Field Experience 1
Standard 4 Artifact
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One activity from the Art 302 course that gave me a great idea of how
to teach in my future art classroom, and incorporate a variety of
teaching methods, was the activity in which we spoke about the history
of “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” This activity would be useful in
numerous ways, with all different age groups, and incorporates many
different subjects into an art class. This would be a great activity to
turn into a larger unit incorporating research, reading, writing, and
presentation in the classroom.
First, I thought it was very
nice to introduce the painting, one that is very popular in classrooms
around America, and speak about what the piece, in itself, tells about
the actual crossing of the Delaware, in comparison to the actual
historical information. This not only introduces the piece, but also
assists verbal learners in diving into the art content. All too often,
students take art for exactly what it shows, instead of going beyond
the artwork to understand the truth behind the piece. As a photography
student, I often try to work with the idea of “photos representing a
true reality” and work to push these boundaries to make others question
the “reality” of photos I take. I feel that this could be an important
tie into my classroom, as students need to learn that everything can be
manipulated, and that artistic license can be taken in every media,
even photography.
Second, The “Washington Crossing the
Delaware” activity is very beneficial to students as it incorporates
other subjects into the study of art, as the readings we have completed
suggested. I feel that it is very important that students not only
learn the skills that are needed to create art, but also study,
research, and write about the art, and the history of each piece.
Through these activities, other skills, such as reading, writing and
comprehension, can be further developed. I would like to do separate
activities within a larger lesson on this topic, including writing
about historic art pieces, researching a historic piece that the
students are interested in, and presenting that to the rest of the
class.
The incorporation of the history of “Washington Crossing
the Delaware” into our lesson gave me a much greater appreciation of
the painting, and brought back a sense of childlike curiosity, as I
began to wonder about the true history of other famous pieces of art.
This could also be incorporated into my future classroom, in an
assignment in which each student could investigate a different piece of
art and present on the history of the piece and just what they found
out about it. I also think this gives students creative ideas about
pieces of art that they could make about history, ancient or modern, to
make different statements. It is often said that the best way to learn
is to learn to teach the subject, and, in this way, students would have
to remember their art piece and it’s history well enough to teach to
the rest of the class, creating an experience that will likely lead to
deep retention of the information they present.
Next, I
thought that this activity was beneficial because we discussed the
piece aloud in class. From my past experiences, elementary and high
school teachers rarely incorporated in-class discussion into art
classes. Classes were generally a “lecture” in which the teacher
explained the project, work time, and finally the simple handing in of
completed works of art. This process seems to be missing a crucial
component of discussing what works well or could be improved within
each piece. Students often seem to get discouraged by what is wrong
with their piece, and forget that there are also parts of each piece in
which they were successful. Critique and discussion help to increase
confidence of students and help them to understand what truly makes art
great. As Mrs. Szabo said while we were at Lincoln Middle School, it is
important to incorporate students into discussion instead of always
talking at them. I fully agree with Mrs. Szabo’s opinion, as I
personally have learned much more in classes that focused on discussion
than I have in other lecture courses. Additionally, questions that are
brought up in discussion of both student and historical art pieces,
such as “why is the sky light around Washington’s head,” can lead
students into discussions about emphasis, use of color, and artistic
license, along with other art topics. These discussions could then lead
into art projects in which students work to use these artistic elements
in their own pieces.
This activity
could be further extended to incorporate a student project in which
each student makes their own piece of art depicting a historical event
(or the modern time as a historical event). This would allow the
students to use their own personal artistic skills to create a piece
similar to the ever-popular historic pieces we had studied. After the
pieces were completed, we would also be able to have a discussion on
the accuracy of each student’s piece, and the ability to use artistic
license while creating art.
Finally, I feel that this project
gives students a greater appreciation of art, and helps them to look
past the image into the artistic decisions that were made by the
artist. A large part of my philosophy of art education is that I feel
that students need to understand the important roles that art and
creativity have played, and still play in culture, and I feel that
increasing understanding and appreciation of art, and the processes and
decisions behind it, with relation to historical contexts is a very
great way to help students understand that art is more than simply
lines and shapes.
In addition to the plans that I have already
included, in the future, I also plan to incorporate this lesson into my
own classroom through discussions of various other pieces of work, and
the artists that created them. It is one thing for students to be able
to recognize or even emulate a piece of art, but students reach a
completely different level of thoughtful understanding when they think
about the history of each piece and the conscious decisions that were
made by the artist to make each piece what it is. I hope to use this
project to help students to make conscious decisions about their
artwork, something that I was rarely taught to do before college.
Overall,
I hope to help give art a tie to subjects that are often labeled as
“more important” than art, and help students to truly understand that
there is much more to art than the creation of individual pieces. I
want my students to understand that a very specific thought process,
including research, opinion, emotion, history, science, reading, and
math, associated with art. I hope that each student is eventually able
to come to the realization that art is just as important as any other
subject. After all, without designers, artists, and creative thinkers,
our world would never have become what it is today.