One of my sisters is also an art teacher and has made it her goal to expose her students to as much life and culture outside of their small town as possible. Expanding the student’s global community is an important part of our current culture with the workforce changing from local to international before our eyes. I cringe when I hear some of my students talk about traveling to the bordering state as if it was the experience of a lifetime. In the rural town I teach in, students often don’t have the means to take family trips far off places. They are lucky if they make the 2.5 hour drive to New York City once, in their high school career. While I can’t fund raise enough to allow each family in my school the opportunity to travel, I can do my best to expose the students to foreign culture and give them a taste of what life is like in other parts of the world. The project is simple. So many of us already do 2 point perspective projects. This one encourages the students to learn about a different place and the culture they would experience there, and apply this knowledge to create a restaurant design. This is one of those projects that really incorporates a lot of design thinking. Students have to learn about the country, decide where their restaurant will be located and make a lot of key decisions from there. Many of the students struggle initially with the idea that a 5 star restaurant might not be the best choice for a developing country. Project Essential Questions How can we get students excited about the culture that exists in other parts of the world? How can educators connect drawing with key math vocabulary words? Students will know and be able to. . . • Understand math concepts and vocabulary associated with perspective drawing. • Interesting facts about a country that they knew little about prior to the assignment. • Conceptualize facts about a country in order to design a restaurant inspired by the country of study. • Practice shading techniques using a light source and cross-hatching. • Be exposed to the basics of landscape architecture. • Study the architect Frank Gehry and discuss his work. Here's the lesson:
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Getting kids to think.
The simple act of thinking is the main ingredient in beginning a successful design. In education, it is the one aspect of our teaching that we have little control over. Teachers can see when a student isn’t drawing. We can observe that they aren’t paying attention (or we can assume), but it is very difficult to judge whether a student is truly thinking and brainstorming ideas or just riding out the clock. Often times, students aren’t trying to be sneaky or manipulative, they just can’t persuade their brains to move around a problem. Mind mapping provides a way to visually interpret and illustrate one's ideas. This benefits the students in showing them how to circumvent brain blocks and it certainly helps us teachers understand how a student got to a certain point in their thinking and how they can move beyond that point. I used Mind Mapping as an introduction to the Health and Well-being unit of my Foundations of Design Class. Students were simply asked to consider the word "health" and branch out with ideas, visuals, and connections. The class discussed the benefits of organizing thoughts in a visual way and I used the age-old exercise of asking the kids to think of a donkey. When asked what they thought of, all students described an image of a donkey flashing in their heads. From there, we discussed how as humans, organizing thoughts in a visual way goes along with our basic modes of recognition and perception. Humans are by nature, visual beings. The drawings that followed our discussion range in depth and creativity. Some students focused on how NOT to be healthy while some focused on creating a "to do" list. I encouraged the students to not filter their thoughts in any way and merely recognize the connections and hierarchy. How can you design a writing instrument while applying form and function effectively with emphasis on texture? I do this project early on in the course as part of the review of the elements and principles of design. Students consider the texture of objects and how the psychology of touch plays an important role in the products that we interact with. Their goal is to redesign a writing instrument that either possesses additional function and/or places heavy emphasis on texture. The spectrum of completed assignments have ranged from mood pens to writing grips for people with limited hand dexterity. Note about Materials: I have always used Model Magic for this assignment, but next time around will try something different. They Model Magic cracks very easily and the students rely on the "foamy" feel to act as the design solution. Any suggestions? To review the elements and principles of design, the students set out to create a set of shelves for three different age groups emphasizing Line in their designs. They sketch their ideas for a 16 year-old student, a middle-aged couple, and an 80 year-old, living alone. The students are encouraged to consider how the form and function changes for each age group and how lines might have a different role for each. This project is typically the first real design project of the course and it is always interesting to see how the students deal with the parameters. In grad school, when designing a program handbook, a professor of mine showed me a unique technique. He threw a piece of ribbon down on my sketch and told me to find inspiration from the lines and shadows of the ribbon and go from there. He didn't expect me to consider the content of the handbook and create the aesthetic based on that, which was the process I was accustomed to. This was an approach I was completely unfamiliar with at the time but have come to see a lot of value in. While I think that a consistent process for designing is helpful, I know that there will be times that a solution can’t be achieved via the same old avenues. Sometimes a little creativity is essential, in the process itself.
We've been lucky enough to have been gifted many children's books over the years; I'm talking multiple bookshelves worth. We're also fans of the library, so apart from the occasional bookfair flyer home from school pressure we rarely purchase new books. Maybe its because most of our books are hand-me-downs, but It never ceases to amaze me how poorly written many of the books out there are. I mean, some of them are downright horrible. I feel embarrassed for the author while I am reading them to my 2 year old. For example: Just this morning I read a story about 3 ice skating elephants. The first two (a male and female) skate fast and slow, but always together. They are apparently an item. The third comes along and catches the male elephant's eye. He becomes so dizzy with the thought of skating with the new elephant that he falls through the ice. His original girl comes and saves him, so now he only will skate with her. Anywhooo... When I come across a great book that happens to also deal with design, I can't help but share it. Two such books written by Chris Van Dusen are the top of my list and are definitely worthy of purchasing new. If I built a House and If I Built a Car both involve a clever little boy who while bored with his average house/car invents a new design for each. The stories are both great examples of how the imagination can make life way more interesting. In IF I BUILT A Car, Jack designs a vehicle that embodies a typical childlike fantasy with its hide-a-way pool, conveyer belt snack bar, driving robot, and retractable wings. VanDusen touches upon designing for the 5 senses with ideas like an engine that converts gasoline fumes into a more pleasing smell (like blueberry muffins) and even considers passenger safety with a special polymer gel exterior that doesn't dent. The humor, whimsy, and practical lessons of the design process make this probably the best book I have read to my kids so far and one perfect for the classroom. Plus, it rhymes, and I am pretty sure that all children's books should rhyme. This book does NOT disappoint the older student. I have read it to my 8th graders as a fun break from designing their linear perspective interiors and every one of them sat quietly with wide eyes as I read. Even my 10th graders enjoyed flipping through and remarked on the design process that the book covered. Special thanks to Aunt Vicki for gifting If I built a House!! Students like to design chairs. More so, they like to redesign the chairs they sit on at school. If you ever want to see a high school class come together to problem solve, ask them to rip apart (figuratively, not literally...’cause they can do that too) their classroom chairs. Designing a chair is one of the most common projects for beginning designers. The popularity is justified because everyone uses chairs. Being a common object, many people have unique ideas about their design elements. Most people can agree that they have sat on an uncomfortable chair at some point in their lives. Comfort is one of the more undervalued luxuries in society. We consider comfort to be something that comes in addition to the function of an object when in reality it should not be separate from the function. Feel free to download this lesson which focuses on using only cardboard to create a chair that can hold a specific weight. It's a great cross-curricular project!
I had looked forward to choosing an instrument for many years before it was time. Third grade was the year that the long awaited Instrument Night was held. This was the night where all of the kids gathered in the cafeteria to try out as many instruments as they could before choosing. I picked up the trumpet, but couldn't make a sound. My mom tried to get me to play the flute, but all of the girls who wore a lot of pink were choosing that, so I stayed clear. I really wanted to play the violin, but mom said no (too much screeching noise). Ultimately I decided on the oboe, not because I was interested in it, but because no one else was choosing it.
I played the oboe from 4th grade through college and even picked up the bassoon somewhere along the way in high school. I loved playing in the school bands and loved learning about music. As an adult, I still carry that appreciation for music with me and it is safe to say that it has positively impacted my life. I studied music for all those years using the same instrument and the same set of instructional strategies. I learned the fingerings and how to control my breath enough to slowly pick up on reading music (although I kind of faked my way through that). I remember the process of learning music was pretty similar each year. We were given sheet music, would learn about the person who composed it and the situation or story of the piece and then we would attempt to play it. Weeks later we would be somewhat fluent in playing the song and would have picked up some key vocabulary words along the way. Perhaps the piece we were playing included the word Adagio. We didn't have Little Einsteins back then, so we would have learned to slow down at that part when we arrived there. I assume that my teachers chose pieces that purposefully progressed and included different music skills that built on the last, but this was transparent to me. At the end of my formal music education I was left with the ability to play 2 instruments fairly well; but more so I learned to appreciate music and make it a part of my life. I find there to be a notable difference between the way our students are taught music and the way we teach art. In art education it is expected that we expose the students to a variety of mediums, styles, artists, and concepts before they leave our classrooms. The assumption is that students will find a portion of the art world that they can appreciate deeply and make it a part of their lives somehow. Foundations classes are typically set up in this way, allowing the students to move forward with more specialized classes such as painting, drawing, photography, etc., later on. I wonder what would change if art departments scheduled their classes to be more like our counterparts in the music wing? How might our students benefit from thoroughly experiencing and learning through one medium and not several? What role does depth over breadth play in art education? What problems would arise if our students learned aspects of art through the single medium of drawing or painting from 3rd all the way to 12th? When I envision what it would be like to teach an art medium in the same way that students learn an instrument it seems absurd to me. Yet, I can't imagine teaching a student a new instrument each quarter. So, what's the difference? I know how difficult it is to learn an instrument, but I think it is equally challenging to learn how to see and draw well. This huge difference in pedagogy has been practiced and accepted for ages and while I believe in art education as it is, I can't help but wonder.... Please share your thoughts! I was recently at a party to celebrate a high school teenager's birthday with my husband. The gathering was pretty well split, with the adults congregating in one area and the teenagers peacefully keeping their own space in another. At one point I noticed a puzzled expression on my husband's face as he watched the teens chatting away. As he soaked in the adolescence, he remarked how rarely he is around this age group and how quickly one can forget what it is like to be a teenager. I snickered as I often do when I want him to know how hard my job is; and I thought how opposite a high school teacher's world is to other adults. Those of us that work in high schools can't escape the sights, sounds, and smells of teenage years. It has become the norm to witness all of their quirky behaviors and we forget sometimes how the rest of the world deals with daily experiences. I truly enjoy teaching this age group. I love that my students can simultaneously LOVE and HATE everything, and that making a mountain out of a mole hill is as common as getting out of bed in the morning. Most of the time I have patience for the stubbornness they throw at me, however, over the years I have been consistently disappointed when students fail to show gratitude. I hold the door open for them; they walk through. I hand out paper with really useful, well-thought-out information for their little brains to soak in; they groan. I bring in a box of donuts to celebrate the end of a big project; they scarf them down without ensuring that everyone received one. My knowledge of this age group armors me with understanding, however I find that saying "thank you" is the least of my concerns. I fear that students in this age group are having a difficult time feeling gratitude enough to understand that they can show it. This concern prompted one of the lessons in my Life Skills unit. Depending on the materials available, the end product is either a terrarium or a sculptural card. The lesson requires discussion, or it may become a superficial exercise in merely saying thank you. My goal is to give the students the opportunity to think about the things in their lives that they feel grateful for in a deeper way than the common thanksgiving day project. I often ask my students what are some of the things in their lives that they feel they can't live without. I encourage them to reflect on the reason they would be affected by this absence. More often than not, it comes down to a handful of people that the students feel strongly grateful for. They observe that there are little and big things that they can show gratitude for and find that if they do it more, it may come back to them as well. This project can be as simple or as complicated as you make it. The result might be a slightly more polite group of teenagers with really cool sculptural cards or you may help a few kids get through their teenage years feeling really grateful for their mountains and molehills. Here's the lesson.
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