Holistic Approaches in Art + Design Education
What can you expect in my classroom studio?
When you enter into my art studio you will see a variety of projects happening at once. The daily schedule set up for maximum amount of student led learning, experimentation and exploration. Materials are organized in centers or specific cabinets, allowing for full ownership over the working space. Tables are arranged to suit students' needs throughout the year. Sewing centers with dress forms transform into printmaking centers and later fold into a mounting center closer to art show time. The room is responsive, moveable, and alive. The week opens with skill acquisition, followed by work days, and later reflection/critique days. Students may work alone, in pairs, or in large groups depending on what interests them.
So what approach do you actually follow?
I was trained as an art educator at Rhode Island School of Design, where the focus was on project based learning, teacher as a guide and mentor, and open ended projects with backward planning. The curriculum that I write does not have a fixed ending product in mind, the children create the piece, not me. I believe wholeheartedly in the approaches of the Reggio Emilia schools, and Maria Montessori's teachings. Within my courses I infuse the ownership and love of exploration and student led projects through open ended, theme based discussions and honoring and respecting the ideas, processes and discoveries of my students. Children are people in their own right, in every stage of their life, my role is to guide and teach my students. While I am the facilitator and guide, the students have equal rights to be respected and to be heard. The respect I refer to is not only in the form of an atmosphere of respect, but also the respect of their ideas, aesthetic and values.
My goals in my teacher practice are:
Create and uphold an alive environment for the students, show the proper storage and care of materials, and help them to take care of their materials and their space through guidance.
Allow for space for the opening and closing and reconnecting to projects through the artists' process with a flexible curriculum and process grading systems.
Foster responsible, adaptive artists who are have a thirst for knowledge and who are problem solvers
Promote learning in an inquiring, cooperative, nurturing atmosphere through student and teacher initiated experiences
Support learning through the senses.
Promote mindfulness and meditation as well as journaling as an integral part of self discovering and nurturing one's inner artist.
Teach outside the four walls of the studio through outdoor, gallery, and museum exploration and experiences.
I believe in learning through living and that the best learning takes place in a creative, unrestricted setting where we can embrace limitless ideas that target the whole child.
If I can empower each child to be confident, creative, intelligent and reveal their unlimited potential, they will change the world.
Love & Kindness
D