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].
