Entry #10:
Nearing the End of the Semester
April 17th, 2022
#synthesizing
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Now that I’ve made it to mid-April, I’m realizing how close the end of the spring semester is. I’ve wrapped up the extent of my peer teaching for ART326, and after the museum family-day this coming weekend, my teaching will be over until next semester. What has happened most recently since my last journal entry?
My peer-teaching group successfully completed our art lesson centered around identity, and decorating benches that we had built. At the beginning of the semester, when we first were introduced to the idea of making seating while also addressing social justice issues— we were admittedly totally overwhelmed. We could think of a lesson on how to construct a bench, and we had all sorts of good ideas for projects on exploring identity…. The dilemma came from connecting these two seemingly-disparate activities. I think through weeks of building the different parts of the project, we were able to successfully integrate the big idea with the art-making process, and also introduce our technology (laser cutting.) The most helpful thing was watching other groups’ projects before our own, so we could implement aspects that we liked, and try and eliminate parts that didn’t work. Ultimately, our biggest hurdle would be non-cooperative weather, which was hard to plan for. Luckily we already ran through possible idea beforehand, since so much of our activity was centered around spray painting that needed to be done outdoors. We utilized some backup planning, but our leadership communication definitely was our second biggest hurdle. I know all three of us were disappointed in the lack of group discussion since we ran over time. Overall though, I was proud of a lot of other parts of our lesson, and I was happy to work with my group even through hardships and miscommunication. Our experience aligns with one of the most important parts of teaching k12 students —- teaching them how important it is to persist through failures. Modeling calm attitudes, problem solving, and resilience all can show students how to keep working even when they might want to give up. I do think that group projects can be extremely challenging, but one of their biggest benefits is that you have peers that can help tackle big problems with you. Despite challenges, I was extremely pleased with the work that students made, and the conversations I overheard during ideation and artmaking. We just lacked the opportunity to share everyone’s individual contribution, and luckily it seems like we might have a chance at the end of the next peer lesson.
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While I work on painting my previous entries, so that they can be finished for the final show, I find myself sometimes frustrated that the colors or appearance aren’t what I planned. Often, I avoid finishing my artworks, and they maintain a level of “Not done, but I can finish it anytime I want…” I never do go back, and then I end up with a mountain of amazing starts, but ultimately unfinished work. For these ink drawings, I am extremely pleased with the line work, and worry about “ruining” them with paint… but the whole point was when planning this months ago, I decided that I would push myself regardless of my hesitations. So now I am adding more finishing touches to the works, and they might not turn out how I wanted, but they are still learning moments, and hopefully I will end up with some finished work that I am proud to hang in a show. I think about how I could have used better paper, or different sized paper, or maybe even painted first then added ink lines, but the whole process is part of learning. It’s what happened during peer teaching, and it’s what I want my students to try for themselves.
