Classroom Commotion: Finally in Mi Propia Aula!

All throughout last year, work teams and hired hands worked endless on finishing the second floor of our new elementary building on the Doulos campus. You can see the first phase of the building, finished during the summer 2012, here. This new building added 8 new classrooms to our campus. Because of this huge change, at the end of last year our whole campus of classes PreK-12 went shuffling around. One of the amazing results of this was that our visual arts department (aka ME!) was given its very own classroom!

WAAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOO!

Yes, believe it or not, the past three years I taught out of the cave  basement closet behind our amphitheater. This little spaced acted as my storage room/office. To teach my classes I traveled around campus to various rooms totting all my art materials in boxes galore. For my elementary classes I met my students in their guide classrooms, for my middle school classes I coordinated a fixed classroom generously lent to me by another teacher, but my high school class often ended up floating around to where ever was most convenient for that week.

However, all that has changed now... I excitedly present to you... (drum-roll, please)...

THE DOULOS VISUAL ARTS CLASSROOM!

The view from the front. And yes that is a projector hanging from the ceiling!-- another amazing blessing from the art resources coming up on the school budget circulation last year.

The view from the back. I only have space for the 5 tables and chairs in the actual classroom space, and when there are 20+ bodies in there too...it's pretty darn full!

My little bookshelf at the front of the room with the only wall space for a decently sized bulletin board. That door to the side is not the entrance, it is not actually a functioning doorway anymore.

Inside a little hallway by the bookshelf I have this life-saving storage cabinets. Most of the supplies fit in there.

My new little office across from the storage cabinets. The rest of my supplies are crammed in here on the shelf, along with easels, and a sink. Yes, indeed, that is a toilet under my desk. This little room was once a bathroom. I think the toilet still works actually...

So as you can see my new classroom isn't grandiose or abundant, but it IS a dedicated visual arts space, which is a HUGE step for the arts at Doulos. I can't tell you how much having this classroom has radically changed my teaching and even my work habits in general. I know that God is gracious in letting me sample this new stage in the arts program; I feel blessed to inaugurate the space.
My class load per week increased this year (like teaching 8 curriculums at a time wasn't already enough!) and honestly if it wasn't for this classroom, I don't think I would be able to handle it. I am so grateful to have a place to belong on campus now, and to have my students understand that the arts deserve a place on campus also. Years of begging advocacy has finally sprouted some fruit.

And this is why it's all worth it.

Classroom Commotion: 8th Grade Portraits

The last time I taught this particular class of kids they were in the beginning of their 6th grade year. It was also my first year at Doulos and my first year of teaching art. Between their rambunctious rebellion and my inexperience, needless to say, we had our butting of heads. When we parted ways at the end of that year, I was glad to give them a little time and space to grow into their junior high selves. From the sidelines over the past year and a half I watched them mature and evolve as a class. They have unfortunately had to say goodbye to many of their classmates for various reasons, but that has only seemed to force them to more closely examine and evaluate their identities as individuals and as a collective.

One thing that I have grown to love and appreciate about this class is their creativity and their kinesthetic learning style. They are performers and collaborators. Here is one great example of what they've created just recently in their dance class. Knowing that their creative energy was burgeoning, I was excited to reunite with them as a more experienced teacher.

My 8th grade curriculum is essentially a drawing basics class and while some students in the past have whined about not getting to *paint* (because apparently painting is all we are supposed to do in art class), this group of students impressed me with their openness to learning the fundamentals of contour line, form and value, and drawing from observation. What I loved the most about the class dynamic was that the students began to surprise themselves. As we finished our first drawing project, students filled out a reflection sheet. Here is what some of them said about their creative process during their final still life charcoal drawings:

"The feeling I have when I look at my drawing is proud and impressed with the work I’ve done and I like that because I thought I wouldn’t be able to do this and it to look realistic. The part I was most excited about this process was to finish and see what it would finally look like."

"I think the purpose of this project was just not to see a shell but to see what is within (it is not just a shell) and also to practice our skills. I feel proud I can’t believe I did this. I am impressed. I feel like that because I thought I couldn’t do it. I was excited on making it look realistic."

"The purpose of this project was to practice our techniques that we have learned in art class. When I look at my drawing I don’t like it much because I know I didn’t put much effort on it. In this project I didn’t really found any part interesting. I was surprised when I saw [other student's work] because they all look nice. Next time we do a project I will spend more time in it. Also I wanted to know how to sketch my hand better, but something I achieve at the end was that I know what were the errors that I made." 
"The feeling I get when I look at my drawing is that I feel proud of myself because I thought that I wasn’t good at art so I feel good and I feel like this because I am really proud of myself at how I got the 3-dimensional shape. The part that made me most excited was creating that 3-dimensional shape. The part that was most frustrating to me was the values that I didn’t get perfectly right. But I was surprised by the values because it made it look more realistic."

Some of these 8th grade artists even got honored by having their artwork displayed in the all-school gallery. One student in particular even asked me afterward if there were more opportunities to display his work because he wanted to start doing more drawing on his own. I wanted to put together another gallery right then and there for him!

Our final project as a class was mixed media portraits based on this example lesson. I think the students were glad for the opportunity to experiment with collage. This project was a great way to finish out our semester together-- a chance to apply their blossoming creativity to an image of their own likeness and subtly express how they perceive themselves.

Expedition Projects: Spring 2013

Another round of learning expeditions has come and gone. This spring semester I upgraded the art integration for many of the classes' expeditions based on my own trial and error learning process over the last few years. And I am happy to say that I think I finally landed on some keepers!

This is specifically true with the 3rd grade unit on Ancient Egypt. There is really too much a teacher can do with Ancient Egypt, and I felt like everything I had seen or attempted wasn't worth repeating because it was either too kitschy, didn't cover standards, and/or was going to end up in the trash a week later. I want the art integration I do to be authentic, not forced or meaningless. So this year with 3rd grade we spent some time creating these wonderful Egyptian profiles based on artworks we studied from ancient tombs (inspired by this artsonia gallery). I also wanted to do a little clay project with the oven-bake clay a generous work team brought me, so we did these quick and easy clay scarabs.

for some reason I can't get this photo to orient correctly...sorry for the neck ache.

The 4th grade studied the Incan Empire for their spring expedition. In their art class we study the Inca's geometric designs and weaving. In the past we have done flat yarn weavings on cardboard looms. However, this year I used this excellent tutorial for making our weavings into functional pouches! The students always huff and puff when we start this project, but by the second class they are tracking me down all over campus because they need more yarn to keep working! I love their enthusiasm for creating something! One student who particularly struggled and had a bad attitude at the beginning told me at the end, when we are tying up all her strings, "I am excited about my bag because I am proud that I can say 'I made this.'" Bah! That comment made my week!

In the spring semester I teach a drawing basics class to the 8th graders. Their spring expedition is on freshwater eco-systems. Their science units for their expedition happen to fall right when we are starting our drawing from nature unit in art (what a coincidence :) We study techniques for drawing implied texture and amp up what we've already covered on value by switching from pencils to ink. Each student had to choose a view from our local Rio Yaque to communicate in their drawing.

Some of these lovely pieces will be displayed in the 2nd annual Doulos Art Gallery on Friday. Stay tuned for all that goodness soon!

Expedition Projects: Fall 2012

As an expeditionary learning school, each semester culminates in extensive and integrated learning units we call expeditions. Because I am a K-12 teacher, that means that I get to have a little hand in all the different expeditions, mostly through helping the guide teachers have some beautiful and relevant artworks to present to the community on our open house night. I actually enjoy this part of my job a lot. While there is plenty to teach about the visual arts as it's own subject matter, I like the challenge of finding ways to integrate the content of their learning expeditions into what we are learning as an art class. Here are a few samples of what the student's accomplished.

The third grade class in front of a mini mural they did of the ocean habitat for the sea animals they studied.

Each third grader studied a particular sea animal and how we help and harm them and their environment. In art class we did oil pastel drawings and watercolor resists of their animals that we later used as awareness "posters".

The first graders studied healthy habits and healthy eating. They made paper collages of a healthy meal option they wrote in the recipes for in Spanish class.

The kindergartners studied helpful and harmful insects. We did a few little projects with insects, these are just a few  mixed media buzzing buddies.

The fifth graders once again did detailed drawings of the endemic birds of the DR that they studied, but this year we took a different spin on them and used watercolors on our final ones and did close-ups of the field markings for each bird.

The sixth graders studied and applied the scientific method in various experiments. In art class we had a blast using the same process to study Jackson Pollock's works and research his unique painting technique.

I don't have an art class with the 11th graders this year, but I guest taught in their social studies class to help them create stencils that synthesized their reflections using written and visual expressions. For their expedition they studied cultural conflict and they used their learning to inspire these messages to their community.

GERMS! The second graders went wild with their  creative germ drawings from their imaginations. They each made up a germ villain and created a wanted poster for it for their programa de noticias de germenes.

Classroom Commotion: High School Outings and Junior High Mustaches

Sometimes I get really excited about some small detail of a lesson or some little moment in class when it all seems to fall into place. These are the quiet affirmations from God that I feel He gives me to encourage me in the work I do. It is very rare that anyone else is in the classroom with my students and I. But through these little gifts, I am reminded that the Lord is with me and loving the learning of my students.
Here are a two examples...

A few weeks ago my high school students were exploring drawing people en vivo, specifically practicing gesture drawings. I wanted to challenge them a little more so I gave them all oil pastels to work with rather than their comfortable tools of pens or pencils. As promised in our class constitution, we were due for an inspiration-seeking outing. So we headed for the central park for a few days. This year the high school elective class meets four days a week, compared to the one day a week allotted the previous years. I love that I can now really dig into concepts and techniques with these students AND give them class time to practice and develop them. Once we got to the park the first day, they took some time to warm-up and it was difficult for them to open their eyes to see and draw what was around them in such a busy place. But by the last day we were there I had to ask them to stop working so we would not be late in returning to school. It was evident that they just needed the time and space to find a groove and from there on they were hooked. We continued to work outside the classroom the following weeks in drawing landscapes around the Doulos campus.

The past couple weeks the sixth grade class has been working on a project on the Abstract Expressionists, with a focus on Jackson Pollock. We are integrating their science expedition on the scientific method by doing an "art experiment" about the differences between using a brush and throwing paint with other objects (like Pollock did).  We created a collaborative painting using brushes that will serve as a comparison to their other thrown-paint artworks they will do this week. As we were planning our procedures and materials, in accordance with the scientific method, one student mentioned off-hand that we needed berets or mustaches as we painted.  Of course I couldn't let that go unheard. When they entered the classroom the next day on their desks they found personal paper mustaches! Haha, so fun! We all (yes I wore one also) sported the mustaches all class and some even into their next few periods. That little detail lifted the whole mood of the class. They were very successful in mixing their two personas of artist and scientist, especially as we recorded our observations like scientists do but with an artist's eye and art vocabulary.