Week 1

Happy to be back at Fishers! Didn't get to interact with the students too much today as they were in between units. Some were working on their first pre-assessment and others were working on their principles and elements packet. Ms. O has Jewelry instead of Ceramics this semester. For the pre-assessment for jewelry she has them practice cutting intricate designs in a "snowflake" project. This helps them understand how the positive and negative cutouts will work when working with metal.

For the Intro to 3D classes, Ms. O decided to change the wire activity into a wire bust/self portrait instead of a wire shoe sculpture. So while the students worked on their principles and elements packet, I helped Ms. O figure out how best to introduce the project and how to create a base for them to create their sculptures. It was really difficult. We had to test three different methods of starting wire bust. Then, while she wrote up a lesson plan, I created an activity for them to do before starting their wire self portraits so they can better understand facial proportions. The idea is, they take 2 minutes to draw a generic human face and their individual understanding of proportions and relationships between parts of the face. When they have finished, I will then walk them through facial proportions and have them superimpose correct facial proportions with a different colored pencil so they can see and understand the difference between their believed understanding of the human face and real life. Below is an example.

The rest of the day I worked on a project for the band director at Fishers. He is working on a set design for his indoor percussion group and asked the art department to create designs to paste onto these totem poles. We used the designs the students created in their "snowflake" activity. I think it will look great! I worked on this project just so I could get my name onto his radar so when a better time comes I can inquire about working with the marching band's color guard while I student teach next fall. One thing that did put me and Ms. O off a little was the fact that he wanted us to basically design the set, costumes, masks, and props for the whole show, as if the art department is some workshop with endless resources and expendable hours. I think it is great when teachers can work and collaborate on projects together, but I think the art department tends to be perceived as this source of free creative and artistic labor. It will be important for me to learn how to create conditions under which I can collaborate with colleagues in other departments without it being my students providing a free service for an event or project that only really benefits the other students and drains resources and time from my own curriculum. It has to benefit and enrich both parties involved.

Great day overall!