Reflective Journal & Artwork 1
Sept 17th, 2023
#GrowingMyPLC
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My first two weeks of student teaching have been a whirlwind of meeting tons of new teachers, building employees and getting familiar with my middle school teaching placement. Webber Middle School has been so welcoming, and I really feel like the professional development days I spent with the staff helped me feel like a part of a team from day 1. The Principal, Bryan Davis, spent time introducing any new staff, including student teachers, and I was able to share some slides about myself, and spend the work days getting to know my mentor teacher. I was also able to see how the teaching staff is welcomed back after a long summer break, and how excited everyone is to hear about new engagements, babies, and life changes from their coworkers & teammates.
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Chelsea and I were able to set up all the art spaces, and prepare for the incoming students. I like how they have the 6th graders start a day before any of the other students, and only with a half-day, so they can get used to navigating their classes on their own. I’m sure it’s a big transition from elementary where their classroom teachers lead them through the schools as a unit. I’m sure I will be helping many students with making it to their classes on time, figuring out their combination locks on their lockers, and pointing them in the right direction to their destinations. It’s funny how being back in a middle school can bring back very old memories of being that age, and the anxieties you feel with such a big educational change. I am fairly certain that I want to be a middle school teacher, so I’m excited to work with this student body and learn how to best serve this specific age range.
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The kindness and support from the other teachers has been overwhelming. It is so hard for me to remember the names of teachers, but no one seems bothered when I ask for confirmation on what subject they teach or to remind me of their name. I’m trying my best to be present and display my best social qualities to make good impressions regardless of who I’m meeting at my placement. I have already begun to appreciate all the hard work and important relationship us art teachers have with the janitorial staff at Webber. My mentor teacher has emphasized that this part of the staff is so integral to our success in the art classroom, and that we are so extremely lucky to have janitors that even go over and above their duties to help us organize and clean our studio space.
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I have so many art lesson ideas swimming in my head, and I appreciate the support I’m getting from Chelsea. I feel like I will have a lot of creative freedom for planning projects, and that we will be utilizing a lot of co-teaching methods to make the start of the quarter go smoothly. She has allowed me to choose whatever classes I feel like taking full control of, and I just want to get used to some of the classes to see what student groups I “gel” with the most.
I chose to highlight PLC’s since I feel like my transition from student to student teacher has been so smooth thanks to my Webber PLC, as well as knowing I can reach out to my fellow Art Ed classmates going through the same thing in different schools. A teacher can only be so successful if they work alone, but like the old saying, “if you want to go far, go together,” teaching depends so heavily on having strong support networks even across grade levels and content areas. Getting to know the admin staff has been just as helpful as getting to know the janitorial employees, or the counseling team, and also just as integral as getting familiar with our department peers.
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For my reflective artwork, I had been thinking about how I can continue to make individual artworks that can combine into a larger overall collaborative piece during this placement. Growth in education always makes me think of plant metaphors. I have been really inspired by some large, beautiful monstera plants in local greenhouses. I think about how a plant is this collective of old and new growth, with the larger plant giving nutrients and sheltering the sprouts, and I also consider how plant cuttings can continually be taken from the host plant to grow on their own, once they’ve received enough support from the mother plant.
I want to eventually push myself to try new mediums, but also want to make these monstera leaves based on what students are learning or working with that week in class. I have rough goals to try some media I have used less frequently in my personal non-CSU art classes, like fibers, collage, and multimedia. For this first two weeks of working in this placement, we have addressed watercolor techniques. I’ve been able to introduce some of my knowledge in watercolor painting, which is one of my favorite mediums to work in. This leaf embodies some of my self pre-assessment— what I’m coming in with, and something far inside my comfort zone. With my next leaves, I will use the middle schooler’s projects as inspiration, and also push myself a little outside my media comfort zone. I am not sure how many leaves I will aim to make, but I’m sure it’s better to have more than I need, than not enough and have a sparse composition.
Reflective Journal & Artwork 2
October 5th, 2023
#SocialJusticeEducation
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Facilitating social-justice-oriented lessons in the art ed classroom is vital to my teacher philosophy. The lessons need to be appropriate for the student grade level, and working through culturally responsive lessons requires a culture of respect and vulnerability with the students. Lessons based on personal identity and social groups are typically the best suited for middle schoolers. 6-8th grade is an important developmental time for students, where they are figuring out their own social circles, personal values, and how much of their identities they show to their peer groups. I think that the art teacher has a special role in students lives, to allow a space for students to explore their own identities and cultures, while also choosing how much to share with anyone viewing their art. If some students are allowed to speak hateful beliefs or use hateful rhetoric in their artmaking, then this completely closes off the possibility for the supportive classroom culture to flourish.
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I have noticed the roles outside “classroom teacher” that my mentor has taken on. I appreciate the work she has done to facilitate conversations about diversity within the school, and how to increase the diverse voices being represented in students’ daily lives. She helped students pursue their own visions of how to create art and information displays during Hispanic Heritage Month— offering time during lunch, space for students to come work on the displays during free time, and allowing them to problem solve any artistic concerns as they arose. I appreciate the way I was able to see a teacher build supports for students to make meaningful works that also helped the student body as a whole. Even when the cultures being addressed were not her own, she was able to have open table discussions with these interested student leaders, and address the students as individuals with very different creative desires or experiences they wanted to share. Even before and after the setup of this series of bulletin boards, I witnessed the same group of students coming to the art room for lunch, or after school to chat with the teacher. I noticed that when some students had interpersonal challenges or if they were having a rough day, they knew that their teacher was someone they felt most comfortable coming to. The small ways that a teacher can demonstrate true concern for students’ lives and experiences, add up to build really strong student relationships.
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During an all-staff meeting, the counseling team went over the results of a school culture survey from the entire student body. Some of the questions related to whether or not a student felt like they had a trusted adult that cared about them, and overall I think the school was doing a good job of showing students that they matter. There was a small word cloud of most-named teachers that students identify as their trusted adult, and it was no surprise to me that my mentor teacher’s name was listed. I realize that even though my mentor has roles within art club and assisting with diversity club, the students rarely need the adults to be actively leading anything. More often than not, the students seem to really just need a safe space, and trusted adult to be in the room when these groups are happening— smiling, nodding, validating and offering support if needed. I noticed when I would have student aides assist me with work between classes, the strongest bonds were built when I just quietly worked on projects at my desk while the students talked with one another about their experiences and concerns, and occasionally appreciated a laugh or small comment from me.
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While these leaf artworks weren’t created for a Social Justice lesson, they were made with the help of student aides like I had mentioned previously. I had them help me flip through magazines to select images for my collage leaf, and I found the conversation naturally moved toward environmental justice/land use issues when we were all looking at National Geographic photos of changing landscapes. It gave me some ideas of how to bring up similar topics in art ideations or what kind of contemporary art to address with students for inspiration. I utilized techniques and materials (collage and acrylic paint,) that different classes I was teaching were interacting with, learning about, and skill building with.
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I think my most successful social Justice lesson with middle school students was during the first part of our painted terra cotta pot/macrame crafts lesson. I asked students what they thought or knew about food insecurity, (they didn’t think they knew much initially.) After some guided questioning, and showing examples of how artists that paint murals for food security, or paint welcoming community fridges, the students were able to come up with some really great examples of how they could address these concerns in their artworks. I especially loved how one of the boys that played football addressed how unbalanced funds are for organized sports, compared to feeding those same communities. Working with middle schoolers has been really inspiring and has shown me examples of how to successfully bring up social justice art lessons, and to just be present and give students space to speak freely so that I can learn the specific concerns that my students have in their lives.
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Reflective Journal & Artwork 3
October 15th, 2023
#Inktober
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For this reflective artwork, I utilized a newly opened station that students in all grades were interacting with: India Ink! One of my biggest artist passions is the ability for artists to build community, and for artists to share ideas with one another. I’ve been participating in the annual, daily, ink-drawing challenge called “Inktober,” for at least 10 years now. I always tell students that to become a better artist, you simply need to try to make art every day— or at least as much as possible. The more art you make leads to skill improvement, new creative realizations, learning how to persist better, and a larger body of work to select art from. Sometimes making art every day based only on your personal ideas can be frustrating, I definitely know the pain. I enjoy a daily challenge with prompts, and I know that young artists benefit from these prompts to get started as well. It also encourages accountability between art peers, and you can submit your work on social media, and feel like your are part of a global art movement. Much like going to the gym or practicing an instrument every day— if you put in the hours, you get results. I always find myself telling students these art truths that I hold so dear.
I brought in some of my own sketches for the first few days of Inktober, which were “spider, dodge, and path.” I also showed some examples of the varied ways that artists interact with these prompt words, and how they can be taken literally, figuratively, or anywhere your mind goes when you think of the day’s prompt word. I also was able to set up a classroom bulletin board for Inktober, and encouraged students to do sketchbook prompts to participate. Some students wanted to use the new dip pen tools, and some students preferred using sharpies or ballpoint pens. By the time I left my placement mid October, the board was filled with some students that stuck with the challenge. I rewarded the students that did almost every prompt, or at least did the prompts we went over in class, with a special ink brush pen, which is one of my favorite go-to art tools. I know reward systems can be hard to navigate in an equitable way, but I absolutely love letting students interact with more professional art tools when they show interest. Some of these tools are just not possible in their family budget, or they are difficult to find for a new artist, so I want to utilize all of my technical expertise to make sure these specialized and more professional art tools are available for students in an equitable way. Rewarding effort, attempts, and process over product is so important.
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When I was making this ink leaf, I had been working with a particular 7th grade student that could be challenging and disengaged from art class at times. He did love working in the same media and technique (splatter watercolor), regardless of what we were trying to get students to try in other media. I knew that since he loved some of the happy surprises that come with watercolor painting, I brought him over to my desk to show what happens when you lay down clear water, then apply small amounts of India ink. After my personalized mini demo, I was successful in getting him to participate in doing ink techniques on his own artwork. This leaf functioned as another piece I knew I wanted to add to my overall collage, but also was a great demo for students that hadn’t considered utilizing ink in this way before. One-on-ones aren’t typically feasible in a class of 30 students, but when the rest of the class is working independently and the opportunity presents itself, it’s a satisfying teaching moment.
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Reflective Journal Week 8:
End of Middle School Placement
October 30th, 2023
This is a picture of my personal desk and workspace at the end of my Middle School placement. I ended up making about 6 leaves in different styles and with different media, and had planned on having a few students help me make individualized leaves if they had time after finishing required assignments and getting caught up on class work. I had accumulated about a dozen leaves a week before I was set to leave Webber Middle School. My mentor teacher knew the concept behind the installation I had planned for a show I was going to have with another Art Education classmate. She set aside time for some students to help me make even more leaves at the end of class that week, and on my last day with each class, she had the students celebrate my time student teaching with a farewell party, with snacks and students making leaves by themselves or in small groups. I knew I had wanted to make this large collaborative works with some students in my placement, but could never have expected the unique artworks they created to help support my vision for the show. As each leaf was completed, I pinned it to the board behind me, to display for all the other classes. It was such a great last week being able to reflect on my time with these students, thank them for all their hard work, and allow them to have influence over artwork that would be shown in a legitimate gallery space at CSU for an entire week.
The following is my artist statement placed beside the finished work in the gallery show:
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I started this piece by creating large monstera leaves with watercolor and acrylic paint. As the weeks of my student teaching progressed, I tried to create leaves based on the same media (ink) or techniques (collage) that my middle school students were utilizing and exploring in class. I enjoyed the interactions with students in other classes as my collection of leaves began to pile up on my desk. When I started this artwork, I knew I wanted it to be collaborative, so I first started with students who volunteered to help in the art room, and I asked them to help make leaves with materials that interested them.
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I particularly love how the artwork began as just 6 leaves that were inspired by my students and my complex feelings during student teaching—and during my last week at Webber Middle School, my mentor teacher had every class contribute leaves for our collaborative Monstera. (I had them sign the backs.) I gave them the freedom to use whatever materials they wanted, as long as it could be identified as a leaf. Some students included kind words and well wishes as I prepared to move on to my next teaching placement with elementary students. I hope to have some of my K-5 students make some leaves to add to the piece.
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I have always been inspired by climbing plants like Monstera Deliciosa. I have various smaller Monstera plants at home, but also envy the gigantic "mother plants" at local garden centers. I also find myself making plant metaphors when I think about my journey as an art educator. The broad, mature leaves demonstrate seasons of growth and resilience, and the aerial roots search for new sources of enrichment. The new growth or "baby leaves" depends on the plant before it can support itself. I feel as if all the reading theory, practice, and ideation prepared me to work with young children.Each day the students really do teach me so much about how to be a responsive and empathetic art teacher, and I'm thankful for their work to help complete my creative vision.