25/09/18 – Stimulus for Inspiration

Within the arts there is a lot of room for using what’s around you as inspiration and mixing that inspiration with your own ideas to create something unique and original. Even a simple trip outside the classroom to the playground and letting the child explore what’s around them can allow them to think of ideas and expand their imagination. Showing them a picture or a single word or letting them listen to a piece of music gets their brains thinking about the endless possibilities in their minds.

Starting a lesson with a stimulus changes how the child looks at the rest of the lesson, they see new ideas within the subject and activity, rather than sitting and being uninterested in what’s going on. They are more willing to interact with the activity, happier to collaborate with the other children in the class and even happier to come back to class and continue their learning if the subject has interest to them and made enjoyable.

During a music workshop we got the opportunity to experience this kind of learning for ourselves to experience what the child might see, feel and hear in the classroom during a similar activity. Different pieces of music were played to us and we were to write down how that piece of music made us feel, what it reminded us of. We then discussed as a class our answers and it was interesting to hear the variation of answers given, interesting to see how everyone had different thoughts about the music they heard, had their own feelings and memories.

This made me think about how this could be used in practice and the positive benefits it can have on the children and their experience in the classroom. This experience is child centred and allows the child their freedom to think for themselves and write, draw or perform what the stimulus makes them feel or think. Using the expressive arts to help achieve this means the children have a safe space and comforting environment to express how the stimulus makes them feel without fear of being judged.

“Inspired by a range of stimuli, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through activities within art and design.” EXA 0-05a / EXA 1-05a / EXA 2-05a

“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   (Education Scotland, 2017)

Reference List:

Education Scotland (2017) Benchmarks Expressive Arts, Available at: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/documents/expressiveartsbenchmarkspdf.pdf(Accessed: 25th September 2018).