Art Class: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Part II)

The students' task for our current unit was to create awareness about their new knowledge using air-dry clay and painting the background. The children worked in 7 groups of 6. To cut down on washing time, I have the poster paint and cardboard palettes out for them to take whatever they need. So they will throw away the cardboard palettes and only wash the paintbrushes.

As the children start working, I will walk around and facilitate. By facilitating, sometimes I like asking children "what are you doing?" to ensure that they begin with an end in mind. Some children were more proactive than others so I would get them to organise the team in teams of individual contribution.

They were shown a photo compilation so that besides learning from each other in their own class, they will also be able to see what other classes were doing. I think they also feel comfortable seeing me going around taking photos as they know their identities will not be revealed but rather I emphasize on learning good practices from others. Be it painting techniques, concepts or written reflection.

PAL: Lesson Review

As I was reviewing the PAL lessons, I was contemplating to share my thoughts in planning the lessons. In this Primary One lesson, the SEL competency that's targeted is on relationship management. Since no man is an island, this lesson doesn't just end after the lesson is over. People form relationships wherever they go with people of different colours, class, ethnicity, nationality etc. So, we can't assume that children know how to make and keep friends or protect themselves when they need to. 

In one of the activities, a list of suggested questions are included for teachers to use to engage their pupils:

• What does it mean to be a friend?
• How do you know when someone is your friend?
• Can someone be nice to you and not be your friend?
• Can someone tell you things you might not want to hear and still be your friend?
• Is it possible for someone to not play with you and still be your friend?
• What is the difference between a friend and a classmate?
• Can your parents be your friend?
• Is it important to have friends?
• If someone is not your friend, how should you treat him or her?
• Is it possible to have no friends?
• How would you feel if you have no friends?
• Have you ever refused to be someone’s friend when she/ he wanted you to be?
• What is the difference between a friend and an enemy?
• Is it possible for someone to try to hurt you and still be your friend?

I think teachers could use their professional judgment to decide on the questions deem suitable for their pupils and further build on the pupils' responses. Before planning, I knew I had to include something about friendship as it is common for children to have friendship issues at certain point of their lives. 

When children are young, they learn about friendship rules by knowing that if you did this, then you would make a friend. If you did that, you could lose a friend. For older children, they are commonly found to mingle with friends of the same gender1. 

In adolescent, there is an increased self awareness and they are less focused on figuring out the friendship rules for being friends with girls and more focused on getting attention of boys. By adulthood, our friendship rules are embedded in us, in terms of the workplace, it might add on complexity due to gender socialization2. Thus, this lesson on friendship in Primary One hopefully would pave its way to effective communication.

This is a rough idea of my train of thoughts in deciding the content of the lessons. I wonder how others decide the content/ flow of the lessons, let me learn from you too!


1. Creative and mental growth (8th ed.). by Viktor Lowenfeld & W. Lambert Brittain (p. 306)
2. New rules for women: Revolutionizing the way women work together. by Anne Litwin (p. 9)

Art Class: Of Uber car and trivial stuff

Just the other day I was taking an Uber ride in a standard taxi. When the cab driver found out that I was using a promo code, he began to talk about what he said was trivial but important matters with the increased usage of private cars for hires. As a passenger/ consumer, perhaps our immediate concern is to reach our destination the fastest, safety and in the most economical way. As for the cab driver, he raised issues on private car policy as the car is supposed to be used for domestic affairs and not for business. If there was an accident, then compensation for injuries or damages would be problematic. Another point is that it is not sustainable for a private car to be used for hire permanently because petrol is expensive and standard cab uses diesel which is relatively cheaper. These are matters which I have never thought of since they don't impact me directly. 

You might think how these issues are related to Art? I was listening intently when the cab driver was making his comments. The cab driver kept emphasizing that he knew such matters are trivial but they are crucial to ensure a system works well as a whole. I think that every job encompasses trivial matters that others would overlook if they were not personally involved in. How often do you hear people commenting that a teacher's job is just half a day or we get so many holidays? How do you respond to them? Do you even bother explaining to the layman? And they are not even close if they had just some experience as a relief teacher! Since they are "outsiders", it's really tough for them to experience how teaching is like, or working as a team player to keep the ecosystem going.

Let me list some "trivial" matters in Art that would make or break a lesson. When we do papier-mâché, it matters how the newspaper is torn. If the newspaper is torn against the grain, the tears are very difficult to control and you end up with various sizes of torn paper. If you torn with the grain, it will result in even strips and are easier to work with. You should give it a try!

It also matters when you are mixing wheat paste to be used as glue for the papier-mâché. Would you put wheat paste first then water or water first then add wheat paste? The first procedure will create lumps and the second procedure will not. I assure you these are not trivial matters when you are conducting the lesson.

Art Club: Turning Plastics into Toys Workshop

Hi everyone! Art Club pupils visited the community lab at United World College South East Asia. We attended a Turning Plastics into Toys workshop. The pupils learnt about makers mindset and environmental issues. Prior to the visit, the facilitators learnt about our art class lessons on The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Since the workshop has similar intent, it wasn't difficult to request the facilitator to touch on the same topic when the pupils come to visit. I think that to have different people delivering the same message in different context meant that numerous opportunities were provided for children to revisit and think about the issue.

More details about global goals can be found here

Upcycling plastic bottle caps into spinner tops

Melting plastics into functional objects

Smoothing the edges

Giving plastic bottle a new life

Art Class: Building Spaces (Part III)

When you were looking at the prototypes/ artwork that the children were making, has the thought of them wasting materials ever crossed your mind? By viewing them as "wasteful", "inefficient" or "redundant" may be a symptom of a culture focused on efficiency over innovation (Brown, 2009). There is so much in life that pushes us to move fast. Sometimes, a peeve of mine is asking the children to walk faster or move faster so that we can get more things done within that hour of lesson. In our culture, speed is of the essence. Our quality of learning is judged by the speed of knowledge acquisition. You're a fast learner is considered a compliment as opposed to You're a slow learner.

The arts is about savouring, or being immersed in an experience that seemed timeless and spaceless. A lot of time in school is spend on discursive language or quantitative forms, while these skills are of crucial importance, it does not encompass all of what humans know or how they make meaning.

Last week is my first time organising 30 seven years old for painting class. I found out through a quick survey that a handful of them had never paint before. I was mentally prepared for the mess and as though it wasn't enough, on days when I have painting class with my youngest students, I needed to ensure that I start the class with a full stomach to keep up with all the energetic bodies!

Prior to the painting class, the children did mark making with their oil pastels. I also got them to write their names on every single stick of the oil pastels as I can't imagine having to deal with complaints of missing sticks in the future. Some of them tried to justify themselves by saying that their oil pastels is 'different' (brand) from others but it's just a plain no from me.

I use recycled paper to wrap a cardboard box as a paint container so that the children can dip their foam rollers and paintbrushes easily. They were quite fascinated by how different colours mixed together to produce a new colour. When the children ask for another colour, I will just "clean" the box with an A5-size recycled paper so that the new addition of paint will not be contaminated by the previous colour. At the end of the lesson, the children will wash their brushes and place all of them in a grey container beside the sink. With this lesson, I will be able to introduce basic colour theory and discuss about textures in art.