Reflection 1: How's Your Heart Today?

I am really looking forward to teaching visual arts to students. There are so many subjects in school that students do not look forward to, or do not feel they are 'good' at. I believe visual arts is a subject that, when taught correctly, is a subject that can be enjoyable for all students and that all students deserve to feel talented at. 


I had never really considered the effect art teachers have on students until I tried to teach my boyfriend origami. He was adamant that he couldn't fold paper  and could not be successful at it, but did not seem to know why he couldn't. He had a strong belief that he was not artistic in any way. It turned out his lack of self-confidence stemmed from an elementary school teacher wrote that he was getting a 70 because he tried, but he deserved a failing mark for his finished product. I didn't allow him to give up, and after an hour he successfully folded a paper crane, that now sits on my dresser. Every time he comes over he is so happy to see that I still have the crane. 


My boyfriend's experience is a driving force behind my excitement for teaching visual arts. I have never had a teacher say anything negative about my visual arts, so I have confidence to try new things without worrying about the finished product being 'good'. I am excited to give students a positive experience with visual arts and help develop students' confidence in their art work. 


When I went to go on placement I was so eager to teach visual arts. I had so many ideas that I was so excited to share with my students. My associate teacher had already done an art lesson in the fall, and planned to use that one assignment as their art mark and did not feel another art lesson was a good use of class time or necessary because she had already done one art lesson. I was very surprised to realize this is the perspective teachers take with teaching art, even though they know students enjoy it they feel one assignment is all they need to fill in a report card. I still wanted to teach art so I did a media literacy unit where students studied movie posters and created their own to advertise books they were reading. Students loved the assignment and were so proud of their finished work. I loved teaching the assignment and decided that when I have my own class I will try to incorporate art into cross curricular lessons whenever I can.

 This is a picture of students' finished movie posters on display in their class.