The first week of the module was focusing on the importance of art in both ourselves and in education. In the lecture we mainly just talked over the module overview. However, we wee introduced to some important documents to relate to in the course. This included the Tallis Habits Pedagogical Wheel which I found very useful and easy to engage with in this module.

In the first half of the module we were in the art studio with Diarmuid discussing the our own experiences in art. From a personal perspective, I didn’t enjoy art very much in school. I found that there’s wasn’t much freedom in art in primary school and that there’s was always a comparison to other pupils work which made me feel quite frustrated and embarrassed of my work. I always felt that my work was never good enough. There was always expectations that I struggled to meet and I often never got to finish my work which was disheartening.

In this session, I also began to realise another point that’s was being covered. I realised that everyone interprets art in a different way, from children right through to adults. Diarmuid asked us to copy a drawing of his that was up on the wall. I noticed that’s even though we were all drawing the same picture, everyone’s was different in different ways. It became evident that the point being made was that everyone has different capabilities and skills but never the less, they all have capabilities and skills in art.

This made me realise the importance of appreciating children’s artwork and that they all have different capabilities and skills but that every individual is good at art in some way, shape or form, if given the opportunity to be instead of their art work being written off without being appreciated. For example, giving children encouragement and freedom to create art that we ask about in order to make children feel that their art work is good and has value.

To achieve children feeling this way, I learned that we also have to give them a wide range of resources to make art with. For example, a child cannot make certain types of art if the holy don’t have certain types of materials such as larger paper, different colours etc. I have realised that for a child’s creativity to be unlocked, we have to provide the key as teachers by providing a wide range of resources within our capabilities and only then will we begin to see a child’s true creativity. I will now also always try to ask children the meaning behind their artwork because I was never really asked in school and I always found myself wondering if my wrk was good or not and I do not want any child in my class feeling like that. I have learned that there is always an important meaning or story behind every piece of art carried out by a child.

Here is a picture of my interpretation of the art work.

In this session, we also discussed the importance of allowing children to draw in permanent ink. I never thought before the session that this made any difference to a child’s learning and development in art but I most definitely have realised that it does now. It is important as they are less likely t truly and erase ‘mistakes’, which allows them to be less critical and harsh/dissaointed with their work. There isn’t less comparison and expectation from both teacher and pupil as there is no expectation of ‘perfection’. Children are more likely to feel that there work is worth something as it isn’t not being compared to everyone else’s as everyone’s work is going to be different.

In the second session of the day we were in the music studio. I took music in secondary school all the way through to advanced higher. I loved music in school and so I was looking forward to this workshop.

at the start of the session we were asked to listen to sound files and tell the class how they made us feel, some of the answers were; happy, sad, scared and calm. I found this exercise useful as it helped me just engage and enjoy music. This is something I would do in my class in a primary school with any age group, probably mainly P3-P5 but I could adapt the songs to suit different age levels. This exercise is also helpful to help children express the different emotions that music makes us feel. This could also be made into a drama lesson with the appropriate planning.

Afterwards, we were drawing through listening to music. We were asked as groups to come up wth a story behind a piece of music. We all listened to the same piece of music. As a group we drew a story board consisting of 8 pictures of what we thought the music represented. It was interesting and useful to see everyone’s different interpretations f the same piece of music.

Our group, thought that music sounded like it represented Christmas time in Santas workshop. We came up with the story, that in the beginning, everything is going smooth on Christa as eve in santas workshp. (Calm cheery music). Suddenly there is a change in the music that symbolises chaos/panic and the converter belt breaks in the workshop. A baddie called grinch frost then enters and the chaos is still pursuing. There’s us then another crescendo/accelerando in the music which we thought represented a chase between the elves and grinch frost. The music then returned to quite calm and slower which we thought represented the calmness returning to the workshop again. The music then sped again and this represented another panic in the form of a storm when santa is delivering the presents but everything finished on a positive as the presents are delivered just in time for Christmas and everything is well and good.

Here is a picture of our storyboard.

I thought that this was a great exercise for us to carry out that allowed us to interpretate music in a different way and see the different emotions through music that could perhaps never be identified through just listening to it.it was actually quite amazing to see that although everyone’s had similar themes of a panic/chase in their stories, they were all cometely different despite listening to the exact same piece of music for the exact same amount of time. This further emphasises that everyone interprates things differently in art and music but everyone’s has skill and capability in different ways. I would definitely do this exercise in my classroom because I think that children would love this as it is interactive and would allow children to express their creativity through both drawing and listening. In an art lesson in a classroom, it would also allow children to take pride in their work as there is no right or wrong answer, therefore, no comparison to other students.

Both workshops, related to each other greatly, emphasising the fact that everyone interprates things different in art, wether that be, drawing, painting, listening to music, the list is endless. These workshops are extremely useful to primary teaching, not only for ideas for lessons but in order to realise the importance of allowing children’s to create their own art and allow them to discuss their art work, like we were in the workshops. This will allow children to enjoy art more and not feel that they have expectations to have art work like everyone else’s.

During the workshops, I realised that we were using many differently categories from the Tallis Pedagogical Wheel. We were being imaginative, making connections,being persistent,tolerating uncertainty, sharing the product and many more. I love using this tool in the module and I will definitely use This in my classroom in the future because I think that it covers everything that should come out of a great art lesson. I want to be able to provide children’s with a quality education in art and music in primary schools which is something I don’t feel that I ever really got the ortunity to have as much as I should have.

A picture of the Tallis Wheel-

Tallis, T. (2013) Tallis Habits Pedagogy Wheel

 

References

Tallis, T. (2013) Tallis Habits Pedagogy Wheel. [Online] Available: http://www.thomastallisschool.com/tallis-pedagogy-wheel-guide.html. [ Accessed on 6th October 2017]

This week in class we were learning about how children develop their skills through art with the incorporation of literacy to aid our own understanding of this. We started by reading an extract from Flemming, M (2012) The Arts in Education. We were asked to annotate drawings on the paper to describe the nature of th extract and illustrate the feelings and findings behind it. I found this method particularly interesting and also helpful. I had never used this method of learning beforehand so this allowed me to visualise what the paper was meaning and talking about instead of trying to write down more words.

From a teaching perspective, this activity has allowed me to think more about how cross curricular activities can be fused together through subjects such as art, literacy, mathsm science etc.

 

Later on in the afternoon we had the opportunity to look and a different variety of children’s art work from different stages of learning. We then talked about the different stages of children’s learning and development through art work. There are three different stages associated with child development through art and design. These ar 1- The scribbling stage (2-4 years) The Pre-Schematic stage (4-7 years) and The Gang Stage (9-12 years). (Mcauliffe,2007).

The Scribbling Stage

The scribbling stage takes place mainly between the ages of 2 and four. This stage consists mostly of lines and what are considered scribbles. Many people view this as work not worthy of being art as thee is no meaning to it and no detail to it. I chose a picture that stood out to me in the art collection because of the bright colours. It is clear that this child has been trying to express feeling or emotion, or simply trying to express what their favourite colours are. Whatever the meaning, it isn’t clear that there is meaning behind the art work.this should always be shown to a child that you are interested in their work and that their work is valued and not just disregarded.

Towards the end of this stage children begin to focus more on specific details of objects they are using in their artwork. For example, a child could be drawing a dog and will draw, eyes, a tail, ears, mouth etc but will perceive the detail of things such as claws and fur as well as in the pre-schematic stage.

.

The Pre-schematic Stage

This stage normally takes place between the ages of 4-7. This is the stage when children start to add in more detail to their art work and this will progress as they move through primary. Children are still likely to experiment with their art work at this stage but there is a bit more teacher input and more structure as classes are more structured in this stage of primary school. Many people argue that it is teacher influence which encourage children to add in more detail or create art in certain ways due to deadlines or a strive for certain objects/certain looks due to class projects or topics.

For example, the first picture below is an indicator of the start of the pre schematic stage as the painting is sort of free flowing and imaginative. The piece also looks to have had a lot of time spent on it and uses a wide range of colours with quite a lot of detail in it. however, the second picture shows to have been drawn in pencil at most parts, if not all and then been drawn over in pen. This drawing also could be part of a religious wall display and so could Ben expected to look a certain way for display purposes. Hence, suggesting that the imaginative side of children’s art is being reduced towards the end of the pre-schematic stage.

 

The Gang Stage

The final stage of child development in art is The Gang Stage which usually occurs between the age of 9-12). In this stage of development, children are most likely to add even more detail into their work and still spend time on their work. However, many children become disheartened with their work due to the expectations set by teachers for their art work to look a certain way and to have certain fine details. For most children, this is not expressive of their true capabilities in art and many children tend not to engage in art after primary school due to self view as not having the skills to produce ‘quality art’.

I have chosen this piece of art work to represent this stage as it shows the progression of the use of colour and tone along with the use of much finer detail than the previous stages in order to produce a quality piece of art. I believe that this is he most important stage also, for teachers to provide children with a lot of support in the arts as it will help children become more confident in their art work in the future. However, I understand that this may be difficult for schools because of a lack of specialist subject knowledge in art by primary teachers and so art may end up getting lost and looked at as not of as much importance as many other subjects take over that are considered more important in many people’s eyes.

 

In conclusion to this weeks lecture and workshop, I have realised that there are multiple ways that children can learn through art which can be introduced in cross curricular activities, just like the way I learned a new technique to understand something easier by drawing what I was reading. This could be incorporated though literacy, maths and a wide rage of subjects.

I now understand how important it is to support children through their art work and how valuable and important it is to allow them to be creative and expressive through their own art work. Csikszentmihalyi (1996) states that creativity can be stimulated through surrounding environments. Hence, it is important that educators provide an environment that learners can gain positive experiences and opportunities which will help the child develop in the arts and in social and personal skills. By effectively practising this, I can ensure that I will be doing my best and using all the skills I can to provide children with a quality education that is fun and expressive through art.

 

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996) Creativity – Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, New York: Harper Collins.

Fleming, M.(2012). The arts in Education: an introduction to aesthetics, theory and pedagogy. London: Routledge.

McAuliffe, D.(2007) Foundation and Primary Settings. Cox,S, Watts, R., Grahame, J., Herne, S. and McAuliffe, D. (eds). Teaching Art and Design 3-11. London: Continuum. pp:26-29

This page will follow my learning journey of multiple topics such as art, drama and music and how they are all integrated in both the Curriculum of excellence and also how I have developed personally over the course of the module. The page will consist of weekly posts on my experiences which will also relate to relevant academic reading and literature. The blog posts will feature different types of media to highlight my journey which will include photographs,written posts, video blogs and hopefully a few more. I hope this will help widen my views and understanding of the topics over the weeks and will help develop my confidence in using different media platforms.

Welcome to blogs.glowscotland.org.uk – Glow Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!