philosophy

Please take the time to read & understand... I know it’s a lot!

Constructivism is an approach to teaching and learning based on the premise that cognition (learning) is the result of "mental construction." In other words, students learn by fitting new information together with what they already know. Constructivists believe that learning is affected by the context in which an idea is taught as well as by students' beliefs and attitudes.

Constructivist teaching is based on recent research about the human brain and what is known about how learning occurs. Caine and Caine (1991) suggest that brain-compatible teaching is based on 12 principles

1."The brain is a parallel processor" (p. 80). It simultaneously processes many different types of information, including thoughts, emotions, and cultural knowledge. Effective teaching employs a variety of learning strategies.
2."Learning engages the entire physiology" (p. 80). Teachers can't address just the intellect.
3."The search for meaning is innate" (p. 81). Effective teaching recognizes that meaning is personal and unique, and that students' understandings are based on their own unique experiences.
4."The search for meaning occurs through 'patterning' " (p. 81). Effective teaching connects isolated ideas and information with global concepts and themes.
5."Emotions are critical to patterning" (p. 82). Learning is influenced by emotions, feelings, and attitudes.
6."The brain processes parts and wholes simultaneously" (p. 83). People have difficulty learning when either parts or wholes are overlooked.
7."Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral perception" (p. 83). Learning is influenced by the environment, culture, and climate.
8."Learning always involves conscious and unconscious processes" (p. 84). Students need time to process 'how' as well as 'what' they've learned.
9."We have at least two different types of memory: a spatial memory system, and a set of systems for rote learning" (p. 85). Teaching that heavily emphasizes rote learning does not promote spatial, experienced learning and can inhibit understanding.
10."We understand and remember best when facts and skills are embedded in natural, spatial memory" (p. 86). Experiential learning is most effective.
11."Learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by threat" (p. 86). The classroom climate should be challenging but not threatening to students.
12."Each brain is unique" (p. 87). Teaching must be multifaceted to allow students to express preferences.

Encouraged Parental Reading...

I read them and they help guide my philosophy and teaching style.

Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and rewards) of ARTMAKING

by David Bayles & Ted Orland

ISBN:0-9614547-3-3

In the Spirit of the Studio: Learning from the Atelier of Reggio Emilia

by Lella Gandini, Lynn Hill, Louise Cadwell, Charles Schwall, Vea Vecchi

ISBN: 0-8077-4591-X

Thinking through Aesthetics

by Marilyn G. Stewart

ISBN: 0-87192-362-9

Reggio Approach

In the Reggio Approach there is what is termed the 100 languages of children. Each medium is a language used by children to communicate their ideas and self with the outside world. “In this view materials are vehicles for expressing and are part of the fabric of children’s experiences and learning processes rather than as separate products. [...] The ways in which children invent with materials are often unexpected and surprising; therefore, it is important for the adults who work with children to adopt an attitude of freedom and open-ended possibility toward the children’s work.” (In the Spirit of the Studio, p.17).

This approach to teaching has transformed my view not only on how children learn but how important the aspects of exploration and joy in creating are. I have gone ahead and taken out a few more excerpts below from “In the Spirit of the Studio” that really share what the concept is about.

“Loris Malaguzzi said that children are the best evaluators and most sensitive judges of the values and usefulness of creativity. He elaborated on this thought by explaining that children easily explore and change their points of view, and that their creative acts are born out of, and are part of everyday life. He also said that ‘our task is to help children climb their own mountains, as high as possible.’.” (p.31).

“Space is given over to creativity. In this conception of work, creativity is no longer something that belongs only to art; it begins to become a way of thinking that takes the process for building knowledge into consideration.” (p.37).

This is it...this is what teaching art is truly about! “In my opinion, the atelier, or studio, is not only about the arts. Neither is it about something in addition to the work we do in the classroom. Rather, it is about linking the experience of our lives as teachers with the children’s lives and waking up together in the world of a new geography. This is the geography of the imagination. The territory is defined by sensations felt within children and indelible impressions made by each encounter with materials. The landscape reflects lasting, essential memories the children will carry through life of color, of the way things feel, of how something appears; a place where memories are created deep within the child, shaped through everything made there. The studio is a place for learning all kinds of techniques, and a place for research. ‘The studio space is not an isolated place where artistic things happen. It is a laboratory for thinking’.”(p.49)

The Studio, The Atelier, the Sacred materials Headquarters

This is our place where students are free to explore but also have a critical scholarly mind about what is happening. They give thoughts to the plan for exploration which I like to think of as the beginning of their path. As they walk their plan can take many bends and sometimes a student must choose between a fork in the road or alternate pathways. Possibly veering completely away from an original plan while finding their new destination as a place with an even better understanding, more hidden beauty, and a sense of accomplishing a task in their own way.

I am merely a fellow resident artist in their studio helping facilitate their learning environment. We use the state standards as part of our goals for learning at the end of the quarter. We ask ourselves: Who is responsible for the learning? Who is responsible for the studio?. Every student is entering a studio where practice never makes perfect, it only furthers us on our path to competency in skill and development of ideas. Risk is something an artist must embrace. We need to use knowledge from other classes, be responsible for sharing and teaching that knowledge to our peers. On what I term the brain continuum from easy to challenging, we must as artists weigh our ideas and push ourselves toward challenge. The following are a few quotes I took from Art & Fear that really help a person understand the artist.

We ask ourselves these questions as we approach the finish of a work. “Henry James once proposed three questions you could productively put to an artist’s work. The first two were disarmingly straightforward: What was the artist trying to achieve? Did he/she succeed? The third’s a zinger: Was it worth doing?” (p.93).

“There is a moment for each artist in which a particular truth can be found, and if is it not found then, it will not ever be. No one else will ever be in a position to write Hamlet. This is pretty good evidence that the meaning of the world is made, not found. Our understanding of the world changed when those words were written, and we can’t go back...any more than Shakespeare could” (p.106).

“Look at your work and it tells you when you hold back or when you embrace. When you are lazy, your art is lazy; when you hold back, it holds back; when you hesitate, it stands there staring, hands in pockets. But when you commit, it comes on like blazes” (p.49).

Lastly but not least what we hope the most for our young artists. “In making art you need to give yourself room to respond authentically, both to your subject matter and to your materials. Art happens between you and something - a subject, an idea, a technique - and both you and that something need to be free to move. Many fiction writers, for instance, discover early on that as actual writing progresses, characters increasingly take on a life of their own, sometimes to the point that the writer is as surprised as the eventual reader by what their creations say and do” (p.20).