Lessons 1 and 2

Happy Halloween...I decided today to post a couple of lessons I originally posted at the other blog site.  Originally I wanted to put those "logistical" elements somewhere else to keep this blog focussed on the actions of the day.  I think that some who have read this blog may want to actually see HERE what I have asked the students to concentrate on during the cycle.  So today the blog will consist of the first two lessons posted here.

The first lesson was very successful in that the students seemed to enjoy getting out their still life objects, setting them up into their own compositions, and then drawing from them.  I had never given students this flexibility before...always deciding what objects, how and where they were to be placed, and requiring each student to draw the same setup.  I justified it by knowing they each had their own perspective and each work would be different in that way...even though they would all be using the same size paper, drawn the same direction, and using the same media for the same length of time.  When I decided the time was up, the work was "finished" and the setup came down and we moved on.  Oh, do I like this way SO much better.  Here is the current lesson on Space/Rhythm and Movement.

One thing I did differently this cycle is dealing with the test.  I gave the students a test/guide question sheet on each of the concepts and asked them to fill them out as they read.  After reading their first "self tests", I thought that they might need a little help figuring out what might be important information to remember about the lesson.  We will see how that works out next week.

"And the students have spoken"

I had a chance to talk to the issue of GRADES today while 2nd periiod was at lunch...my ramblings..

"Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next".

Jonas Salk

I had a great talk with my daughter, Kateri, last evening about this blog.  She brought a couple of things to my attention and suggested a couple of things that I found insightful and interesting.  I'm planning to incorporate some of her thoughts and ideas into my future blogs.  I believe you will enjoy them as much as I will.

Kateri said she would really like to hear from the students how "things are going" with this new type of class we're doing.  You know, I have never bothered to ask my students how they felt about what we did.  I don't know but what I must have thought that if they weren't enjoying my class they would let me know and just left it at that.  But today I decided to ask.  I said, "write me a few sentences that lets me know how you felt at the beginning, in the middle, and now that we are nearing the end how you feel/felt about this lesson.  As I read their comments, I was BLOWN AWAY by their responses.  I'm going to scan some in and post them to this and some subsequent posts.  I also plan to continue using this format to elicit this kind of response throughout the year.

As you can see, the students sound as though they are enjoying the lesson and having a feeling of real accomplishment out of creating their artwork.  I couldn't be more pleased.  Perhaps I'll include one of these notes in each of my blogs for the rest of the lesson.  In the meanwhile, I did take some pictures today of a couple of works that are finished or very close.

Don't Just Sit There...



I found this "quote" in a blog titled Thriving Too, which was one of the Daniel Pink's blogroll blogs.  I felt that it spoke to my concern for the process of creativity, which demands a certain amount of discipline.  I realize that most of the students "get it" and are engaged in their work.  I felt that at this point in the cycle, they all needed to be encouraged to analyze their work to this point and ask themselves honestly if they have spent enough time on it, or whether they have investigated alternatives to making their work better.  I reminded them, for example, of a short video and demo using colored pencils.  Some of them have used them as they might have used "map colors" in the elementary grades, coloring in a map lightly.  The video and demo addressed the use of the colored pencil by shading and glazing using a variety of colors on top of one another.  I also pointed out an alternative to finishing their crayon work, using watercolor resist.  From their reaction and work during the period, I think I was able to motivate them all in some way.

Speaking of getting in gear and doing something.  My daughter, Angela, suggested that I embed a counter which will tell me how many "hits" I have on this blog.  I was saying that I don't get many comments and can't tell how many people are actually paying any attention to what I'm doing.  Not that it matters, since this is, after all, mostly for my benefit.  But since I was curious, I did find a way to do that.  So over on the right, you wll see the number of times someone has stopped by to take a look.  I think most of them are probably me, since I look in every day to see if anyone left a comment.  Anyway, thanks for the suggestion, Ang.

I'm going to post this from my computer at school and then add some photos later from my home computer.  If you are looking at it now, come back later to view some great student work in progress.

Learning to Like Learning

"Painting is just another way of keeping a diary"

"Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone"

"Ah, good taste!  What a dreadful thing!  Taste is the enemy of creativeness"

Pablo Picasso (born this day 1881)

Over the weekend I had lunch with a friend, Bill Morgan.  Bill is a founding partner in a large accounting firm in Dallas.  In a discussion about this curriculum, Bill shared with me how he learned to like asparagus.  His mother required Bill and his brothers to at least eat one at the meal.  His brother liked it, so Bill would sneak his onto his brother's plate.  One day he decided if his brother liked it, maybe there was something about it he might like.  He cut off a tiny part, put it into his mouth, concentrated on the flavor, and found that, indeed, the taste was quite good.  Now it is his favorite veggie.  Later in life, after completing his college degree in accounting, Bill found that he intensely disliked BEING an accountant.  He finally decided that he needed to apply the same philosophy he used to learn to like asparagus.  He put away his watch, totally focussed on the problem in front of him, and got caught up in the "process" of solving the problem.  He found the time going by without notice and that he had actually learned to love the process of accounting.  From that day onward, his motivation became totally INTRINSIC as he proceeded to attempt to MASTER the art of accounting for the GREATER GOOD of his clients. I told my students Bill's story today at the beginning of class.  I also told them of something I participated in concerning DANIEL PINK and his posting of each of our "sentences". 

In his book, DRIVE, Dan describes what he calls our SENTENCE.  Describing in one sentence one most important thing for which  we would like to be remembered.  He has asked us to video a response to this question and email it to him at dhp@danpink.com.  I sent mine in last week.  I said, "I hope I have instilled in my students a lifelong desire to learn about art".  When I talked to my students today and relayed this to them I said that if I would change it I would stop at "learn".  I told them about Henri Matisse, whose last words were, "I wish I could have drawn better". 

In applying today's lesson to the overall goal of this curriculum, I told the students that they could take this attitude about learning and apply it to all of their classes.  It's the ACT OF LEARNING that is important, not necessarily the subject being learned.  If they can learn about art, even though they don't like art, they will have accomplished more than if they actually liked art to start with.  They can then apply this attitude toward all their classes...math...language...history...science.  Priding themselves on the fact that they learned something will become THE MOST IMPORTANT ACCOMPLISHEMENT they will take with them from their years in school.  That feeling will carry them successfully through life.

Now, for you visual readers, I will share a few more photos of works in progress.  I hope you enjoy them.

Mid-Cycle Grade reports

"Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself"

"We only think when we are confronted with problems"

"Failure is instructive.  The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes."

John Dewey (born yesterday, 1859)

Among other necessities, we averaged our SELF GRADING forms for the last 5 classroom days so the school can decide whether to send the students a notice of potential failure next week.  Except for one student who has never been to class for the last 9 weeks, and one who comes but chooses not to participate, all of my students are doing quite well.  The grades they give themselves aren't all that high, but they are all passing and seem to be enjoying what they are doing.  What more could a teacher ask?

I'm not going to say much today.  I'm going to let some of the students' ongoing art work speak for itself.  They are now about half way through this cycle, so none of the big works are finished, but some of the smaller ones are, since they need to do more of them.  Let's take a look.

As you can see, these works are definitely "in the process".  I'm very encouraged when the students ask how they can improve their work and also when they listen to suggestions and act on them.  I will post more next week and also updates as these get closer to and finally finished.

Working hard...or hardly working?

"He was sent to school, as usual, to a public school, where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him"

Thomas Love Peacock (born this day, 1785)

Most of the students are working really hard and dedicated to doing a good job on their artwork.  I find much more so than last cycle.  That's encouraging.  It still disturbs me when I have to keep at those students who haven't quite "gotten it".  Probably my impatience.  I have to remind myself that this IS a "whole new mind" and that for many it will take time to accept it as a way of learning.

I told them of an occurrence on Sunday evening when a few friends went to dinner.  We got to talking about a young man who had been in our pottery class at the community college where we take a class together.  It was recounted by one person that this young man had bemoaned the fact that his instructor was not interested in the "throwing on the wheel" process as much as the "hand building" methods of working in clay.  So he didn't feel as though he was "learning" as much as he otherwise might, if the opposite were true.  I didn't bring it up at the time, but in thinking about this situation, I discussed with my students that it was probably because he, like them and almost ALL students in today's education system, had been "spoon fed" his education up until now.  The teacher told him what to do, how to do it, how large, in what media, what expression, and when it was due.  He hadn't been taught how to think for himself.  The world today is an "information rich" place with more avenues to find out what you want to learn than ever before in history.  All that is missing is the DRIVE to make yourself go out and get it and not wait for someone else to hand it to you.  THAT is what this year in THIS class is ALL about!!

I have no videos or photos to share today, but I promise that Thursday's blog will be rich with them.  A number of students are just at the verge of finishing  up one of their artworks, so I decided to wait and take pictures of them on Thursday.  They will also be putting their grades into the computer on that day.

After the "PSAT" interruption

"For Thanksgiving this year, I  think we'll have flamingo"

George Carlin

Changing Education Paradigms   This is a post on Youtube from a presentation on TED that fits right in with what this curriculum is all about.  Derek Dibburn posted in on Facebook and I really appreciate his bringing this to my attention.  So I'm passing it along.

Students were very busy today working on their chosen works of art.  I discussed their work with a couple of students in my first period class and recorded it for you to see what they are up to.  The first is a girl working on a composition of triangles.  If you listen closely, you will see that her idea for choosing the shape came from her geometry class.  Is that not a good sign?  A little collaboration of core and elective classes?  The link to Youtube is Geometric Shapes 1.

A couple of other students were working right next to the student doing the triangles.  They were working on designs using circles.  They had chosen charcoal as their media.  Even though similar, the designs are each very different.  One of them intends to finish hers with colored pencil.  The link to this video is Geometric Shapes 2.

I titled this blog "after the psat interruption" because on Wednesday the students were all involved in yet another testing situation which disrupted their focus on the tasks at hand, i.e., learning.  Since we had this 3 day span from Monday to Friday, I felt that they definitely needed to spend the bulk of time on their projects.

Tuesday night we had parent conferences.  About 15 parents came by and I was able to discuss our curriculum with them.  One parent was more interested than the others and wanted to know abut "extra credit" for her student.  I said I hadn't factored that aspect in, but somehow it would be totally possible.  After giving it some thought, I told my students today that ANYTHING they did at home that they could relate in some way to the lesson we were studying during that cycle would be allowable for extra credit.  This would also apply to all work done in an artistic way for any other course they are taking.  If they either bring it in or even take a picture of it with their phone and show me, we'll make a note of it and they can give themselves a little boost on their cycle grade.  That parent, by the way, went to this blog, read it, and became a follower.  Yeaaaaa!  THAT'S why I'm taking the time to do this, by the way.

I was so encouraged by this fact that I came up with another (hopefully) motivational factor to encourage checking out the blog at home.  I am going to prepare a dozen demonstration videos that I will post on Youtube and link from this blog.  As an example, I'll demonstrate the use of plaster gauze in a figure sculpture.  IF a student watches this and comes in and wants to do it, I will make sure he/she has what they need to work in this media.  Each time I post a new video, I will tell the students about it (but not the subject) so they can go to the blog and check it out.  I'll let you all know how that goes.

Gotta go and finish getting studio ready for the weekend White Rock Lake Artist Studio Tour starting tomorrow.

Presenting some idea suggestions for this lesson

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams"

"You must do the things you think you cannot do"

Eleanor Roosevelt

Kind of a weird day at school today.  The kids had last Friday off for Secondary Fair Day, so a long weekend.  Right away we got into watching the videos I prepared just before school started with my iphone and tripod.  I really liked the way they came together and the setup in the classroom was much better than when I did them at home in the studio.  The light, the height of the desk area, and the availability of media was a lot easier to put it together.

The first one I showed was taken from the DRAW SQUAD book by Kintsler.  I had shown them 1 point perspective and how they might employ it in their new lesson.  This exercise uses what I call a "faux" perspective concept, where they are not concerned about any objects relating to any given point in space, just for the object to appear to be 3 dimensional and relate to the other shapes and forms in the design.FAUX PERSPECTIVE LINK

The second video presentation was using circles to create a "flowing rhythm" design using repetitive circles and the shapes created when two or more circles intersect.  I used the left-over spools from the leather laces I used for the runners' finisher medals project I had just completed.  I saw a lot of interest in this way of dealing with the lesson.cIRCLES VIDEO

The third video used the 3" squares we used last year in the motif repetition watercolor paintings we did when studying Rhythm and Movement.  I used the squares similarly to the circles, except I used overlapping to make the shapes appear to be in front ot one another.SQUARES VIDEO

I discussed ways that they might think about finishing off designs of this type with the medial they had to choose from.

The classes got right to work incorporating the ideas I had presented on their idea sheets.  Some even began using larger paper to play with the ideas.  My third period class was interrupted by a "fire drill" which ended up to be just a water pipe burst at the construction site.  Longest fire drill I have ever been a part of.  We were outside for the better part of an hour.  By the time we returned to the classroom, we barely had time to view the videos, discuss the ideas, and finish up with the grade sheets and log book entries.  Too bad.  Because of PSAT testing on Wednesday this week, we won't be back in class until Friday.

Parent conferences tonight (Tuesday).  I hope that I get a lot of parents in to present the blog site to them for their perusal.  I'd really like to get some feedback from some interested parents.  Of course, I ALWAYS look forward to hearing any comments from those of you who have taken the time to follow this blog process.  Thanks for your support.  P.S. If you would like to comment more privately, you may drop me a line at  jochumpottery.com  also.

So Much to Do...So Little time

"Putting off an easy thing makes it hard.Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible."

George Lorimer

A lot of paperwork and logistics needed to be handled today.  I handed out the new set of forms necessary for this cycle's activities.  The new grading rubric, the new daily grade log, and the new idea page for starters.  Then I explained and handed out our new 6 week test format.  I decided to try another tack on the one I originally set up.  I didn't feel that enough core material was researched by the students by simply having them write their own questions and answers.  This cycle I have given them a study guide for the unit on SHAPE and an actual test over the unit on RHYTHM AND MOVEMENT.  Their goal will be to read about these two concepts and answer the questions.  At the end of the cycle, I will have them turn them in and we'll grade them in class.  It will be an "open book" test, as it were. 

 I gave them an alternative to doing this as well.  They can choose to research a topic and give a 5 minute presentation to the the class on what they have researched.  It can be simply a topic they are interested in or a demonstration of a media or technique they found interesting that they want to show to the class.  I really hope that a few of them will opt to do this so I can video tape their presentation and post it on Youtube and link it to this blog.

I passed out the paper to the class that they will use this cycle.  I told them that any paper they had left over from last cycle could be used to either complete projects from then or they could use it to expand their involvement in this cycle's lesson.

Some of the students spent the majority of class time today working on the test papers and reading the textbooks.  A lot of them got started in earnest on their new ideas for this lesson.  Some brought their first ideas up for me to look at and I am seeing some exciting things even at this stage.  Next post I know I will be posting two or three of these works in progress.  We have an "off" day on Friday this week for the Secondary Schools Fair Day.  I'm going to try and prepare a coupe of video demos in the next few days to post.  Other than that, like the fella says, "not much to write home about."

Cycle Two, we begin ANEW

I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.

Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954)

I haven't used the overhead projector for a while.  I decided that today I would demonstrate and discuss the concept of PERSPECTIVE with my students.  We talked about EYE LEVEL, VANISHING POINT, and THREE DIMENSIONAL drawing.  Since this cycle's lesson deals with SHAPES and the principle of design RHYTHM AND MOVEMENT,  I chose to include drawing all kinds of shapes in one point perspective.  I thought it might be kind of fun for some of the students who didn't pursue the still life assignment with enthusiasm.  They appeared to enjoy the way in which the common GEOMETRIC shapes took on more interest when drawn in perspective, becoming forms.

Next we got out the ART TALK books and looked at the unit on Rhythm and Movement and I discussed with them the idea of "BEAT" and the concept of REGULAR and ALTERNATING RHYTHMIC patterns in music.  As they looked through the chapter, I pointed out some of the ways artists use this principle in their paintings.

I told them that all their grades were in and that they could take their paintings home, bring them up to place in the hall display cabinets, or leave them to finish in their portfolios.  A number of them brought up to hang and were quite excited about going out to see them hung.  I've taken a picture of one of the displays and posted it here.  I just love the variety of expressions, subjects, sizes, and media represented.  

I did have a "bubble bursting moment" today, however.  Nothing to do with the curriculum itself, but maybe the disappointment was more severe because of what I feel I'm providing for the students.  I use an ipod shuffle to present movies and slide shows to my classes.  Sometime during 2nd period today, one of the students stole it.  The security guards were not able to find it among any of the students belongings.  It held up their going to their next class and my 3rd period from coming in on time.  As a result, today, my 3rd period was not privy to the same presentation of slides.  We will need to do that on Wed.  I hope by talking about the incident here that I'll be able to "get past" it and "let it go".  In all the 40 years I have taught, this is the first incident of this kind that has ever happened.  Maybe I should feel lucky.  Right now I just feel betrayed.

Tomorrow we begin again...

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.

Eugene Delacroix (1798 - 1863)

In Thursday's blog, I posted a link to Youtube and there you found a video I edited of three students discussing their artwork.  When I recorded those snippets, I used my iphone camera.  When I went to edit the footage in imovie, the software distorted three of the videos because I recorded them in a vertical format.  I have since uploaded these three videos to Youtube and am listing their links here.

Student discussing her artwork 1

Student discussing her artwork 2

Student discusses her artwork 3

As with the other three videos, these students were not expecting to be called on to discuss their work on camera.  I thought they did an outstanding job.

Tomorrow is the first day of next cycle.  I will discuss with the students their options for what to do with their completed or incomplete art work from 1st cycle.  I will tell them they can 1.  Take it home today, or 2.  Hang it in the hall display board, or 3.  Leave it in their portfolio to complete whenever they have feee time to do so.  I want THEM to make those decisions and it will be interesting to see what they are.  I'll have them write about them in their blog tomorrow.

I will be handing out the new lesson for the cycle, which will be to study the element of art, SHAPE and the principle of design, RHYTHM AND MOVEMENT.  We will be working with other subject matter than still life, but THAT will be an option.

Hope to post more video this week.  

One more thing:  I was extremely pleased on Saturday when I received a return email from Daniel Pink, author of DRIVE and A WHOLE NEW MIND, two books which I read this summer and that provided the inspiration for me to develop this curriculum.  If you interested in learning more about this idea of intrinsic motivation, please click on the following link.  Dan Pink's website