In todays integrated arts inputs we explored the concept of arts in the school environment, in particular, embedding creativity into our pedagogy. Through Curriculum for Excellence it is now possible for a school to be assessed against how creative they are, as of now, there has only ever been one school to have chosen to be assessed against the criteria of creativity. Why is this? Are schools simply choosing to ignore creativity?

This mornings lecture made me think deeper into the elements which contribute to a creative classroom environment and the importance of having your own methodology, instead of just simply copying the work of others. The potential for creativity within a classroom is largely reliant on the relationships teachers build with the children, the style in which they teach, the level of enthusiasm they bring into the classroom, the interests and knowledge the teacher has and their pedagogy. I was told on the first day of Integrated arts, that as a teacher, it is fundamental that we have a tolerance for both ambiguity and mess, both of these are at the framework for opening up opportunities for our class to be truly creative. In the words of Ken Robinson

“If you are not prepared to be wrong, you can never be original” (Ken Robinson 2007)

Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value, simply giving our class a mediocre task of copying an artists work to the exact does not promote creativity, in fact far from it. Doing tasks such as this streamline the outcome and therefore hold back the children from adding any real individual artist flare to their work. Ken Robinsons ted talk explores this concept of streamlining results, and he shares the concept that educational systems see mistakes as the worst thing to possibly happen (Ken Robinson 2007). In doing so they are educating children out of their creative capacities and steering them towards a life time of refusing to stand out in fear of being wrong.

Our education system focuses so heavily on academic ability, placing subjects at order of importance. The subjects deemed most important are those which are useful at work such as maths and English, with the arts being placed at the bottom and children in later education being steered away from following a career in the arts because ‘you simply wont ever get a job in the arts’.

My workshops today in both music and arts have shown me just how simple it is to incorporate creative learning into the curriculum and has also highlighted the many benefits that follow.

In music, we explored the programme Charanga. This is a music programme which covers the years primary 1 through to primary 7. It is a very interactive app which allows for the children to get involved in keeping the beat, creating their own beats, making music to songs and singing. This programme goes as far as to give teachers lesson plans to accompany each topic, for example Mamma Mia is one topic, this has topics 1-7 (each topic includes a wealth of activity and will take some time to cover), Each of these have an in-depth lesson plan included which really leaves no room for excuses such as I wouldn’t know how to teach it. It is something I thoroughly enjoyed exploring and will most definitely be using within my classroom. This is one of the many ways creativity can be explored through music, this programme gives children the opportunity to speed up tempos, create their own rhythms and even perform their finished work.

Here are some of the experiences and outcomes covered by this lesson:

• I have the freedom to use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to discover and enjoy playing with sound and rhythm. EXA 0-17a
• I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to experiment with sounds, pitch, melody, rhythm, timbre and dynamics. EXA 2-17a
• I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to discover and enjoy playing with sound, rhythm, pitch and dynamics. EXA 1-17a

(Scottish Government, 2008)

In art, we were given a picture to look at and discuss with a partner about what we thought the underlying message of this image was. Here is the image we received

Instead of the mediocre feedback to a friend, we were given the task of videoing ourselves discussing the concepts we had pulled from the picture. This is our vlog

This is a really simple way to get the children to be creative when recording and presenting their work. Each and every vlog would be different, the concepts the children chose to explore and their own opinions will really come through on video in comparison to 30 exact copies of the same written response to one image.

Without creativity, this world would be a very dull and unexciting place. I want the children in my care to explore their full creative potential and to never shy away from being wrong. Our education system is currently streamlining our children’s minds in the way that we have mined the planet for a single material. This will fail us in the future, and I want to enforce change.

References 

Robinson,K. (2007) Do schools kill creativity? Ted talk [Online] Avaliable https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity [Accessed 30/10/2019]

Scottish government. (2008). Expressive Arts Experiences and Outcomes [online] available : https://education.gov.scot/documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf [Accessed 30/10/19]

 

In todays lecture, we were accompanied by a group of four individuals from Norway. They had prepared a short presentation about learning and teaching in Norway. From this, I found out that children in Norway, are in primary school from 6-16. This is a massive difference from our education system, with our children being at school from 4/5 – 11. Children in Norway are also given the opportunity to pick subjects in primary school when they reach 13. The focus in Norwegian schools is outdoor learning and is a far cry from our focus on Maths and English. I would love to visit Norway to see their teaching in action as I feel I could learn a lot. I would have liked to have found out more about Norway and the individuals who are visiting, however, they were in the other section and I was unable to spend any time with them.

From here, we moved onto music. In this input we were exploring Garageband. Garageband is a sound mixing app which gives you the ability to create and edit music. These are some of the features of Garageband :

• Midi keyboards can be connected and used
• You can record using a microphone
• You can record virtual amps and pedal effects by connecting a guitar or bass
• You can add a drummer that automatically plays along with your song
• You can add a background track to your recorded music
•  You can add audio and animation
• You can vary the sounds, pitch, tempo and dynamics of the sounds.

 

This app took some time to get used to, especially for those who were unfamiliar with the programme (me). However, once you had a grasp of the basics, it was clear that this app posed endless creative opportunities. Here is a clip of a very basic recording by myself :

We then moved on to creating an autumnal sound through Garageband. This proved to be more difficult for me as I could not get clips to download and play on the app. This is something my peers also struggled with. However, I can see the importance of doing such as task, as it allows children to explore and express their ideas of the sounds of autumn in a fun and creative manner.

I would use the following experiences and outcomes when exploring this app within the classroom:

• I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to experiment with sounds, pitch, melody, rhythm, timbre and dynamics. EXA 2-17a
• I can use music technology to compose, record and produce music and to enhance performance. EXA 4-17b
• Inspired by a range of stimuli, and working on my own and/or with others, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through musical activities. EXA 0-18a / EXA 1-18a / EXA 2-18a

(Scottish Government, 2008)

The next part of my day, took me to art, where we explored outdoor learning. We explored artists such as Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy. These artists specialise in land art. Here are a few examples of their work:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our group decided to focus our land art on combatting littering. This idea came to us when we saw a wine bottle and some other rubbish lying beside the river. This is something that tarnishes the beautiful scenery and negatively impacts our planet. We decided to use a mixture of natural resources and the rubbish which is polluting our environment. Here is our finished product :

Education Scotland underpin the importance of outdoor learning through their document ‘Curriculum for excellence through outdoor learning’. This document highlights the concept that outdoor learning experiences are more likely to be remembered and provide relevance and depth to the curriculum in ways that would be difficult to inside. Above all, outdoor learning is enjoyable, promotes creativity, is challenging and allows children to explore and grow as confident and responsible individuals.

(Education Scotland, 2010)

Art in the outdoors is something I would love to explore with children, whether it is cross curricular learning or simply art for the sake of doing art. Children will get to breathe fresh air, while exploring their surroundings and being naturally creative with their resources. Our group would never have came up with our idea if it wasn’t for the litter we stumbled upon. I look forward to seeing what ideas the children I will work with come up with.

References 

Education Scotland, 2010. Curriculum for excellence through outdoor learning. [Online] Available https://education.gov.scot/Documents/cfe-through-outdoor-learning.pdf [Accessed 22 October 2019].

The Scottish Government. (2008). Curriculum for Excellence: Expressive Arts Experiences and Outcomes. [Online]  Available https://education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf  [Accessed 22 October 2019].

 

 

 

 

 

In todays Music input we were exploring our ability to keep the pulse and rhythm, using our hands, our feet and finally beaters or drum sticks.

The Rhythm is the arrangement of sounds which is added in to the piece of music.

A pulse is the steady beat which is kept consistent throughout a piece of music.

Here is a short YouTube clip which shows children the different parts of music :

Beat :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kaX2l413p8&t=4s

Rhythm (this clip also explores the different notes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYsGlNpx2YI

(Music express Magazine,2015)

We explored beat and pulse both at first and second level.

These are the first level experiences and outcomes that we covered:

‣I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to discover and enjoy planning with sound, rhythm, pitch and dynamics. EXA 1-17a

‣ Inspired by a range of stimuli, and working on my own and/or with others, I can express and communicate ideas, thoughts and feelings through musical activities. EXA 1-18a

(Scottish Government,2008)

The lesson began by creating a beat through shapes.

For this activity you had to work out how many syllables were in the shape (I.e. square – 1 syllable, circle – 2 syllables). The amount of syllables in the word was the beat (i.e. square – 1 beat, circle – 2 beats).

We then moved on to linking these shapes and beats to musical notation.

From here, we were able to create the beat of this song.

From these lessons’ our class and the children we will teach are able to:
✓ Show their ability to keep the beat
✓ Play rhythmic patterns
✓ Define crotchet and quaver
✓ Work together and alone
✓ Share their feelings and expressions.

We then moved onto second level to explore both beat and rhythm. The second level experiences and outcomes we explored were:

‣ I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to experiment with sounds, pitch, melody, rhythm, timbre and dynamics. EXA 2-17a

‣ Inspired by a range of stimuli, and working on my own and/or with others. I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through musical activities. EXA 2-18a

(Scottish Government,2008)

Second level experiences introduced us to more complex notes and helped us to understand how many beats each note had:

As someone with no musical background, I found this extremely helpful in understanding the basics of notation.

From here, we began to explore more complex songs such as :

I found this extremely difficult at first, but with practice I was able to follow the notes.I feel that both of these lessons show just how simple it is to integrate music within the classroom, I myself have no musical background and I prior to this module I feel I would most likely have shied away from teaching music. However, these lessons show that music can be both fun to teach and easy for me to implement.

The second part of my day took us to art, where we were exploring ways in which we can make literacy more engaging and active. We were given the opportunity to look at Rob and Roberta smiths work. Rob and Roberta smith is an artist who works with print. Here are a few examples of his work:

Our cohort were given the opportunity to create our own prints, which illustrate a topic in which we feel passionate about. This is our groups printing process :

We chose to do the topic of female rights and equal pay as in todays society, women are still being paid substantially less than men for doing the same job. It is crucial to eliminate this gender pay gap and it is something our group felt extremely passionate about.

I feel this would be a very worthwhile activity to do within the classroom as it would allow children to explored different methods of writing and expressing their information. It would also be a great way to incorporate art into topic work, with each child designing their own print poster for the topic.

References 

Music express magazine. 2015. The music show #2 I’ve got rhythm. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYsGlNpx2YI  [Accessed 16 October 2019].

Music express magazine. 2015. The music show #1 The beat is the heart of the music. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kaX2l413p8&t=4s [Accessed 16 October 2019].

The Scottish Government. (2008). Curriculum for Excellence: experiences and outcomes [online] Available at: https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-(building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5)/Experiences%20and%20outcomes  [Accessed 16 October 2019].

 

 

 

 

Todays input saw the beginning of one curricular area and the completion of another.  Over the past 5 week myself and my cohort have been exploring drama within education.

Through the many activities we have completed, my eyes have been opened to the rich and affective experiences that come with drama for teachers and students alike. It allows us to create immense imaginary worlds, to explore the perspectives of our peers and to envision alternative possibilities and outcomes of the finished product. As Winston J states, not all quality drama has to involve acting out something that has already been decided, it can focus on discovering the unknown and living with ambiguity in order to explore new ideas and meanings(Winston, 1998). This is something I would like to embed within my classroom, to help the children understand that there is no correct answer in drama and that is okay to step outside their comfort zone and explore the endless possibilities that drama presents them with.

Allow I was hesitant at the beginning of this module, mainly due to my lack of experience with drama, I have thoroughly enjoyed each and every workshop and it has really helped to improve my confidence both within myself and as a classroom teacher.

With the end of our drama inputs, came the start of our music sessions. Music is not something I have explored through education and I feel these inputs will be extremely beneficial in terms of allowing me to gain the knowledge of how best to teach music within the classroom environment.

After todays lecture, I took the time to explore further the benefits of music within education. Here is a list of just few I found :

•  Music enhances fine motor skills – the parts of the brain which are linked to sensory and motor function are developed through music instruction. Forgeard found that musically trained children have better motor function than non-musically trained children. (Forgeard et al.., 2008)
•  Fosters superior working memory – Those trained in music are more likely to sustain mental control during memory and recall tasks, this is likely due to their longterm music training .            (Berti et al., 2006).
•  Cultivates better thinking skills – research has shown that children who take keyboard lessons have higher levels of abstract reasoning abilities than their peers.  (Rauscher, 2000).
•  Sharpens students attentiveness – the ability to pay attention is essential within the classroom. This ability begins to develop in early childhood and is continuously refined. Studies show that if a child is exposed to musical training in early childhood, their attention abilities are improved.  (Neville et al., 2008)

As a student teacher, I am committed to encouraging creativity and imagination within the classroom. I will look to seek out ways for children to explore the immense imaginary worlds that expressive arts create, to explore the perspectives of their peers and to envision alternative possibilities and outcomes of the finished product. I feel I am in a much better place to do so just 5 weeks into this module and I can feel myself regaining my creative confidence in the arts.

References 

• Berti, S., et al. (2006). Different Interference Effects in Musicians and a Control Group. Experimental Psychology, 53(2), 111-116.
• Forgeard, M., et al. (2008). Practicing a Musical Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning. PLoS ONE 3(10): e3566.
• Neville, H., et al. (2008). Effects of Music Training on Brain and Cognitive Development in Under-privileged 3- to 5-year-old Children: Preliminary Results. In C. Asbury & B. Rich (Eds.), Learning, Arts, and the Brain: The Dana Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition (pp. 105-116). New York, NY: Dana Press.
• Rauscher, F. H., & Zupan M. A. (2000). Classroom Keyboard Instruction Improves Kindergarten Children’s Spatial-Temporal Performance: A Field Experiment. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 15(2), 215-228.
• Winston,J.(1998) Drama, Narrative and Moral Education. London:Falmer Press.

In todays integrated arts input, myself and my group were given the opportunity to plan a ‘lesson’ for drama. This approach is called    microteaching. Prior to this session we decided to plan our lesson around the book giraffes can’t dance. Giraffes can’t dance is a booked aimed at children from 3 – 6 years old, which follows Gerald a friendly giraffe which unfortunately cannot dance. The book allows the children to go along with Gerald on his journey to learn how to dance at the party with his animal friends.

Here is an animation of the book, which could be shown in class along with reading the book:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZjsLK5vwNU

(Malik,2019)

This book teaches children that it is good to do brave things and to step outside your comfort zone. It also shows them that it is okay to ask for help.

We decided to use three drama conventions in our lesson: Teacher in role, Monologue and thought tunnel. One of my peers took on the role of Gerald in teacher in role and we asked our section to gather round and ask Gerald questions about how he feels and what they can do to help. We then moved on to thought tunnel, where the individual walking through the middle was Gerald and the others were the animal friends, this was to highlight some of the other characters feelings towards Gerald and to show which direction they wanted to go in with the rest of the story. We finally split the section into groups and each group created a still image and one character stepped out and spoke their thoughts. We felt this lesson went extremely well, however, when given feedback we realised the importance of mingling with each of the groups to make sure they are all doing okay and understanding the task in hand. This is something I will work on when planning and implementing drama lessons in the future.

After our group completed our microteaching, we were given the opportunity to take part in another two groups lessons. The next two groups happened to choose the same book (We’re going on a bear hunt), at first this seemed like it could be an issue, with both lessons possibly being very similar. However, each focused on different aspects of the story and the groups had chosen to focus on different drama conventions which made both fresh and enjoyable. This is something I will be mindful off in the classroom, as completing the same story after it has already been done may lead to the children being under stimulated.

After Drama, we moved to Art. This seminar followed last weeks art work of the Scottish Highlands. We were given the brief to write upon our pictures with words, phrases and songs which we associate with the highlands or simply feel from the picture. We were given a variety of utensils such as chalk, pencils, pens and pastels to write upon our picture. This was my picture:

I chose to write on the green parts of the trees vertically to show the many different ways of growth the trees can take, I wrote horizontally on the truck to show the strength of the tree. For one tree (the left), I wrote words that I associate with trees such as Air, Blossom and Evergreen. For the second tree I found a poem which I really liked which stated:

“Allow natures peace to flow into you as sunshine flows through trees”

This poem made me think about standing on top of a grassy hill, with the sun beaming down on me, appreciating the beauty of my surroundings, feeling truly content.

I then moved on to writing on top of the mountains. For this I decided to follow the up and down pattern of the mountains peaks, I decided that Robert Burns poem ‘ My heart is in the highlands’ was perfect. The poem goes:

“Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go.

Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go.”

(Burns, 1789)

Finally, I decided to write words around my clouds in the sky. For this, I wanted my words to follow a circular pattern around the outside of the cloud. I found a poem called ‘’ which I particularly loved and I selected snippets of it to write round my clouds. The poem goes:

“Clouded skies bring hope for some;
The hope of rain, new life to come.
to lay and watch the clouds pass by –
They paint fresh pictures in the sky.

Children play look and see games;
Place cloudy shapes in picture frames.
A dragon spreads its wings in flight;
Two awesome beasts prepare to fight.
The nebulous figures soon disappear.
An azure canvas – naked and clear.
The sun comes out to shine anew,
until new paintings come to view.”

I loved this poem as it spoke to the inner child in me, it reminded me of lying on the grass staring up into the sky and seeing an infinite number of different images in the clouds. This gave me a feeling of sheer happiness and I loved the idea of these images being paintings in the sky.

Here are some experiences and outcomes which could be covered by this art lesson :

• I have the freedom to discover and choose ways to create images and objects using a variety of materials. EXA 0-02a
• I can respond to the work of artists and designers by discussing my thoughts and feelings. I can give and accept constructive comment on my own and others’ work. EXA 0-07a / EXA 1-07a / EXA 2-07a / EXA 3-07a

(Scottish Government, 2008)

Both of these activities highlighted to me further the importance of including the arts in the curriculum, as a stand along subject and integrated in others such as literacy. Such a simple task of writing some quotes on a picture took me to a whole other place in my imagination and allowed me to be creative. This is something I would love to instate within my classroom and I can think of endless amounts of opportunities to do so.

References 

Burns, R. (1789) My heart is in the highlands [Online] Available : http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburns/works/my_hearts_in_the_highlands/ [Accessed 3/10/19]

Malik, S. (2019). Giraffe’s Can’t Dance Animation Movie [Online] Available : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZjsLK5vwNU [Accessed 3/10/19]

Scottish Government. (2008). Expressive Arts Experiences and Outcomes [Online] Available : https://education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf [Accessed 3/10/19]