, I did not realise the extent of how much dance is incorporated in the CfE curriculum. I was surprised to learn that there are many dance-related experiences and outcomes, including

‘I enjoy creating short dance sequences, using travel, turn, jump, gesture, pause and fall, within safe practice.’ EXA 1-08a.

Over the course of two inputs, these outcomes were displayed in our dance activities. In groups we had to move round different stations of movement, namely: reach, twist, balance, turn, kick, jump, hop, gesture, slide, and roll. At each station we had to come up with a movement of this description. At the end we combined all of the movements to create a dance which we performed to the rest of the class. As a teacher, I see how giving the children this freedom has its benefits for their creativity to develop in different ways. However I always see how having certain guidelines and a structure to their dance moves, i.e. their movement had to within a certain category, makes things easier for those who may struggle in this area.

               

Later, everyone in the session stood in a circle, using the theme of Halloween, to create a dance move for every number from 0-9. We then got back into our groups and answers a list on mathematical calculations, the answers determined a sequence of the dance moves we had created. This showed how dance can be incorporated in any other curricular subject, such as maths, and how using memorable actions can help young learners understand the concept of every number having meaning/value. The main thing I took from this particular teaching was how little teacher input there was. Using this type of method in my planning and teaching for dance lessons is essential because as Cone (2009, page 81) states, “offering children the opportunity to discover how they can be creators of their own ideas is the one of the most powerful lessons we can teach”.

References

Grainger, T. (2003) Creative teachers and the language arts: Possibilities and potential. Education 3-13: International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education. Vol.31(1). pp. 43-47.

Purcell Cone, T. (2009) Following Their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances. In Journal of Dance Education. Vol. 9(3), pp. 81-89.

Scottish Government (2004) Curriculum for Excellence: Expressive Arts Experiences and Outcomes. [Online] Available: https://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf [Accessed 24 October 2017]

 Art

We began our session by continuing the process of printing which we worked on last week. We photocopied the prints we made and then filled in the rest of the blank paper to continue the image on the photocopy, then applied colour.

Having this sense of freedom within a lesson can allow a child imagination to run wild. In this particular lesson I saw how important it is to let a child know that there is no right or wrong answer when expanding on their work and taking a completely different creative direction is something that should be encouraged. A useful planning idea I have learned is one art lesson/concept can be taught across multiple sessions and activities, the use of reinforcement in education is crucial for a student’s understanding of the subject to expand.

Below is my interpretation of adding more to the original print:

Curiosity is an essential part of creativity and we should do whatever we can to encourage it; valuing the inquisitive nature of young people. As discussed by Csikszentmihalyi (1997) if curiosity is not encouraged and there are not opportunities for children to experiment with possibilities, they will become less willing to take part in creative thinking and actions.

Music

In another workshop we were taught how taught how to create music using GarageBand. This is an application used for music and sound effects which an individual creates on the computer. It can used as to merge many different sounds together and create an interesting piece of music. Then we furthered this learning on by creating a sound backing track for an animation which had no sound.

Below is a picture I took whilst using GarageBand to compose my music piece:

I believe children would be highly intrigued to be taught music in this way as it involves the use of technology. Contemporary styles of music, such as electronic dance music, are created using these type of softwares. “There are some simple and amazing programmes that allow children to compose exciting music with little or no instruction” (Page, 1995 p.26) Teaching children in more modern ways will allow them to be willing to engage and enjoy the lesson. Using software like Garageband is a good tool to use in a classroom for children to explore the use of combing a range of sounds and express their creativity – one of the key guidelines in curriculum for excellence.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997) Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of discovery and invention. [Online] New York: Harper Perennial. Available: UWS Library. [Accessed 10 October 2017]

Page, N. (1995) Music as a way of knowing. Maine: Stenhouse Publishers

 

Art

Popular painting “Windows in The West” by Avril Paton (1993) was our main reference to learning in our sessions this week.

After learning a bit about the history of this painting, we identified how it made us feel and were if we indeed ‘liked’ it. However I came to understand that it is not a matter or like and dislike, but as teachers of art we should simply break down a piece of work to analyse what the artist is trying to put across. Reading Rod Taylor’s (2010) model of ‘Process’, ‘Form’, ‘Content’ and ‘Mood’ helped me to come to terms with how I would discuss and interrogate art objects with children in a classroom. I found each concept, particularly ‘Mood’, very interesting as it allows children the opportunity to effectively interpret what they see and feel, developing their aesthetic education and emphasising to them that when it comes to art there is no right or wrong answer.

Our learning outcome was to understand how using a form stimulus, including a print of an ordinary building in Glasgow, can trigger a child’s imagination. A child can look upon this painting, seeing each window has a person living inside, and create a backstory for each tenet. Opening many potential cross-curricular opportunities for a teacher. A child could develop their literacy skills through creative writing for a tenet of the building, alternatively the use of a drama lesson (involving narrative) can prompt a child’s inventiveness and their critical thinking  behind the painting. Prior to this, I did not realise how this print could evoke a child’s creativity in such ways. However, in reflection as a primary teacher, effective communication i.e. openly discussing the work of an artist is vital in exploring new techniques and processes for my development as well as the child’s.

I was able to apply my learning later on in a practical workshop where we used marking and painting to explore colour theory. We were asked to draw/mark a section of our choice from  ‘Windows in the West’ onto a polystyrene cut-out. We proceeded to use paint and rollers to cover the polystyrene and stamp it onto multiple pieces of coloured paper.

Examples:

                  

Although each student was given the same instructions and stimulus, each made different interpretations of drawing and choices of colour, no one person had the same perception. Colour theory is important for not only allowing a child to explore their creativity but to help express their emotions. I have learned that it is essential to apply this concept to my practice as it can effectively develop a child’s communication skills and allow me (the teacher) to understand the depth of the child’s emotions, some of whom may suffer a troubled home life or face learning difficulties. As well as developing my subject knowledge behind our practical tasks, I was able to grasp the key steps you would take when planning and managing an art lesson. Examples of this would be to having cleaning materials at the ready in case of spillages and to make sure children wear aprons. Simple directions like this, that I had not previously recognised as imporant, can be instrumental in making sure a messy lesson runs smoothly.

Drama

As it was my first drama input of the year, I was fairly anxious to see what was in store. However I was shown that teaching drama is not merely about displaying a person’s acting abilities, but is it to allow children to pretend to be somebody else for a change. There is something about changing identities that can be liberating for a child, allowing to express themselves in a way that they might never get the opportunity to do so. Quality classroom drama focuses upon risking uncertainty, exploring new ideas and discovering the unknown (Winston, 1998).

The tasks were based on a story about a village and how they were terrified for their safety as they faced a ferocious fire-breathing dragon flying too closely to their homes. In this specific activity of improvisation, I was able to see the importance of a teacher involving the children and taking on their creative ideas of where the story might lead to. I understand how this builds a child’s confidence tremendously and inspires them to enjoy drama and see it as an effective outlet. We explored various themes in drama teaching including freeze frames, teacher in role, improvisation, thought tunnels and hot seating. All of which can be very valuable and memorable methods to allowing children to be as much involved as possible in the lesson. The drama convention I saw as the most interesting was teacher in role. Teacher in role is the method of the teacher switching in and out of character, this can be done by putting on a piece of clothing, communicating with their pupils in a completely different way through the story. An example, the teacher puts on their top hat, becomes the mayor of the village and asks the now “villagers” to come up with a solution to the problem of the dragon.

To me, the story of the dragon was a perfect example of a stimulus creating a response (i.e. opening a door in a child’s limitless imagination). Each input of this week has furthered my knowledge on how help provoke a pupil’s creative thinking and how to encourage to use this way of thinking more often if that is how they learn better. A person’s imagination is prominent at the age of a primary school pupil and my job as a teacher is find any means possible to manifest their individuality.

References

Hickman, R., Taylor, R. (2010) Critical Studies in Art and Design Education. London: Intellect

Paton, A. (2011) [Online] Available:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVDRL6wsQYU [Accessed 3 October 2017]

Winston, J. (1998) Drama, Narrative and Moral Education. London: Falmer Press.

 

 

As I was absent on Tuesday 26th September, there will be no blog post for week 3.

Art 

We were given the opportunity to examine and analyse a range of children’s artwork, some of which dated back to around 25 years ago. Each artwork was categorised into 3 stages of education – early, middle and upper. There were considerable differences between all the levels, which conveyed each child’s artistic boundaries at the point of creating their artwork.

The main reading I referred to in this session was Teaching Art and Design 3-11 (2007), which talks of how Lowenfield and Brittain (1987) largely contributed to stage theory in art education. They identified key stages in a child’s development: scribbling, pre-schematic, schematic, gang stage. As much the work of these scholars can help me, as a teacher, to understand where a pupil is at in their creative development, I feel it is not be as simple as categorising their work, as each child is unique in their own abilities. If educators solely practiced teaching art using the work of Lowenfield and Brittain, they would correspond progression with chronological age (Green and Mitchell 1997, cited in McAuliffe, 2007), thus creating limitations and restricting a child’s ability to fully express themselves.

It is evident this piece artwork has came from a child at an early stage of art development as it may be unclear to an adult to make sense of what the child has tried to represent. This may be identified as in the “scribbling stage” of a child’s development in art and design. However I could personally identify the artist of the picture as a young child as I can see development of skills within identifying shapes, colours and textures. The child has predominately used primary colours but also moderately uses secondary colours, this could mean they are beginning to develop early levels of art and design, highlighting some of the Expressive Arts learning benchmarks (Education Scotland, 2017). In reflection, from analysing many pieces of artwork, I realise the most important steps I can take to develop a child’s creativity and art skills is to consistently build on their confidence. I can do this by showing clear positivity and interest to their artwork and ask them what they have tried to create, rather than influencing them to tell me what I interpret the picture to be. This will build on their imagination and free them from the restrictions of adult expectations (Duffy, 2006), because after all, art has many interpretations and does not have a right or wrong answer.

This picture would most likely fall under the “schematic” stage at around 7-9 years old. This is probably the most important stage in a child’s development, as this is when their imaginative development has peaked and it does occur to them how their work will be judged; fear of opinions is mainly dealt with more during the “gang” stage. I analysed more pictures that was created in the later primary years. These were very talented pieces of artwork, however nearly all of them were inspired by other infamous artists such as Picaso and Andy Warhol. This concept of plagiarism seems to emerge as children feel more inclined to copy other praised artists in order to be deemed ‘competent’ in their art skills. As a potential primary teacher I feel this is the wrong way to allow children to express themselves freely and explore their imaginations. This is why the previous stage of “schematic” may be crucial because we as teachers must show them there is no boundaries in individual artistry, before they reach a stage where there is a decline in their creativity.

Music

In the first music input of the module, the main task we were given to listen to a piece of music and to create a story to fit how we visualised the music. The video can found through this link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFanayBhyeA.

The main point I took from this session was that, alike many other expressive art areas, there is a vast difference in people’s interpretations and perceptions of music. This is due to people having different experiences and perspectives of the world that surrounds them. After listening to the short piece of music, my group decided to create a story about two fish set off on a journey full of both happy and dangerous moments. We creating six drawings on a story board to convey certain situations depending on the mood of the music. For example, when there were a loud crescendo we decided to bring in an evil shark that would frighten and put the fish at risk.

In relation to planning and teaching, I found this concept of integrating literacy very interesting as it made the whole activity enjoyable and very adaptable for children. It being a cross-curricular activity I found it very beneficial as it opened up a lot of new ideas for planning lessons, depending on which level I find myself teaching.

References

Duffy, B. (2006) Supporting Creativity and Imagination in the Early Years. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Education Scotland (2017) Benchmarks Expressive Arts. [Online] Available:  https://education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/ExpressiveArtsBenchmarksPDF.pdf [Accessed 21 September 2017].

McAuliffe, D. (2007) Foundation and Primary Settings. In Teaching Art and Design 3-11. (Edited by Sue Cox, Robert Watts, Judy Grahame, Steve Herne and Diarmuid McAuliffe) London: Continuum.

Shostakovich, D. (1957) Piano Concerto No. 2. [Online] Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFanayBhyeA. [Accessed 21 September 2017].

As I made my way into the first lecture of Integrated Arts, it is fair to say I was feeling fairly pessimistic and anxious . After having both good and bad experiences in my prior education in the arts, I was worried that I would not be “talented” enough to excel in this class. However, I have learned the main aim of this module is to allow us, as both students and teachers, to reconstruct our attitudes to teaching the arts and broaden our experiences in expressive arts areas, rather than solely attempting to enhance our own creative skills.

We were introduced to various academic readings related to the creative arts. One of which was the Tallis Habits Pedagogy Wheel (Thomas Tallis School, 2017). This gives us an insight into how to develop and implement the arts throughout the school curriculum through encouraging a number of habits, such as being imaginative, inquisitive, collaborative and persistent. The outer segments of the wheel relate specifically to strategies teachers can employ that enable students to deliberately strengthen their habits of mind. I felt this was particularly useful to me, as an aspiring teacher, because it highlights how complex yet valuable teaching the arts and nurturing learners’ creativity are. I appreciate that pedagogy of more traditional subjects, such as literacy and mathematics, have various methods and strategies however I feel the intricacy of teaching in the arts really challenges an educator’s commitment to not only discover a learner’s talents and strengths but also their own. 

We were also introduced to a report called Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing (2014). This report explains how powerful the contribution of the arts has on health and well being. It suggests that the arts can help keep us well, aid our recovery and support longer lives better lived and also help meet major challenges facing health and social care. Before reading this report, my understanding of how significantly the arts impact on the lives of people was limited. My prior understanding was that participation in the arts was merely a hobby and something that people did not necessarily need to develop their academic growth or maintain their heath. I now realise that is not the case and I understand how important learning in and through the arts really is. 

I now feel I have a strong foundation of knowledge to begin my learning in the Integrated Arts module. Also, it has now been made clear to me that teaching the expressive arts is not about how well you can paint, or act, or dance, or sing. It is about giving every child an opportunity to learn in different ways and it does not necessarily matter how advanced your skills are or how experienced you are in the expressive arts. I look forward to experiencing what else the Integrated Arts module has in store.

References

Thomas Tallis School. (2017) The TALLIS Habits Pedagogy Wheel. [Online] Available: http://www.thomastallisschool.com/tallis-pedagogy-wheel-guide.html  [Accessed 12 September 2017].

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (2014) Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing. [Online] Available: http://www.artshealthandwellbeing.org.uk/appg-inquiry/Publications/Creative_Health_The_Short_Report.pdf [Accessed 12 September 2017].