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While reading the first two articles I found myself agreeing with the author’s points of view and the gains in the classroom. I was also then questioning for the research support, as much was evidenced in the second article, the third article had the heaviest layers of support with the research that was conducted in Chicago Public Schools. The first reading, from the pre-service teacher, connected with my experiences as a student. She referred to the desire to attend art class and how she loved it. I fondly remember my art teachers and loved art class, sadly I did not continue to pursue art into high school, and this is something that I regret.
The open endedness of using art is something that I thoroughly enjoyed, but as a teacher I have witnessed this also as a potential pitfall. This past year I had a few reluctant students when going to art. This made me sad, but I learned that they were too structured in the current model of school, and they might greatly benefit from time in art. I say this because I feel that the creativity of art benefits all of us later in life. Whether we are troubleshooting a problem, or seeking to solve something, the openness of art helps to keep us thinking creatively. What do I mean by that, well if we only approach a problem methodically we are likely to get frustrated. Instead a touch of creativity and an openness to attempt and learn from failure is what will lead us to learn (i.e. “think outside the box”).
My biggest take away from the articles was the affirmation that art is life and in a way the end goal of educating life long learners is supported by it. Math, reading, writing, science, and social studies all serve on our education so that we can utilize higher order thinking. We learn to write and read in order to communicate and continue to learn. We teach students to read with emotion and feeling, and this is because we are not robots. In fact we learn to read, so that we can read to learn. Drama students might be the best suited trial lawyers, writers are authors, sketching/drawing leads to engineering and architecture, and then math and problem solving needs spatial reasoning, visualization and much more. In fact our future business people will deliver presentations that they create and the balance of color and focusing eyes to the correct areas only benefits more. I am beginning to draw on, but in fact art supports how we interact and in fact art is largely the end goal.
Connections in the classroom are something that I want to focus on. In large part the third article admitted that some of the lessons might have been supported as “more engaging” by creating art with the assignment, this alone stands to reason that art is needed. I plan to use art to bolster my student engagement with all opportunities. Additionally, the research indicated that behavior was supported, again, if art supports my classroom management then I am a fool to stray away from its benefits. Another use in the classroom is reader’s theater and further bridging the gap. I am thinking the research of “period appropriate” clothing to support a production and the idea of getting into the role by connecting with the emotion of character and the life that they may have lived. I will be teaching at a new school and a new grade level, so I am excited to see how I can incorporate art into the lessons of my upcoming units!
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