Week 6

Super busy day at Fishers! Helped a lot during the Jewelry 1 class. Feeling more confident with the medium and helping students see through their projects. At this point all the classes have warmed up to me and are not afraid to approach me! Intro to 3D started their ceramics unit today so I was able to introduce the zoomorphic vessel project and lead those three class periods. I am not even exaggerating when I say that all my students are SO excited for this project. It really boosted my self-confidence which made it easier to lead the class. The first art of the lesson was reviewing vocab. Ms. O had given them a vocab sheet to go through the powerpoint ahead of time and write down definitions. While I like that she gave students the opportunity to look at the vocabulary ahead of time so they know what questions to ask ahead of time and be able to go through it at their own pace, I wish when we went over the vocab in class we could've been working with clay so that they were connecting the words with experience the second time through. It was also difficult for me to sort through what information they needed to know before they started working with clay and what information they could learn during the process. I feel as though I may have overloading them with information that was not relevant yet because they literally had not even touched clay yet. Anyway, right now they are working on creating their vision boards where they select an animal and print off three images of the animal from different views and then at least two reference images of a ceramic vessel, and then annotating and sketching before creating a merged zoomorphic vessel. We created a canvas assignment where they could submit a document with their images for us to print, and that got super confusing because on canvas all three class periods are together so you can't see the students organized by the appropriate class period, so Ms. O and I had to search through 100 names to find the students in the class period who were waiting for their images to be printed before they could start working. I think next time, I will introduce the vision board at the end of a class period and then their homework would be to submit images to be printed to work on the next day, so that we can just batch print all three class period's images and they can find their own in a pile. Looking forward to seeing them completed next week!

During AP, Ms. O had me take on of her IB students to work with her on methods of construction for her clay project since she's never worked with clay before. It was nice to individually instruct and help a student work through her artistic problems. Meanwhile, AP is on fire! They are producing really great work!

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During lunch I had the opportunity to talk with the new art teacher, Mr. Rawlins. He teaches Intro to 3D and Drawing 1. I commented on how cool his current projects look and he told me a little bit about the lesson. For his current project he is having students draw hands. They had to select a letter in sign language and then incorporate the hand into some sort of environment. The results are pretty cool! I wouldn't mind trying this project out myself!

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I also notice the photography projects out in the hall during lunch! Lisa, the photography teacher, worked with the Future Black Leaders club to create photography projects for the Black History Month convocation. I was really impressed with their projects and especially liked the twist they took on Kehinde Wiley's paintings. I think that this was a great collaboration and they will be a great addition to the convocation!

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Lastly, we talked about school shootings and how we feel we would personally handle a situation like that. A lot of them said that they are going to make sure they keep their doors locked during classes as a shooter usually looks for the easiest targets and won't spend much time trying to make their way into a locked room. They also mentioned that there's no way of knowing where the shooter is in the building so trying to flee may be dangerous. I watched a video on FaceBook today that showed someone shooting at a target with a backpack full of textbooks strapped to the front of its chest. This was to show that students can quickly and easily create a sort of bullet proof vest that protects their chest and stomach. I thought that was pretty resourceful. Sad we have to think about these things, but better to be prepared than sorry.

At the end of the day, the media and marketing teacher came down to talk about creating a year long course for students where they develop skills on photoshop and illustrator and then take marketing class in conjunction. He said that he's tired of assigning projects and them having good ideas but not the skills to follow it through and that tons of kids that are currently taking his course and students who have graduated and went into marketing say they wish they could have had the skills in photoshop and illustrator as it is almost necessary for anyone in that field. We do have a graphic design course, but students cannot enroll in it unless they've taken a intro to drawing class. The rest of the art department thinks this is stupid, but the one teacher who no one wants to confront believes that students need to know how to draw before they take graphic design (which is not true). So the rest of the department is kind of working behind her back and compiling student requests for a graphic design course for marketing students. I think it is great that these two departments are listening to their students and working towards creating a program that will benefit them once they graduate.

That's all! It was a super busy day and I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I'm looking forward to next week!