Residency 1-Whittier Elementary School-Jane Swatosh (3hrs)

This Monday at Whittier, as students came into class, they started their day with a journal entry. The prompt for the day asked whether they would like to be a rich and famous movie star or a doctor who treated patients but did not earn as much money. Chatting with different students, some wanted to be rich and famous but not movie stars, and some wanted to be doctors, like their parents. 

All the children had finished writing and editing their stories this week, so during literature we met in small groups/pairs, and shared stories. I heard a story about the Boston Massacre from one individual, who shared that his favorite part of the whole process was actually doing the research. 

In math, Ms. Swatosh was teaching some new concepts, so students worked together on the workbooks. I noticed that as they were all following along with Ms. Swatosh, some were not able to keep up with her pace, or seemed a little confused about her calculations. I sat down with them individually and tried to help clarify their doubts. 

Residency 2-Minneapolis Institute of Art-Angela Olson and Natalia Choi (2hrs)

This Tuesday at Toddler Tuesdays, we painted to music. Teaching Artist Akiko Ostlund was amazing with the kids. We walked around in the galleries, where she introduced the kids to some abstract art, and then in the studio, Akiko showed them different strokes/textures that she felt the music looked like. She encouraged them to move to the tune, imbibe the sound and paint. I helped her put up large black sheets of paper on the walls, and the kids had great fun working together. Having the paper on the walls allowed them to be mobile and free while painting. Akiko also gave them multiple tools to choose from, palette knives, their hands, brushes, popsicle sticks, cups, and shiny paper to stick on the page. Though usually I might have expected the multiple choices to confuse the kids, it actually excited them even more, that they could make marks with so many things. 

One child really took to painting with his hands. According to his adult, this was a big change. Apparently usually he did not like getting his hands dirty. It was wonderful to see how the freedom he was given to work, and also watching his peers encouraged him to try something new. 

Another child danced as he painted, feeling the tempo and the rhythm in his body, and it translated through the marks of paint; long curvy lines and small dots. 

We encouraged the kids to experiment. They had the freedom to get messy if they wanted to, there was no judgement and the kids thrived in it. As this was day two with the same group of toddlers, they had also become more familiar with and less scared of us. Something I realized today was that I enjoy working with the same group over multiple sessions as this allows me to build my relationship with them. 

Shadowing-Upstream Arts-Masanari Kawahara (3hrs)

This week I joined Masa again at his visual Memoirs class. As requested by his students, this class we worked on building technical drawing skills. Proportion, and value were explored through drawing a still life object from observation, and also imitating a face from a magazine. Masa introduced some shading techniques and while he gave them tips to draw a proportionate image, he also encouraged them to develop their own style. What I really enjoyed about the portraits that the students drew was that even though they were not necessarily perfectly proportional, they all captured the essence of the the people they were drawing. They were expressive drawings. 

After the class, Masa and I talked about how to balance the teaching of technical skill and encouraging creative choices and play. This aim of Masa’s class is to help students remove their own judgement towards doing art. A solution to this, I suggested to him, might be focusing on teaching them to draw as they see. This way, they are learning to practice observational drawing, while still maintaining their individual styles. It is a challenging balance, teaching what you want to, and teaching what the students want to learn. 

Next class will be my last class with Masa. I have really enjoyed being a part of his classes, he really cares for his students.