I’ve started reading Creativity for Life by Eric Maisel. During the book’s Introduction, the author touches upon the importance of attention and practice since they play are such integral pieces of living the creative life. I tell my high school students all the time that without practice they will always be frustrated in their attempts to get better at drawing what they see, mixing the colors that they want, molding the clay into the correct shape and manipulating the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. Working hand-in-glove with skills practice, the art student must learn how to be mindful of the World around him/her.

Presently, I am teaching my Intro to Painting students some simple drawing skills before we launch into still life. So, we discuss simplifying images into basic shapes before rounding out corners and adding the details. We also address relationships: how does one object relate to another? Is it taller or shorter? Is it fatter or thinner? How can we use negative space to help us record what we see? The questions go on. It is initially overwhelming for them but I want to demonstrate to them the necessary self-talk to help them achieve their goals.

Truth be told, though, I didn’t start reading the book for my students. Rather, I am reading it for myself. When Dr. Maisel talks about attention, he’s not meaning a classroom setting per se. I’ve extrapolated his meaning because I do believe it speaks equally powerfully to students in a high school setting.

In the final analysis, Dr. Maisel wants to remind ME of the many ways I’ve allowed my art to be put off because of the many facets of my so-called busy life.

If your truth is that your life is out of control and creativity is just one of the many things that you aren’t attending to, stand up and admit that to yourself, even if it means that you must change everything. Nor can you do this truth telling just once or twice: you need to do it today, tomorrow, and forever. (pg. xviii)

What I’ve read so far is just what the doctor ordered (no pun intended).

I redid my curriculum last year and find myself already back at the drawing board (no pun intended) as I project myself into next year. When I first took the job the default class was Studio Art I and II. Unfortunately, no one ever seemed to progress to Studio Art II.

Now, I teach four classes: Ceramics, Intro to Painting, Drawing from Observation and Art & Design Technology. However, as it stands now, I’m really considering collapsing the first three into the traditional Art I, Art II, Art III and Art IV (AP?) structure.

I broke the skills out after believing I’d get students with a more clear perspective on what they would be learning and that would help focus them on learning-specific skills towards a more specific goal (vs. the generalized goals in a survey course). Well, I’m not so sure that was a wise move after having interacted with my urban student population (who exhibit little to no prior knowledge with art) during these past few years.

I’ll lay out a few ideas in the coming posts; however, in the interim, I would love to hear how some other art teachers implement their programs. What do you cover in Art I, II and III? What do you call those types of classes at your school?

So, until next time.

Last year, I did a “quilt” project with Trish Maunder, who works with the Faith Ringgold Foundation. Trish does her own story quilt idea in school classrooms. During that time she also educates students about Faith and her story quilts.

Students pick a theme and then each student translates that theme into a personalized image. They also need to pick a famous quote or write a poem to accompany their image. The pieces are glued onto a larger piece of canvas with fabric strips covering the seams and then a fabric border is set around the whole thing. They turn out really well.

Well, the founder of my school saw the quilt my class did and wanted another one to auction off at an annual fund-raising event. Long story short, I exploded the original idea into a series of smaller quilts based on the founding principles of the school’s charter IN ADDITION TO the large quilt that would document the school’s growth from conception to fruition. It’s moments like that where I think to myself, “I know, let me put this bag over my head so you can all beat me with a stick.”

Well, the students let me down at the end of last year and I didn’t get much done. So, I ended up having to hijack my two painting classes to complete the work. It’s going to take the entire quarter to get all of the quilts done. I’m just hopeful that when they are all put together that they are strong pieces. Of course, they better sell too! LOL!

Friends tell me they get roped into doing things like this too. Why do we, as art teachers, fall for this stuff? I know on some level I liked the original idea and wanted to see it come to pass. In the end, though, I need to remember my ADD tendency to over-commit. It’s during those moments that I need to remind myself to be practical and realistic. In the end, I know my students better than any administrator because I work with them every day.

So, lesson learned. In the end, though, I’m thankful to 1) have a job and 2) have a job teaching art.

I came back from this year’s Art Educators of New Jersey Fall Conference with some new things to think about. I have to admit to wondering what this year’s conference was going to be like since the State refused the petition for a waiver for schools to cover overnight stays. But, the hotel was booked and things seemed just as crowded as last year.

While my school couldn’t cover my stay at the hotel, they did cover my food, tolls, registration/membership and mileage. The mileage coverage will bring my car rental to about $2-3. (My car has 195k miles on it and the engine smokes if I drive it longer than 15 minutes. LOL!)

I have to admit that one of the classes I signed up for was a dud primarily because the instructor for the class left too much time (an hour and a half) for “playing” and “experimentation” versus walking us through doing certain techniques with the medium. To me, direct instruction in those venues seems to have more value for participants. But, that’s me.

The non-hands on wire animal sculpture session was great and is something I can immediately bring to my classes this year. This plus a couple of other events made it a worthwhile adventure.

I’d love to be able to go to the National Art Educators Conference in Baltimore next year but I can’t swing being away from the family. Plus, my school probably won’t foot the bill. I may try to get there for a day. We’ll see.

Today was my first day NOT in class. All last week I enjoyed participating in The Academy in Your Classroom taught by Charles Muldowney at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art (PAFA). It was a one-week intensive that was both exhausting and glorious. I’ll be posting the work I did either later tonight or tomorrow. Suffice it to say, I now am longing to get my MFA. (Boy, where are those rich relatives when you need them?)

If you’ve not heard of PAFA, I would recommend you check out their program.

I’ve received a few responses to my last post concerning my students’ complaints during class (Intro to Painting, in particular). I was going to respond to them individually but I’ve decided it would be better to clarify my thoughts in a formal post.

The comments I’ve received can be summarized by Daniel over at kungfu komix—

“Ignore them. Students are always that way.”

I’m sympathetic to this sentiment. On some level I think any art teacher who deals with urban kids or kids taking introductory courses needs to be aware of this (seemingly) pervasive dismissive attitude.

I should have clarified myself in the original post that my distress is also (and perhaps more so) related to the incessant talking that occurs while I’m trying to teach. When I try to address it, the students don’t get it. Sadly, their insensitivity is what most distresses (and, frankly, scares) me.

It drains me because waiting for them to get quiet—which is what I was instructed to do by an administrator— causes my projects to take forever to get done or move forward. And, the fact that the lesson gets drawn out causes MORE complaining from my students. (Yes, they’re clueless to the fact that THEY are the root cause of the delay.)

The students’ insensitivity scares me because it reinforces to me how shortsighted they are to how their own behavior is negatively affecting their education. I’ve tried to clue them in to the fact that, unless they go into a science, medical or engineering field they would use most of the higher math they are learning. BUT, the skills I’m teaching them could be a hobby they enjoy until the day they die. Well, maybe the day BEFORE they die. LOL!

Hopefully, this fills in the gaps on my frustration regarding my students lack of motivation. Additional thoughts anyone?

This week was particularly troubling for me. Emotionally, I was drained by my students’ constant complaints:

• This is too hard
• This is meaningless
• This is so dumb
• I’m never going to use this
• Blah, blah, blah.

Albeit none of these complaints is new or surprised me. I’ll be reflecting this weekend on my personal responses as I do my lesson planning.

My painting class, in particular, has been quite distressing. They don’t understand why we’re learning drawing basics. My attempts at explaining it fell on deaf ears.

What do you do with students who position themselves beyond motivation?

I met with my media specialist yesterday. I wanted to discuss with her the possibility of taking 3-4 students out of my painting class and giving them writing assignments. One of the kids has been asking for this from the beginning of the year because he hates art. (He failed art last year.) We came up with a couple of ideas. We’re going to meet again next week.