During this week’s lecture we were introduced to Scottish artist Avril Paton’s 1993 painting ‘Window’s in the West’, currently on display at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Gallery. As Paton is a modern artist, we were able to view a video of her talking about the painting online. This is something that I will keep in mind in the classroom; there is a higher chance of discovering video or audio clips of a living modern artist talking about their work than a classical artist who is now deceased. This gives pupils a greater understanding of the artist and their work, and helps them to utilise Taylor’s Model of Assessment (1987) to interpret a piece of art. Using this method, we discussed our interpretations of the painting, and it was interesting to note the variety of emotions and ideas the painting evoked in each of us.
Diarmuid also encouraged us to consider the gender of the artists we select to look at in the classroom. When you think about it, female artists have essentially been written out of history, and it is conventionally male artists that are usually looked at in the classroom, from Da Vinci and Van Gough, to Steve Brown. Choosing female artists to investigate in school makes some attempt to balance the gender bias.
During the lecture, we also discussed the possibilities for interdisciplinary learning by considering the links to literacy and drama that could be forged through this painting. Pupils could take a room or scene from the painting, for example the two people in the doorway, and come up with a back story for these characters. They could develop a drama based around the lives of these people and create a script to go with it. The pupils could then act this out, and it could also pull in elements of a Scottish culture topic.
The visual arts input was a practical lesson on printing. We recreated a section of Windows in the West on a polystyrene tile, rolled tempera paint onto it then printed this onto a folded A4 piece of paper. After a short time, we repeated the print process with one or two additional colours, creating a total of four images. This was an interesting activity which produced aesthetically pleasing results, and could easily be used in the classroom, with some adaptations. I would ideally spread the process over a few lessons and perhaps have relatively small groups of pupils completing the activity at a time as things did get a bit chaotic in the art studio. The tempera paint is permanent and will stain clothing, so whilst it is necessary to have a tolerance for mess in order to fully engage in the arts, consideration must still be given to the implications concerning children’s clothing, school property and furniture, and I feel that smaller groups would allow for more precautions which in turn will ensure activities like this can continue without issue from management or parents. This activity could lead smoothly from a research project into the invention of the printing press within a topic on inventions and industry. If done at the right time of year, the results of the activity could be used as an enterprise venture for the pupils, making the prints into Christmas cards for example.
In the afternoon, we had our first opportunity to experience drama. We considered how drama is conventionally viewed in the classroom. Often, it is pigeon-holed into the nativity, the end of year show, and in some religious schools, the stations of the cross at Easter. However, today we considered the idea of introducing drama as a regular, non-production based element within the classroom. By using drama conventions such as teacher in role (TIR), we were introduced to the story of “The Lonely Dragon”. Modelling how to perform TIR, the lecturer encouraged us to participate as pupils, suggesting possible reasons and solutions for the problem of the dragon. This allowed us to see how drama can be child-led in the classroom, and doesn’t need a myriad of scenery, props and costumes. Something simple such as a scarf or hat for the teacher to wear to signal to the children that they are in their role is all that is needed. Children have wonderful imaginations and often choose role playing games when given the opportunity. We should capitalise on this to make drama a much more regular experience for children, and doing it in this way allows those who may not feel confident performing on stage, the chance to take part and be involved.
We continued to look at other drama conventions through the story of the dragon. The Freeze Frame technique was fascinating to get a glimpse into how differently we all reacted to the story – this enabled us to see how the teacher can steer the class towards a certain conclusion whilst still allowing the children to lead the direction of the drama and utilise their imagination and creativity. Other techniques we tried were hot seat, improvisation and thought tunnels – these all have a key role to play in truly allowing the children to lead the drama and develop their abilities in some of the key Tallis skills, such as imagination, collaboration and inquisitiveness (Tallis Pedagogy Wheel, 2017).
Thinking about the common theme through the inputs, Eisner’s ‘Ten Lessons the Arts Teach” (2002) comes to mind, particularly the idea that the arts teach us that each of us interpret the world around us in our own individual way, and every interpretation is valid.
REFERENCES:
Eisner, E. (2002) The Arts and the Creation of Mind. London: Yale University Press.
Paton, A. (1993) Windows in the West [Online] Available: https://avrilpaton.co.uk/ [Accessed: 5 October 2017]
Tallis Pedagogy Wheel (2017) [Online] Available: http://www.thomastallisschool.com/tallis-pedagogy-wheel-guide.html [Accessed: 12 September 2017].
Taylor, R. (1987) Educating for Art London: Longman
