The theme this week for how I can improve my student teaching practice is MESSY. Messiness can be frustrating, as I have illustrated in a mixed-media artwork to represent my struggle with cleaning paintbrushes in the elementary classroom and my lack of a cleanup routine. Messiness can describe the overall teaching experience because as much as we care and want each student to thrive, it doesn't always happen with every student every day despite our best intentions. Messy can refer to the artmaking and art teaching process in which things are not always linear and they do not always come easy, as I have illustrated with a poster to showcase author Neil Gaiman’s quote about making art.. As a student teacher I feel like we are full of doubts and wonder if we are doing things correctly. In a TAB classroom there is no one right way to approach this pedagogy as it is a philosophy and not a curriculum. This can be overwhelming at times because I am wondering if I am doing enough. I attended the Colorado TAB conference with my cooperating teachers last week and imagine my surprise when experienced teachers expressed doubt that they were doing things correctly. In speaking with the music teacher at my school she said that is the sign of a good teacher because good teachers are always reflecting and working to improve their teaching practices.
Teaching is Messy
My haiku is all about reaching students who seem stuck. It is helpful having cooperating teachers because they give me valuable feedback on how I can improve my teaching practices. For example, I did not even notice I was avoiding a few tables of boys who are less engaged in the art process until my middle school cooperating teacher pointed this out. I had to reflect – why was I avoiding these tables? I think it is because I am unsure of how to motivate students who are not as interested in staying on task in the art class so I avoid this challenge because I have the safety net of my cooperating teacher to fall back upon. I won’t have this benefit in my own classroom so I must practice this skill now while I still have someone to bounce ideas off of. In my mind these students have the freedom to choose whatever they want to work on so why wouldn’t they want to be engaged every day? The answer is not simple. Some students may have a tough home life, some may have had a bad day, and some may want to mess around with their friends because that is more fun than making art. I will be trying to figure out how to engage these students for my remaining time at Chappelow. Becoming a good teacher is messy because you make mistakes even if you work very hard not to. I have learned that art teacher conferences are valuable because not only do you learn new things, you can share your classroom struggles with those who understand. It is hard to reach everyone all the time, which is a source of frustration for me and something I wish to improve upon. I have illustrated this with a photo of the pond by my house where I walk my dog as a way to decompress after a long day. I was inspired to write a haiku because my mentor teacher at the high school level used this as a method for idea generation for her jewelry students. My haiku showcases how I am always reflecting on the teaching process to see what I could do better.
Discoveries Take Time
Messy Paintbrushes
Yes…cleaning paintbrushes. I am going to talk about cleaning paintbrushes again because I feel like this takes up half my time in elementary school. I feel like I have been spending too much time cleaning paintbrushes during class rather than just waiting to do it between classes. I don’t like seeing a messy sink but I need to remember my goal is to interact with students in the 45 minutes we have with them. The paintbrushes can wait. I have been researching the ways art teachers handle paint with their students and I have a few things I would like to try. One teacher suggested buying two sided dog dishes at the dollar store and putting water in one side and a sponge for drying brushes in the other side. I have also learned to not let students pour out their own paint portions at the elementary level because it wastes too much paint. I am seeing now the need to revisit studio norms at the elementary school level. They need reminders of proper clean up. A huge part of my future classroom will be to emphasize that students must be good studio citizens and keeping the materials nice and studio clean is part of everyone’s job. I will ask my elementary cooperating teacher if I can create a checklist for studio helpers to be in charge of things like cleaning the sink and floor. We can do this on a rotating basis and those who do their jobs will get a PRIDE ticket, which the positive reinforcement the school uses for good behavior. Students may use their PRIDE tickets to purchase items from a PRIDE store. This mixed media piece is an exact reproducton of what the paint container to wash brushes looks like by the end of the day.
Coffee Can, Interrupted
Mistakes Are Messy
Neil Gaiman is an author who has written for children and adults and I adore this quote of his. The background of this poster was a suggestion from my daughter regarding a discovery she made. She noticed that as she was working on a drawing the markers bled through and made an interesting abstract pattern. I took her advice and did the same thing and it made for a lovely colorful background for my quote. Making mistakes is messy. None of us like to do so and I have noticed that elementary school age children jump right in and are less worried about “messing” up their art than middle school age children. I don’t blame them. I don’t like making mistakes either. A mistake I made the past week was saying yes when kids asked to wash their hands in the restroom during clean-up. My cooperating teacher had to inform me a few times that the kids weren’t allowed to do this until their area was cleaned up and I was introduced to the reality that kids will ask the student teacher to do things they know their main classroom teacher will say no to. Now I make them wash their hands in the classroom and if I am unsure if I should say yes, I ask my cooperating teacher first. The positive thing about making mistakes is that you learn from them. Now I know in my own classroom that students ask to go to the restroom at the end of class to avoid clean up and to grab their backpacks early. That is not something I would have thought of had I not made the mistake of letting them leave the classroom to wash their hands. Mistakes are messy, but needed for growth.