Shoulder to the wheel, Nose to the grindstone

"Life is a grindstone, and whether it grinds a man down or
 polishes him up depends on the stuff he's made of."

Josh Billings   [Henry Wheeler Shaw]   April 12, 1818

Today was the last day of Cycle 5.  I gave them a test on Tuesday over the Element of Art we have been studying, TEXTURE.  There were only 20 questions and I gave them an "answer" sheet to fill in the blanks so I figured it wouldn't be too difficult.  Those that "cared" enough to spend any time reading the information, looking at the study guide, and actually reading the test questions, did fine.  Unfortunately, quite a few fell into the "other" category (quite the opposite of the type described), and as a result, their grade was seriously impaired.

This idea of "caring" brings me back to the very first day of classes working with this concept of student directed art curriculum.  I told them that  "I didn't care how much they know until I knew how much they cared".  This year has been a real significant learning process for me as a teacher.  I had hoped to foster a real sense of caring about art and about doing a good job...to gain a sense of pride in their work and to feel a sense of accomplishment as a result of doing the best job they could.  Perhaps in a few of them, this WAS the result of this curriculum.  I'm afraid that in the majority, this simply has not been the case, or they just do a real good job of hiding it from me.

Nonetheless, I am including in this posting a number of paintings done by the students during this cycle's work.  The paintings themselves have a lot of energy and creative though that is obvious.  Maybe these things couldn't have been done without the freedom to govern themselves, I don't know.  It would be nice to know how they REALY feel about it.