Today, the focus was around visual arts and music. There was no morning lecture today but there were two workshops.

Workshop 1- Music
In the workshop today, we were focussing on using instruments whilst learning about using symbols as music notes to create and follow and rhythm/pulse. We were using a resource that focussed on simplifying music beats/note values in the form of shapes such as squares and circles. We were also using different small phrases to keep in rhythm. For example- ta ta ta or ta ta, which conveys three beats or two beats. We used drumsticks to carry this out. Aside from this, the learning was also focused around using notes and harmony as well as learning about the lines and spaces in music. Whilst learning about this, we had the opportunity to try this out for ourselves in small groups by playing the glockenspiel.
I found this workshop very interesting and useful because I had never seen or used this method of learning/teaching music before. I liked the use of shapes to show the value of a beat because it was simple and easy to follow. It was interesting to see how music could be simplified in ways that I never even considered before. I did find the very fast pieces very difficult to keep up with, however, in a primary setting, much more time would be dedicated to the learning of the music.
I really like the idea of using symbols to teach music before advancing to proper symbols because it gives children the same chance to learn because they are all reading the same music so therefore, learning together at the same stage. This type of learning promotes inclusion within education at early level and perhaps into second level which is a positive factor.

 

Workshop 2- Visual Arts

Today, we were discussing art within the primary sector and our own experiences whilst in schools of the arts. Personally, during my placement, I haven’t seen much of the arts or the integration of them within each other or in other areas of the curriculum. I have seen some art work displayed on the walls of the classroom but that is all. I find this quite sad when there is so much opportunity to teach the arts in schools. However, in my classroom on placement, the children all have a reflective journal in which they can either write or draw whatever they want in any way they want. This journal is totally personalized to their creative wants, needs and desires and they are not guided in any way what to write or draw. This promotes creativity in the visual arts within education because there is no external influence over the children and they are free to draw or write whatever they want. I like it also because there is no expectation of perfection or standard from the teacher towards the children or expectation of sharing their ideas and artwork which gives children more reign, confidence and creativity of their own work and within the arts in general. Hence, reiterating that “It is essential that educators develop a creative practice which enables creativity through the encouragement of children’s ideas and possibilities, focusing on not inhibiting the individuals process”(Jeffrey and Craft, 2003, Craft and Jeffrey, 2004, cited in, Craft, 2007).

Here is some examples of the art work on display in the school I am placed in.

Within the lecture, I liked hearing about my colleague’s experiences of art within the classroom. It was useful to hear activities that they had experienced which I could implement in my own practice, but it was also rather harrowing to find that a lot of them hadn’t experienced any art at all whilst on placement.

References

• Craft, A. (2007) Creativity and possibility in the Early Years .[Online]. Available: www.tactyc.org.uk/pdfs/reflection-craft.pdf