Art

As a result of the visual art session this week , it has confirmed to me that art in schools is not about getting everything perfect or correct by not putting  a mark out of place, but infact it is about an individual’s creativity and the  effort that is put into the drawing/painting. Although the end product is significant to the creator  it is not the be all and end all.  Eisner (2002) and Harris (2016) agree that there are always several answers to the activity within the arts . There is not just one right answer.  Therefore pupils can feel more at ease, be  more creative and thus build more self confidence through art as their ideas are important and worthwhile.

During our session of visual arts we created our own paintbrushes from sticks, feathers, wool, cotton which we used tape to hold together. Thus showing the importance of stepping away from the normal ordinary paintbrushes where everyone has the exact same but stepping into originality and creativity. Children enjoy putting effort into something that they have made and have taken great care over. The paintbrush and their pictures allows them to express themselves and be creative as a result. However we have to take into consideration that some children can find art an unpleasant subject to do at school and prefer to stick to subjects that require less resources and  clutter. ‘Some children find art and design lessons frustrating, and would be far happier if there was less mess and greater certainty’ (Kay and Stillman, 2009, p.2). I would have been one such child at school . I always wanted to get it right . I always felt my pictures were never good enough and after today’s session I realise I can be creative and my work that I produced was important and worthwhile . Therefore as a teacher I will put great emphasis onto the creativity and effort side and not always the ‘perfect’ finished product .

Also today we listened to a description of a picture in which we were to try and recreate it without seeing the picture. Whilst doing this I was very uncertain and unsure . I felt apprehensive as to whether I was doing it right. However I eventually understood that these paintings were to be far from perfect and it proved to me that everyone interprets things differently and there is no right or wrong .I really enjoyed the session and I think this would be a super activity to do with a class which would further reinforce about everyone being creative and how our concepts of painting / drawing / art are all individual and it would hopefully build up confidence within the children .

On placement I have noticed that some children who are not as confident at number or literacy work are very skilled and confident at art but I have also found the opposite to be true where some children who are very good and confident at number or literacy lack real confidence during art time but with teacher reassurance they cope well. This was particularly the case when designing a Christmas scene for a competition with the P5 class.

Children should be able to express themselves through art and not have the pressure of always drawing intricately detailed pictures and therefore I feel this session would be a great lesson for the children’s confidence .

Music

The music input was very engaging and I was fully involved. I have a particular enthusiasm for music and feel very confident with it as I play the piano . During this session we learned how to play the glockenspiel using figurenotes in songs such as ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’  I have learned about figurenotes and realise what a great, intuitive and simple way  way of teaching children how to read music this is. I think for children in the lower end (and some in the middle/upper ends) it would be a great way of quickly learning how to play a song on an instrument. Each musical note is represented by a coloured symbol . Next you match up the colour to a note /key .However before  today’s session  I would have lacked confidence playing this new instrument but I would now be willing to teach children how to play and help them with this using figurenotes .  I think this may also be a good way of assessing children on the basics of reading music . I also think using figurenotes with a lager group of children would be manageable as it seems so straightforward hopefully the children could work together and play as a group .

I feel I would like to learn more about figure notes and how it develops before transferring over to reading music notation . I plan to download some figure notes and try them myself on my piano . I thoroughly enjoyed today’s session and really felt the benefit of it to me as a future teacher as I will definitely use many of the ideas discussed above.

References

Eisner, E. (2002) The Arts and the Creation of Mind. chapter 4 10 Lessons Arts
Teach. Virginia: Integrated Publishing Solutions.

Harris , A. (2016) Creativity and Education. London: Macmillan.

Key, P, Stillman, J. (2009) Teaching Primary Art and Design. Exeter: Learning Matters