Day 9 Practicum Experience: Day 6 of Lesson- Does CT teach Art Criticism/Aesthetics (10-14-13)

This lesson is so much fun! I can't wait to teach it in my own classroom.  Today we are finishing up our flower paintings and they all look great! They all have so much character and interest in them that it really helps me to see the student in their work.  A lot of the students didn't want to stop painting even though they were out of room on their flowers.  They also had the opportunity to outline their flowers in sharpie markers so that the petals stood out from the background.  They looked really nifty and sharp  with the lines added.  Once they had finished their flowers they had the opportunity to keep painting on little mini sheets of paper and they could do whatever they wanted.  However, they each needed to fill out and turn in a rubric to me, before they could get a mini sheet.  This way it was mandatory for them to finish the flowers and rubric before they had free time.

Here I am helping a student with his Sharpie lines.
He wasn't sure where to draw his lines, so I gave
him some guidance and help to choose the spots.

The flowers were all put onto the drying rack while the others finished up their work.  It was a full day of finishing up the flowers and filling out rubrics.  One student needed help filling out her rubric so I went over and helped her read through it and fill it in.  She wasn't sure if she could circle all of the elements on the rubric because she had used them all in her project.  I told her absolutely, and she was glad to fill them all in. And I was happy that she knew that she had used them all, meaning that she in fact had learned what each one meant.  That was really cool to see.

The flowers all looked so amazing and I was proud of each and every one of my students!  The next time I am in with them we will be going through a group critique so I am excited to see how that goes.

Today I also had the chance to as Mrs. M if she does any work or lesson with art criticism or aesthetics.  She sadly told me no.  She used to work a bit with aesthetics, but due to cuts she no longer has time to work with her students on this topic. She only gets 6 weeks for each class, so she is cut really short for time.  She sometimes adds a few bits and pieces in here or there if she can, but she has no formal lessons or discussions about either topic due to time restraints.  This saddened me greatly.  I hate the fact that art teachers are losing valuable time to work with their students and teach important ideas and lessons.  It makes me really want to help change that!  That is why I want to be an art teacher, to be able to work toward the rebirth of art in schools and to help shine the light that it truly is important and needed in our classrooms both today and in the future.