Week 8, Residency 2. 3 hours. Perpich Center for Arts Education, Golden Valley, MN.
This week was easier than last week. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I had to overcome a lot of fear and it was difficult to make myself go back, but I had a commitment to fulfill; and thankfully Lynda was able to talk me through my concerns, even though they felt overwhelming at the time. I thought maybe classroom teaching was something I’d never want to do, but it’s probably just my fear over my lack of experience being the louder voice.
This week, we had a silent, written critique of the book projects in both sections of the class. I spent the entire time writing feedback for the students’ books and it was really good practice; I’d just come out of my art history class in the morning so I was in full art analysis mode. The visual analysis method that Lynda taught us were super helpful too. One of the prompts for the critique called for a judgement statement of the work, but since I hadn’t been with the students from the beginning of this project and didn’t know their thoughts behind their projects, I didn’t feel right giving that. Instead, I asked questions about the work and left it open for them to think critically and make their own decisions about the success of their pieces. This is probably one of the most valuable things that I’ve learned through the teaching artist program––I never felt like I understood how to critique something until we covered visual analysis strategies in Theory & Methods last semester.
My only regret was I wasn’t able to get to everyone’s books in the time we had. But as I was leaving, one of the students came up to me in the hall and said my feedback was really helpful, which was a huge confidence booster. That’s all I want: to help them!