ART: Week 2 - Read & React

1. Read and Reflect on Parker Palmer: Chapter 3. Read: Marzano, Chapter Three. Go to the appendix and on Pages 185-226 is a Teacher Scales for Reflection. (http://www.marzanoresearch.com/reproducibles/becoming_reflective?___SID=U) Take yourself through this process and reflect on your findings in your blog. Please remember to be reading others blogs and responding as well.

-Compare your notes on the 12 qualities with your findings in the Scales exercise. Are any themes emerging? Comment on your discoveries.

After reading Parker Palmer; Consider these additional thought questions:

2. -Consider the idea of OBJECTIVISM.
-Is it present in your class room and teaching in anyway?
-In your history, do you recall teachers who were more like Abba Felix? -Consider for a moment, some aspect about teaching and art (or what ever discipline you teach) which you feel passionate about, are there things which occur that get in the way of that passion? Explore this idea. 

Summary:

Marzano- This chapter outlines the types of goals that a teacher should attempt to set and examine about their own practice. It provides some questions and scales from a teacher to model the practice of self-reflection. 

Parker Palmer-

Palmer examines the typical structure of a classroom with an authoritarian teacher as the instructor and proposes an alternative learning structure when students arrive at the point where rote learning stops. He cites the story of Abba Felix to illustrate his point.

Thoughts as I read:

Marzano. Why don't we purposefully utilize these 3 stages (cognitive, shaping, & autonomous) when introducing new strategies? It seems like many times we, teachers, are left to our own devices and maybe expected to go through these stages on our own? (i'm thinking of our district PD here) Rather then continue to push through new plans every year, why don't we slow our roll and maneuver through these three stages? Being in the classroom, sometimes it is hard to synthesize what we learn in PD amongst all we are responsible for teaching. (I need a mental DVR so I can re-watch trainings for when they are relevant for my teaching!) These three stages made me totally think of what I was going through after seeing Olivia Gude and going to the the NAEA/MAEA conferences. I started to transform my teaching in response to student needs, but I had to grapple with my own understanding and got through the stages over the years. 

  That leads me to another tangent...How do we transform our teaching (and go through these three stages) as art teachers if all we are ever exposed to are our district PD sessions? Fine Arts teachers (and probably many elective teachers) are often turned down for PD requests b/c 1) it usually involved travel; 2) it didn't relate directly to our school improvement plan (b/c it was always literacy / math  / science focused); 3) impacted a small number of students / teachers (expectation is to come back and share what you learned with other teachers. As singleton (or near singleton) teachers there were very few teachers to share with.); and 4) wouldn't improve scores (how very unscientific!). Which, okay, if I was on the other end of this and had to figure out criteria for how to approve requests, this would look good at first. Smart and responsible even. But how about looking at how this leaves certain subjects out. It is the "invisible" neglect of certain skills and abilities that we are teaching in our schools. It is demonstrating an opinion and value of the arts that may be unintended. But I want to scream, "HOW CAN THEY NOT SEE THAT?!" If subjects are taught, they should all be deemed "worthy" of development and content related growth (not all pedagogy is created equal for every subject.) 

   While reading this chapter, I also thought about how many of these skills / strategies would I be able to get to? Yes, they are valuable to have in my tool belt, but unlike a social studies or english class, how often are we as art teachers instructing in ways that we would want to ask students to respond as a group? I found myself interacting mostly one-on-one. Very little time was spent on direct instruction and the majority of time was students working on projects. The descriptions of the strategies just struck me as more one-directional instruction than collaborative or mentor-like.

Parker Palmer. Ooh. I needed that. Something about reading that shook me out of a little funk I was sitting in. I took a lot of notes in the margins as I read. Thinking I will have to look up the book this came from. 

   I was a little stumped by the term 'objectivism' and was glad that Amy had put it in our notes before we started. I think I get it, but I keep throwing myself by thinking about it in terms of Ayn Rand's philosophy (which I take issue with.) But relating it in terms of education it starts to come together for me. The definition of objectivism: the tendency to lay stress on what is external to or independent of the mind. In short, I keep thinking of it as the beginning of education. If we stop at the facts and rote memorization of information we won't be able to go any deeper with our content. It will breed frustration in teachers and boredom in students. So, in my mind there is a time and place for that kind of learning, but if that is all there is then learning won't continue. 

    Reading this really made me think of the way I have taught over the years. With the adoption of NCLB and a turn to enforce teaching through standards (which were elements & principles based), we started to teach what I thought of as more concretely. I knew that students needed certain information about the elements / principles (as outlined by our state grade level expectations in micro detail) in order to perform well on tests. And I always empathized with students who didn't feel especially artistically talented. I wanted to make those kids who were "book smart" feel successful. And I wanted to help my SPED kids with learning disabilities feel successful. It was all very well-meaning, but I unintentionally stripped the class of the  intrinsic rewards that art offers. What I determined after many years of teaching was that there was a balance (it is all so very zen) between teaching through different art media skills, breaking down the elements & principles, all the info contained in looking at and examining artworks/artists in art history and the hidden curriculum that art teaches not listed in the standards or our curriculum documents: What it feels like to be inspired by an idea and communicate it visually, to be creative, to see things from different perspectives, to share your experiences. All of these things have to be fostered as they are learning facts and tidbits. The facts have to be useful when applied to experiences that engage. I find that the way we have chosen to assess standards drives teachers to teach in an objectivist way. If all the tests are looking for are facts and information, and a school's future is dependent on the performance on those tests, it is very scary to leave the learning of those facts to "chance". You feel a responsibility to your students to have given them exactly what they need directly. 

   As I made the switch to more inquiry based, learner directed lessons, I had to practice a letting go of sorts. I had to let go of my ego when I realized we weren't turning out as many highly skilled works of art to hang in the hallway. The learning that was happening was way more valuable, but I didn't realize that until later. I just went along on faith. It helped that we were having waaaay more fun than before though. We were not only learning, but building a community and that in turn made kids excited to learn together and unintentionally more curious. 

   I have a neighboring teacher who is definitely an Abba Felix. She is bravely allowing her students to explore their own learning. Whenever I get all wrapped up again in my old habits, I go talk through things with her and she helps me to "let go." Another neighboring teacher is very rote, step by step and follows a more objectivist path. In talking with her, I've noted a couple of reasons why she teaches this way: 1) it is easier to know when a project will be over and to plan for supplies, 2) she is able to direct students into making art she finds "beautiful" and not "ugly", and 3) She doesn't give them enough credit, thinking they won't understand what will be on the test (I've often heard the excuse, "they won't know that" or "they can't learn that"). She is very much the "Ok...Go!" kind of teacher with out a lot of follow-up instruction.

   I think as a learner, I need a little bit of both. I need straight up information in small bits with plenty of opportunity to apply it. I need some experiences to tie my learning to and it will stick. But, it can't always be completely ambiguous. Sometimes I need an expert to reinforce or confirm my thinking or encourage me in my efforts. More of a community based effort.