Art Class: Yarn and Burlap

It's quite amazing after four years in my current school, I'm still finding a use for materials purchased ages ago. I won't bat an eyelid even if the materials are older than me! I'm trialling this lesson unit so that the graduating classes can pick up sewing and increase their dexterity. I mean their school shoes are tightened with velcro, not shoelace anymore. Something that I've taken for granted is the tying of knots, it is not a given for some twelve years old. Tying a double knot at the end of the yarn is the foundation and toughest for most of them as it requires the second knot to sit on the first one to prevent the yarn from pulling through the burlap. A single knot would be sufficient if the yarn is much thicker. Since I'm making do with what I have, it is good enough too. 

I showed some published articles to the children about the claim that surgery students are losing dexterity to do stitching and this video even show how medical students in a Japanese hospital are put through origami making to recruit surgical students. You can view it here. 

Art Class: Where are you from? (Part II)

Phew! The children ended their term one task with a gallery walk (in circles). Many opportunities for making decisions are provided to allow them to build their confidence. For example, I will usually go through a set of instructions before their independent work and that requires active listening. So, in the event that they'd forgotten after I've given my instructions, they could ask a trainee teacher. The children made choices on their line drawings, selection of art supplies, their seating area or who they would like to sit with on that day. Classroom management includes scissors safety and their movement in the art room. These are seemingly simple tasks to an adult but they require a substantial amount of time to complete. Especially so when the students were writing their artist statements and needed spelling words.

Artventures: aedge 2019 art exhibition

A delayed post! It has been a month since the exhibition opening day on 5 March. I was one of the teacher-curators for the art educators' developmental and explorations (aedge 2019) exhibition. It was held in the art gallery of the School of the Arts, Singapore.

It was an intensive business and we had our meetings mostly in the evenings. Most of our communication was taken online and well aware of our responsibilities or at least complement each other. I was the only primary school art teacher so it was nice to hear different perspectives. I wouldn't think of swapping places with them when children's explorations are more fun and crazy (rest assured your kids are safe with me). I would also definitely miss the funny questions.

From the theme of the exhibition, Time & space, we gathered 3 sub-themes so that we could organise the selected body of work under each strand and we could have private communication with the artists whose work are placed under the sub-themes.

During this period, I pored over books to help me understand the concept of curating as much as possible:

• Rethinking curating: art after new media / Beryl Graham and Sarah Cook
• Ways of curating / Hans Ulrich Obrist with Asad Raza
• Curationism: how curating took over the art world and everything else / David Balzer

Curators build bridges in gaps between artists, the public, institutions and other types of communities. By building temporary communities and connecting people and practices, they also create conditions for triggering future collaborations and projects.

I'm thankful to be part of this experience and being able to learn so much from everyone in the team.

📷: Dorathy

📷: Amanda

📷: STAR

Housekeeping: Artwork Display

My colleague, Faiz, has nicely set up the projector so I could fix the hold-up display rails accurately! These rails would allow students to display and remove their works very quickly. A gallery walk can be conducted or art appreciation talk in the midst of the artmaking process. 

Art Class: Where are you from? (Part I)

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? is a painting by French artist Paul Gauguin. The title was originally inscribed in French on the top left corner of his painting. Last term, the Primary One children are exploring the meaning of self-identity and we did a survey of their countries of origin. We discovered an astounding 11 different nationalities that make up the P1 level! We read the story It's ok to be different by Todd Parr and started a class discussion of what it meant to be different. They were very cute because someone started to ask questions such as if I were born in India, does it mean I am from Indian? I told them that it is not necessary that way. Then, somebody else asked if their parents were from Vietnam and they were born in Singapore, does it mean they were from Vietnam or Singapore. Another child said her mother is from Hong Kong and her father is from Holland so that makes her Holland-HK. Someone also asked if he should be Singapore-Malaysian or Malaysia-Singaporean and I started to get more permutations...By then, I decided that my heritage is a rare species.

Next, we discussed about the artists' self-portraits such as Frida Kahlo, Vincent Van Gogh, Georgette Chan and Pablo Picasso. In the following lesson, we started preparing the coloured papers for drawing self-portraits. The tissue papers were cut into squares so that the children can use water to bleed the colours. Not all tissue papers can achieve the same purpose, some tissue papers contain less colour pigments and resulted in faded colours. 

To assess their understanding of the different types of lines, the children used their bodies to create specific lines that I will call out. And finally! The students used black permanent markers to draw the different types of lines. 

Art Class: Meaningful Memes

There is something about the visual impact that memes create and after some research, I managed to put together a lesson unit. Internet meme is a type of communication tool that combines image(s) and text in a context.

I enjoy reading memes that relates to our lives and so I compiled and decode a list that I think my student could relate to. Here is one of them:

Children are easily amused and I think I could do them a favour by asking them to articulate why they think something is funny or what contributes to a good meme. In the above example, I personally like it a lot and it's brilliant. The fact that it rode effortlessly on the fad of the #10yearchallenge which everyone on social media was doing to "show the improved version of themselves", and still managed to promote the brand. This meme is current and it starkly contrasts with the point of the #10yearchallenge. Thus, to understand this meme, the audience needs to have prior knowledge of what the #10yearchallenge is and to cater to a wider audience and making it more memorable, one has to think of how their ideas can be applicable to a wider audience. Otherwise, it is possible that the students will create something only ONE other friend understood.

Last week, our school officially started the use of Google Suite. It was the BEST thing ever! I find the platform more effective in distributing classroom materials and students could do their work at their own pace.

I chanced upon this blog and adapted a lesson resource. By combining the local Art syllabus' recommended list of the 32 artworks by local and international artists on Google drawing, the students could do their own research. The Google drawing page acts like a meme generator so we can avoid those meme generator websites which could sometimes contain inappropriate materials. You can click on this link here to make a copy.

I spent about four lessons for students' research/ journaling and they also sketch their own memes first. Next, I wanted the children to adapt the images and we had our class discussion on plagarism.

Students' sketches

From this point forward, I felt that I was digging my own grave. The ipads were good for research or using apps and I could have asked the students to use the Paint programme for editing but I thought learning Photoshop tricks are more substantial. To do so, we needed to get to the computer labs because the Photoshop app on the ipads would require phone verification. The students were quite impatient when the Photoshop programme were lagging/ installing or hanging in the computer labs and to some extent, it affects the momentum of the lesson. 

Looking on the bright side, at least I could put the Google drawing (Yay to G Suite!) meme generator to good use and the students could still create their own memes and Paint programme is still good to fall back on. 

I wanted the students to understand layering in Photoshop and we spent some time exploring making hamburgers before using the photo editing programme to create their memes. Those who could successfully saved their Photoshop working files and JPEG files on sharing folder posted the JPEG image on Class Dojo Portfolio would allow their parents to see their work and my comments.

I'm happy with their exploration in these lessons and I think given adequate support and guided instructions, the children can grasp the concept of layering quite quickly after some struggles. There were very few students who know about Photoshop before this unit and exposing this tool to them would allow them to see how manipulation of images can influence perception. 

Class Dojo

Hamburgers using Photoshop

Art Club: Artist & Citizenship

Last year, we had the middle-grade Art Club students doing stop motion videos. They could decide their own theme and develop their own storyboards. Their parents were given the links so that they could enjoy viewing the work. You can click here to view.

The students were regrouped this year so that their groups consists of at least one Primary 5 and 6 student each. The aim is for cross-level collaboration and learning. They can learn to create stop motion video and ceramics from each other this year.

P4 students in 2018

P4 students in 2018

The students were given a theme this year and they contributed words associated with Citizenship. Besides that, they selected and justified the picture cards that were also linked to the theme. The students also watched a series of CCE video about Citizenship on OPAL. 

The cards act as conversation starters for students to delve further into group discussion. They were tasked to map out their storyboards following the theme.

In January, I had my A4G fellowship programme second webinar by UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP). We discussed Target 4.7 - Sustainable development and global citizenship. There was a reading list shared with us:

1.	UNESCO MGIEP’s Policy Brief on Rethinking Schooling which looks at how ideals of SDG 4.7 are embodied in policies and curricula across 22 Asian countries. This policy brief is based on UNESCO MGIEP’s Publication called “Rethinking Schooling for 21st century: The State of Education for Peace, Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in Asia”
2.	UNESCO MGIEP’s bi-annual publication called “The Blue Dot” – its sixth edition titled “Rewiring the Brain to be Future Ready” focussing how 21st century skills such as empathy, compassion, mindfulness and critical inquiry can be integrated in education systems towards developing peaceful and sustainable societies
3.	UNESCO MGIEP’s Working Paper called “Can Education Promote Peace” authored by Prof. Krishna Kumar, Former Director  National Council of Educational Research and Training
4.	Social, Emotional and Ethical Learning (SEE)Framework from Emory University which explains the linkages between SDG 4.7 and socio-emotional learning
5.	The United Nations Population Fund Report State of World Population 2016 and State of World Population of 2014 titled “The Power of 1.8 Billion”
6.	List of resources for International Mother Language Day
7.	Youth Solutions Report 2018 from Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)