Summer Professional Development on the Flip-Side

 

I just completed a Statewide tour of Arkansas.  I was able to travel all over to areas I didn’t know and visit arts buildings to see the programs they offered the community.  I spent several nights in hotels and one magical night in a Bed and Breakfast.  I traveled with a talented artist from Arkansas who has an eclectic life story that matches her layered and fascinating art work. It was a fantastic experience and we matched up perfectly.

I have attended loads of PD in my almost 30 years of education.  I have presented at local conferences and at the National convention for years, but this was personal.

The professional development program was created by the Arkansas Education Department and it connects working local artists with art educators, to bring professional development for visual arts.  This an opportunity to engage with a local arts programs and become informed about the artist registry.

Jeri Hillis was the talented artist I was matched with for the workshop. After doing research on her, I figured that her work in collage was going to be our focus for the art making.  http://www.arkansasarts.org/artist-registry/jeri-hillis

Collage is a wonderful approach to introduce the methods of teaching how ChoiceArt is implemented into a studio classroom.  I was able to show how I implement ChoiceArt in my studio and I was also able to demonstrate to the educators how to figure out the methods that would best fit them as the facilitator plus meet the demographics of their school population, and how to explain the ChoiceArt methods to all the stake-holders. I also wanted my participants to get back in touch with the inner artist, and level up skills/techniques, and open their minds to my teaching practice.  I designed the professional development program to try to bring out the working artist in each participant with the focus on Appropriation and Collage.  It is very important to NOT jump right in but really think about how to implement this in your program.   Think about how you would educate the population in the school district.  Also, how to educate others on what ChoiceArt teaching practice will bring to the educational program.

ChoiceArt FB page  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1699665476977044/?ref=br_rs

My presentation included the way I figured out a work flow, method of implementation, how to leverage my student learning management platform, my grading process, and how to communicate to everyone.  This has been a program developed over time.  I stressed that this is how it works for my school and for my personality.  I know myself well and I know my school community well.  It took a lot of front-end loading to get to where I am.  People can see and hear what I do but ultimately, the educator needs to customize the practice to suit the situation.  If I would move to a new school and teach a different population, I would need to make adjustments.

I had several participants at the workshop who were not visual arts educators and they came to learn about how students present their process and how to cultivate individual voices. I feel they were able to collect ideas from how I also stress the importance of building community by verbal critiques,  how to implement classroom mentors, how to  engage students to present their ideas in progress, and showcase the portfolio the students created for documenting the process for final critiques.  In addition,how to use  artist proposals and written reflections as a key to developing a voice that leads to a solid artist statement.

My goal was to educate and get educators back in touch with how they feel when creating, how they organize thoughts and materials, and how their individual pace in thinking/progress happens.  We often feel pressure of our daily schedule, expectations for evaluations, and the curricular requirements.  I wanted to remind the educators about how the most important part of what we do is visual communication.  How do we support our students where they start and meet their individual needs?  Where to do we leave room for thinking, practicing, experimenting, inventing, etc.?  This is all learning and it happens during the process.

IF the student is engaged the end product will speak for itself.

Art educators are often under-appreciated for how well we juggle the materials, behaviors, studio space, and nurturing the soul of our students.  In our studio’s the space needs to be a community that is safe for everyone.  All students deserve a safe place to explore, learn, grow, fail, and succeed.  Succeed based on what the student has identified as success not by the appearance of the product.  The learning is an intrinsic value.  This is often invisible accept when there is time and a method to communicate the learning.  We need to continue to create methods to make the learning and the success from the process, visible beyond the finished product.

We need to meet our students where they are when they enter our space.  It is nearly impossible to meet the needs of everyone when we don’t even consider a student-centered approach.  I am not going to have everyone or even a handful of students become famous successful artists.

I will have all of my students aware of their visual communication skills, how to figure out their work flow, apply the techniques and vocabulary they explored, be in touch and aware of artists worldwide, blend seamlessly the other academic areas they love into the visual communication created in the studio.  I will have young people who understand the importance of the “WHY” when creating original works of art.  I will have students that are confident recording their thoughts, ideas, progress, failures, research, and the confidence to speak and assist others.  I will have students who see the visual arts as a powerful tool to communicate effectively in the world with the balance of understanding how to wield that power on social media.  Plus, have an understanding of the damage that can be done to oneself for not comprehensively planning what they share on social media.  Leveraging visual communication is powerful but it needs to be taught how to be effective.

I communicated at the workshop that I feel that I am always perfecting my teaching practice and my studio is my lab.  It is my goal to be an effective practitioner of Visual Communication and this requires reflection and data points.  I utilize Google Forms and other digital platforms to gather and analyze how effective I am doing in my attempts.  Through my Google Forms and my student learning management platforms, I am able to collect information to adjust my practice.  I am also able to communicate with my individual students easily and to offer input and additional research, support, and plan scaffolding to increase student success.  This is work but with digital tools it makes it easier.

Wow! Didn’t think I’s write so much.  I guess my reflecting on my experience helped me clarify my own voice.  Funny…. I preach that all the time.  Again, practice what you preach.

So, glad I did this summer PD.  Looking forward to not driving and staying in hotels for a while.  I need some deep immersion into my own art before beginning my storage room clean out at school.

Happy summer to you all.

https://www.asc701.org/events/2018/6/28/taking-it-to-the-schools-iii-community-experiences-in-visual-art

Busy times…

Wow!

I have been so busy and I just wrapped up on the Arkansas State Art Conference.  I presented two sessions, I assembled three sessions which included ChoiceArt educators meeting up to greet each other, offer grade division specific sessions, and to get the ChoiceArt educators signed up for a shared folder for content.  I also presented on Design Thinking on a topic that I feel many art teachers found direct application for their classrooms from the session experience.

Getting back to my life at home, I took time to make a few magnolia leaf wreaths and bake some sour dough bread from a starter.  This always relaxes me and I need it because I will be hosting a NAEA webinar on the ChoiceArt Studio.  I am very excited to present and show how teaching Choice can be implemented in a classroom.   On my school agenda; I am hosting a recycle fashion workshop, a parent coffee about the Visual Arts program, and launching into our next Arts Reveal Night.  Presenting is important for so many reasons.

Just as attending conferences for our own development and learning so is presenting.  During my presentation at the AR conference, I stressed the importance in sharing and presenting what and how we do our practice.  I know it is more work and it is scary but we need to move past this if we want to get better.  We can only become better at what we do by sharing how we do it and reaching out to each other.  Art educators are notorious at being extraverts when it is necessary but then retreating to our safe spaces when we can.  I do this all the time.

I am perfectly comfortable with my students and working with them brings me so much joy.  I am not the most comfortable in front of a large group, writing and publishing my thoughts, and basically always pushing out my thoughts.  I am a very cerebral person and I process my ideas for some time until I am comfortable with it before letting it out.  I am getting better at it and I keep pushing on through it.

I make my students present for this same reason.  You know yourself better and why you do what you do, when you have to tell someone about it.  Artists do love to share their accomplishments with like-minded people.  Standing in front of a crowd and explaining your ideas or process is much harder.  But I want my students to do it because it will make them stronger and much more confident.  I know this because it has worked for me.  I believe in modeling what I ask my students to do and then supporting them to do it to.

I was sitting next to Dennis Inhulsen an accomplished art educator and school principal and now, the NAEA Chief Learning Officer. At the conference luncheon, we chatted about the Arts Standards that he helped to write.  He admitted that he was never a great writer but he got better by being put in the position to have to do it.    Now, he represents the NAEA all around the country and presents to educators the importance of the Art Standards.  Presenting is one of the new standards that is emphasized in my studio.  I also balance presenting with writing/reflecting on the process.  It is essential for student growth and confidence.

I walked away from my sessions and I hoped that I clearly expressed the importance of connecting with other art educators and sharing what they are doing in their own teaching practice.  I feel my role as the Co-President of the ChoiceArt Interest Group is to encourage individual voices to gain volume and confidence.  It’s not my own voice that always needs to come forward.  I want other educators who are working through how to teach with offering more Choice to their students to share.  The teaching theory of ChoiceArt embraces individuality and voices.  We help our students find their passion and elevate their voice….We need to do it for ourselves too.

Join an organization, sign-up for an interest group, write a blog, participate in a forum, post content you created and share it….just do it!

Please join the NAEA Webinar on November 15 @7-8PM EST when Nikki Kalcevic and I present Teaching the Visual Arts Through Choice. NAEA Virtual Art Educators Webinar

 

Collaborative chalk mural brings us together.

“We have to get messy to make it beautiful.” – Art Educator Joy Schultz

We have been participating in a local city chalk art celebration for several years.  It supports a local organization which support students with funding and scholarships to continue to go to college or to supply arts educators much needed supplies.  The Thea Foundation was created by two parents who lost a talented artist daughter named Thea.  Her legacy lives on every day in the hearts and minds of young artists and dedicated arts educators.

I love participating in this event because it’s our first public art collab.  It starts with the first art club meeting when we decide a theme and brainstorm visual imagery to support the theme.  I let my student art club directors take the lead and I support them by moving the idea along.  I am lucky to have a well-trained and dedicated student leader, Junior Celia, for year two.  She was trained by her older sister who ran the art club before her for two years.  I strive to have the current leader mentor another future leader as the second year begins.  This helps maintain consistency and a lot less training on the spot from year to year.  The student leaders, Celia and Sophomore Bella, feel much more in control of the group and step-up in wonderful unique ways, with their own ambitions, to help the art club be engaged in the school and greater community.

Our theme this year was “Unity” and we had all of our members draw up many variations on the theme but we had lots of images that overlapped.  I needed someone to pull all the concepts together to help tell our story and support the theme.  Junior Madison was excited to contribute to the project but would not be able to attend the actual chalk mural event so she volunteered to pour over all the students ideas to create a cohesive design.

We combined our ideas with the lower school and middle school students to create one large design.  It was a hot sunny day and we had some students arrive early but needed to leave midway to attend other responsibilities so our students needed to work together to finish the final design.

We had students stop and evaluate the mural while it was evolving and they checked in on one another to see if they needed help.  The communication was between the art students of all ages was supportive and helpful.  The other two art educators and I made sure students took water breaks and sat in the shade for a breather.  I love that we had photographers pop by and ask to take photos of our students at work.  You could see the pride each student had in the mural.  We overheard comments about all the different world flags we added and the wonderful hot air balloons created by our youngest artists.  I love all of it but I was mostly struck by the students at the end that suggested that they hold hands around the globe for a group photo.  Right then and there, I realized they truly understood the purpose of the mural and the meaning of our theme.  “Unity/United”.  I could have not been more proud.

“Unity” Chalk Mural created by Episcopal Collegiate School art club students 1-12 grades – Art Educator Joy Schultz