Art Resources for a lesson/Are you KIDDING me?
Bonnie Bracey
I was very disappointed at your reply and would like you to
explain. I am not an artist but I seek art understanding and have been
featured, my student's works are constant prize winners. THe work is usually
something started in connection with a project from a special exhibit, or
gallery showing or
so on. Here's what you said..
Bonny and everyone else looking at this thing. I gotta tell you guys
education has got some weird idea about what art is. I will tell you that
what Bonny is talking about is generally held, by educators, to be art
education.
In my school we have an art teacher and what I do is over and
beyond what I have to and what I do is lead the students to art and support
different learning styles as a part of the curriculum. I integrate art into
the curriculum. If that is a problem so be it.
Technically, in the classroom, I don't have to do ANY art. I choose to
because of my own interest and training.
Then, I use powerful partners, the art teacher and the music teacher. I know
that they know it better than I . It is my job to create the interest and
sustain it. Then I have other powerful partners. We actually go to the
Smithsonian, the various art gallerys. One of the most interesting lessons we
did was with the Smithsonian. I don't remember the artists name but he did
lots of paintings in stripes. He is famous , I just can't remember hisname. I
introduced the artist , and did the
prelessons as prescribed. THe art teacher let them explore the
use of stripes using chalk, water color, and paints which came back to the
room. Then we had the field trip. The lessons at the
Smithsonian were created by artists. The children saw the tour and then
created a stripes picture using magnetic stripes, big and little ones on a
canvas which was about 4 feet high.
We then created our own painting at school.
At the National Gallery of Art, we went to the exhibit the gallery created to
coincide with the Columbus exhibit, " Seeds of Change,( Horse, Corn, Potato,
Disease and Sugar Cane). We had teacher overview lessons, and interpretation
of the paintings , and copies and slides of the paintings to take back to the
classroom, as well as permission to bring the students on the field trip.
The Kennedy Center and the National Gallery of Art, help me to help students
discover art, and they conduct teacher seminars often and guide us , so I
guess you have to complain to them.
You also might check the Kennedy Center Arts Edge bulletin board for other
outreach. The National Gallery of ARt also has summer seminars for teachers
and the Smithsonian runs associate classes for teachers and others
interested. So do other museums. The FLorida Museum of Art had a set of
posters, and a teachers manual to distribute during the Quincentenary. I
don't know if it is still available
Florida Museum of Natural History
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611
When we worked with architects, we drew a shoe, and other common everyday
objects to get perspectives.. The tennis shoe lesson was a big hit. ( Maybe
actually that lesson was "My Left Shoe").
Then we drew an orange, a banana and and apple from the side, top, and cross
section. Eventually we made blueprints of various sandwiches, using real
architectual design before we used CAD. We had an exhibit at AIA in
Georgetown. It was
in the press. We designed , for the final presentation, a playground. The
winning design was built on the school playground. We won a grant for that
work.
From one lesson I did, which was learned at the National Gallery is it
scraffigato.. the technique which you use
to etch using black over crayon, then you scratch the
design into the painting, and make the design. A student
created the design and made a painting which got us to the White House.
Some of my other student's work you can see in various student art and
writing magazines.
I am sorry you lament about what teachers consider art. You must consider
that the supplies in my classroom are purchased
by me beyond a very small amount that is budgeted for the year.
You also must not know that many parents don't really care that you do art,
they want school as they knew it. So to add art, multimedia and so on creates
a tension between you and the teachers who don't like art, or who don't buy
their own supplies. I just feel it is a part of my everyday life so I cannot
have a learning landscape without some part of it reflecting art.
I forgot the best of the art projects we did. The Virginia Council of Arts
awards grants for funding of projects and we
wrote , the kids and I , a grant to create Colonial Wooden Toys... the toys
were made with the help of a parent was much more skilled than I, and we sold
them at a fair, but we kept our
personal examples, we made enough to go to Staunton Virginia, to the Colonial
Farm Museum, for a day. We had an inservice art
presentation that showed us the toys, and we wrote the grant, and did them.
They were delighted with our work. They charged seven to ten dollars for each
of the toys we built. They could not believe that we had done such wonderful
work. We also wrote a book about it , and created a hyperstudio stack to show
the history of the toys. It was reading, art, music, sustaining interest in
the social studies and geography. That is probably what you
don't like.
This is a listserv. Most of us who work give you short answers because it we
are not publishing, or trying to show off.
THe work you think is not art connected with the Shakespeare
work, was what I learned at the Folger Shakespeare Library , so I guess they
have it wrong. Before technology, I used to teach what I wrote at the Folger
Shakespeare Library. Somebody liked it.
Bonnie L. Bracey
Elementary Teacher
kathi
Frankly guys, this discussion belongs on a listserv for teachers, not
administrators.
Scott Neistadt
OK Bonnie I yield!!!!! You didn't go into so much detail in your original
letter. You are the exception to the rule. Out here in sunny So. Calif., I
can only talk about the home of prop. 13 cause here is where I educate, art
education comes nowhere near what you describe. The Getty foundation has put
together what is called DBAE (Discipline Based Art Education) and I
understand Nevada is eating it up, and rightfully so because it incorporates;
studio, critique, astheicsm, and history. A good balance between what an
artist should know. But the way art is actually done in the districts I've
worked at or visited is FAR from this model. And art in general is held in
low esteem and considered something to get rid of during budget crunch time,
and used as a dumping ground on it's best days.
So accept my apologies, but I still stand firm on what I said because you are
the exception to the rule.