Today was the first day of my integrated arts programme. The day started with a lecture which briefly outlined what we would be doing this year, what the programme itself is about and the importance of integrated arts in education. The arts are something I chose to focus on for my graded unit back in 2017 when I was in a primary school placement in college. I chose to do the arts because the school I was situated in spent a lot of time on maths, and literacy and very rarely explored the benefits and opportunities that arise from the arts. I am looking forward to developing my knowledge and ability to teach the arts and taking what I learn into my future placements and my own classroom.

My first workshop of the day was in the visual arts. During this workshop we were given the opportunity to look at and discuss children’s paintings and the way in which the children created them. The paintings were grouped into children’s stages: Early, middle and upper. We were given the opportunity to see the progression in the children’s abilities and see Lowenfeld and Brittains stage theory in practice.
The stage theory separates children’s development into stages:

• Scribbling stage (2-4 years)
• Pre-schematic stage (4-7 years)
• The Schematic stage (7-9 years)
• The gang stage (9 – 12 years)

(McAuliffe,D. (2007))

These are some examples of the work we explored:

This would be an example of the Scribbling stage. Throughout this stage it is important to praise children for their drawings and take a real interest in what they do, as we may only see a scribble but to them it could be a whole world map.

 

This was painted by a year 6 who went on a trip to the country and took a quick sketch of the view and recreated their sketch through paint. The detail that is added shows that this was completed over a period of time.

The second workshop of the day took us to a far away village where a dragon was on the loose.

In drama, children cross into a world of story, which allows them to explore and process meanings in their experiences, both individually and for their peers.

(Booth, 1995)

The first session of drama explored four different drama conventions. The first of which was freeze frame, a freeze frame is when you stop, not moving or speaking and represent a critical moment in the drama. For our group, the freeze frame we depicted was the dragon coming to our village. At first others and I found it difficult to not chat or laugh and it became clear that within schools it is important to ensure children understand the importance of staying within character and to work on that with them throughout. The next was a thought tunnel, this convention I found to be particularly interesting as I immediately thought of several situations and activities where this would be a beneficial activity to put into place (for example when discussing Bullying). We then moved onto teacher in role, where the lecturer took on the role of the mayor and asked the villagers what they would like to do about the dragon, I feel this would be great within a classroom environment to get ideas and creativity flowing and allow the activity to be child led. The final convention we explored was hot seating, the person on the hot seat took on the role of the dragon and the villagers asked him questions such as why are you burning our village. This quickly lead the story down a different path and acted as a twist as it became clear that the dragon was actually scared of the villagers and meant no harm. This highlights to children that many stories can have different endings and gives them creative ownership over their own.

In drama we discussed a child’s ability to naturally slip into roles of their own imaging, taking on new identities with ease and submersing themselves into imagined situations where they have the ability to devise the outcome. It is here that I saw a clear link between both visual arts and drama. It is evident that within visual arts children create a picture which tells us so much more, they create characters and worlds and express their thoughts and feelings through their creation. They use both art and drama to step away from reality and allow their imagination to flow.

References 

Booth, D. (2012) Drama research: International journal of drama in education testimony reconsidering Dorothy Heathcote’s educational legacy. [Online]. Available: http://www.nationaldrama.org.uk/journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/Testimony.pdf [Accessed 18/9/19].

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.