Reads: What the Art Teacher Reads

Teachers in my school were given this wonderful book. Looking through its content, I find parallels between quality questioning and inquiry-based art classroom. In the inquiry-based approach, there is a range of structured inquiry and guided inquiry (teacher directed) to open inquiry (student directed). In art lessons, teachers used the thinking routines adapted from the Harvard Project. 

In the Singapore Teaching Practice (STP), we see that 'using questions to deepen learning' is a subset of lesson enactment. The desired outcomes of education also value 'critical and inventive thinking' and thus enables students' capacity to 'critically discern'. Even Fox news had the slogan 'We report, You decide' in 2008 to counter 'fake news' and referencing the 2008 US presidential election.

With various initiatives in the education realm focussing on critical thinking, perhaps, the urgency of teaching it is to teach children how to think rather than what to think. 

In this post, I attempt to unpack the purpose of promoting critical thinking. 

Brain hacking. Persuasive technology. According to Anderson Cooper, our phones, apps and social media are engineered to hook us, using a hormonal carrot-and-stick approach. Read it here. If it's true, then children who have minimal supervision would be the most vulnerable. The issues as defined by the Center for Humane Technology are pervasive in education/ society.

I marvel at the engineering feat to combine psychology and persuasive concepts to target users' weaknesses. Formulas and behavourial prediction engines could anticipate people's thoughts and emotions based on the patterns found in the data that users volunteered on social media. The accumulated data offers advertisers customised targeting to potential consumers. 

Tristan Harris, an ex-Google Design Ethicist attempts to reverse self-destructive ways humanity is moving towards. It is said that there are design choices in any given product that can be made humane or not. For example, monochrome smartphone displays are more humane than brightly-coloured ones because they trigger less dopamine.

Hence, if the tech giants are not advocating human-centered design, teachers would need to play a much more crucial role and becoming aware.


Reference

McNamee Roger, Zucked: Waking up to the Facebook Catastrophe. USA: Penguin Press. 2019.

Art Class: Microbits Projects

Last year, I visited a sharing booth by other primary schools and saw how they incorporated Microbits in their school projects. The P5 level is embarking on theirs this year. I tried my hands in programming too. The tier games in the programming kit were fun and engaging. Was confident on the first few levels and the subsequent ones were very challenging! The students are using it for their Applied Learning Programme. I look forward to seeing their ideas materialise.

Art Class: Yarn and Burlap (Part II)

To prepare the burlaps ready for sewing, instructions for applying the white glue along the perimeter of the burlaps were given. There is no photo at this stage as I was busy preventing any burlaps from drowning in glue. The students used their finger to apply the glue by placing the burlap on a piece of recycled paper with the gloss finish.

Their actual sewing lesson started the following week and I did a live demo using my visualiser. To start off, students sew a border so that I have sufficient time to see that everyone is able to do basic straight stitching. Chalks were provided for the students to roughly mark out their images in the center of their canvas.

A few preventive points which I had to address the class are to resist pulling the stitch too tightly which would result in an uneven surface. Another point is that the stitches should not be too long individually. I suspect some students' intention was to complete the project with the least effort. Even if long stitches do get the work done, their work might not be long-lasting if something catches the stitch accidentally and it could destroy their work. 

Housekeeping: Cleaning watercolour cake paint set

Reusing these watercolour paint set means getting them ready for the new cohort of students. The most efficient way of cleaning them is to put them under running water which I never recommend children to do until these sets get really dirty. I usually ask the children if they ever wash their ice cream and if they don't, then they really don't want to wash their watercolour sets. 

Housekeeping: Repurpose cardboard egg tray

The cardboard egg tray is perfect for holding paint, especially acrylic paint. The children would throw them away by the end of the class to minimise washing time and make more time for learning and making. Here's a video showing how to prepare them for use:

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.