Interesting Article

I thought this was interesting to read. I found this while doing research for the curriculum presentation. It supports what Pink was saying about the right & left brain way of thinking.
Forbes Magazine: article
How to Find Your Identity and Capitalize on It.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2012/09/26/how-to-find-your-own-identity-and-capitalize-on-it/2/

8740 Blog 7 Story

Story:

Stories are easier to remember- because in many ways, stories are how we remember. How very true I believe that statement to be. I can remember details of a story someone told me before I could try to remember a statistical fact told to me. Stories are how we all live our lives. We communicate through stories. When I ask someone how their day way, a story usually fallows. I enjoy listening to stories and telling stories.

“When facts become so widely available and instantly accessible, each one becomes less valuable. What begins to matter more is the ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact… context enriched by emotion.” Pink describes how stories were used in business marketing. The real estate agent told a story about the people and the house she just sold to create an emotional response from the people who read it. It was her way to get new clients because she told a story about how she cares for the people and the memories they created in the place they called home. She told a story about the new neighbors and how they would care for the house just like the previous owners and create their own memories in the new home. People connect to stories and this real estate agent understood that.

This story reminded me of a stationary card that belongs to my soon to be mother in law. She lives and works out of Columbia so she has offered her extra bedroom for me to stay in while taking this class this semester. This stationary card was used as a thank you note. On the front is a child’s painting of a water lily. Nothing special, just  something that you would find hanging on a refrigerator of a loving mother.  I picked up the card to look at it closely and noticed on the back of the card was a picture of a little girl covered in paint and a biography of the girl next to the image. It simply stated that she has loved art for a really long time. She paints flowers and wanted the world to see what she created. So with the help of family and friends she began to print her painting on stationary to sell. This card was still sitting on the table for everyone to see because it told a story. It was not sitting there because of the content of the thank you. I asked about the note and she told me that she liked the story of the little girl and that because her name was Molly it reminded her of me!

It’s all about the stories and memories we create! WE ARE OUR STORIES.

Project Proposal

Art Impact on Commerce

For this project I would design and develop a full unit around the idea of how art impacts commerce. I would create a written unit outline along with all documents (instructions, project plan and assessments) needed to teach this unit to students. This thought came to me with the idea of making my students actual artists in the community and proposing their artistic skills to area companies. Students would be taught and walked though the design process of becoming a hired artist and working with real life clients. Students would use cross-curricular skills including public speaking and English writing. Visual Power Points would be turned in with examples of how art appeals to customers and how a major company uses its appeal to affect its business targets. For example, the Race for a Cure uses the visual art creation of the pink ribbon as its symbol of hope. That logo became so popular that it became a craze of wearable gear, office supplies, and even dedicated a full month of awareness. Another Power Point will be developed about teaching a student to act professionally when working in the real world and with a real client. Students would write proposals, meet with clients, design a portfolio, and create a business card. Every step of this process would include documents in the form of created worksheets, instructions, Power Points, checklists, and assessments.

8740 Blog 6 Design

Design:

Today we must all be designers. Design, just like art surrounds us everyday. It is in everything and it is everywhere. There is a fine line that is created between how we view what design is and how we view what art is. Pink describes this difference as utility and significance.

Design is a combination of utility and significance. I really liked his evidence of how business use design to differentiate themselves from another in a market place. Pink first talked about automotives and then moved into talking about kitchens. The kitchen to me is the heart of the household. Family gatherings, conversations, traditions, are created in the kitchen along with the food. It is a very important part of the home. Business thought of the kitchen and the goods and appliances that were designed for the space. He gave the great example of the toaster. The typical person uses a toaster at most 15 minutes per day. The remainder of the day it is on display. In other words, 1 percent of the toaster’s time is devoted to utility, while 99 present is devoted to significance. WHY SHOULDN”T IT BE BEAUTIFUL!? Although, I do not like to have clutter on my counter space in my kitchen, why shouldn’t something be designed to be visually appealing to the viewer?

Design in its simplest form is the activity of creating solutions. Design is something that everyone does every day. Good design can help heal a patient in a hospital, raise test scores, and help recycle. Bad design can change history. There could have been a different election result in the presidential elections in 2000. When looking at the photograph of the ballot that was offered for the residents to use in Florida, I was too confused by the design of the ballot. I would have thought that someone along the line of designers would have tested the design before it went out on the market for someone to use. Along with a bad design, there was also a bad business strategy created by the electoral board. They needed to have product testing before the mass marketing and use of the ballot.

Design is a fundamentally important strength.

Blog 8 Symphony

Symphony:

I know that this is an early posting of this chapter but I wanted to write about it while it was fresh in my memory. This is my assigned Pink Senses group therefore requiring me to read it before the rest of the class. So I guess this serves as a preview to anyone that reads my post early!

 

This was a hard concept for me to understand because of the word itself. I keep reverting back to a Symphony. A major work for an orchestra, instruments, usually composed in four movements, at least one of which is in a sonata form. So music. That is what I think of. Although, Pick refers to an orchestra in this chapter as a reference to his point, that is not what I think his meaning of this sense to be.

When Pink refers to Symphony, he is talking about the composition or seeing the big picture. He refers to symphony as the” linkage” of elements to create something new. It’s the way we view things to make a harmony or agreement of sounds, like in an orchestra.  The winds, strings, and percussions must work individually to create a sounds but also must work together to create the masterpiece of the entire musical piece. They see the big picture.

As an artist and art educator I really enjoyed how he used the example of drawing to be his way to explain Symphony. He stated that one of the best ways to understand and develop the aptitude of Symphony is to learn how to draw. Interesting right? He went on to explain positive and negative space. How as people we don’t really pay attention to the negative space around things. If we pay attention to the entire picture we may be able to see and learn more. He used the example of the FedEx logo. How in the middle is the arrow. I use this example all the time in my classroom. It always surprises me how many students has never seen the arrow before. But then again, I was surprised last semester when we talked about the Mizzou logo having the hidden mule.

 

Some favorite quotes:

"We must integrate our newly acquired understanding into a big picture" p134
"The ability to make big leaps of thought is a common denominator among the originators of breakthrough idea" p 136
"Sometimes the most powerful ideas come from simply combining two existing idea nobody else ever thought to unite" p 137
"Metaphorical imagination is essential in forging empathic connections and communicating experiences that others do not share" p.140

8740 Blog 5

Oprah interview:

It's great to put a face and a voice behind the man behind the New Mind book. I wish I could have seen him talk about all six senses that are in the book. Oprah only brought up and talked about three of the six senses. It was interesting to me how fast Mr. Pink was able to summarize each big idea. I read the Symphony chapter before viewing this video (Because it is my assigned group). He only stated about four juicy sentences about the Symphony sense. In the four sentences he summed up the chapter and touched upon the quotes I highlighted throughout the chapter. I think he brought and embedded the point in the symphony chapter that it is the artist that defines this sense. He stated this because an artist can see the big idea. They can visualize the start and the end and can see how the end product should look like.  He is a brilliant man!

Play:

It is refreshing to read something without the need to reread a chapter in order to understand what is going on. Pink is easy to follow and can tell a really good story while driving home his main points. Pink’s chapter on play summarized to childlike playfulness creates relationships. I also do not feel bad about playing video games now. He stated that we learn from them (got that mom and dad!) I am just kidding about the video games because I was never any good at them and my brother wouldn’t let me play with him. But now I know what type of learning experience I missed out on. Maybe after the chaos of this summer semester is over, I will take up playing video games in my free time to build on my “play” skills; sharpen skills and solve-problems.

Freedman Ch6:

After reading this chapter I came up with the idea to do my Curriculum unit on Identity. He talked about the construction of a range of art knowledge on page 115. He followed his discussion on the following page and in it was the theme of Identity. This is the theme I chose to use for the Critical Thinking class this semester. Hopefully if I can figure out how to use it in a format for this class I will have great exemplars.

8740 Blog 4

Eisner’s Chapter 5 captivated me. Although this was a really long chapter it had Photos! Yay! I love to learn about children’s developmental process. I have looked at the developmental process of children in the realm of creating art in my undergrad program. But during that study I never really looked at why a child creates a drawing at that developmental age they way that is socially accepted. Eisner addresses a lot of interesting viewpoints on this process but I think he said it beautifully when he stated, “ Perhaps the simplest though inadequate way to classify these theories is to divide them into those who argue that children develop primarily from the inside out, as contrasted with those who emphasize that they develop primarily from the outside in”.  I thought this was an interesting  new viewpoint. He went on to address the childs creative process. I highlighted the following: In the context of creation an idea needs to be formed; something must be created that gives point to the work to be done. Put another way, the person needs to have something to express, something to achieve, something to say. In my thoughts, a child needs to find a reason for what they are creating in order to create.

 

Eisner started talking about the stages of age that a child starts to draw new things within a image. He started by saying that “Children cannot know what they cannot see, and they cannot see without knowing, for seeing itself is a way of knowing. Wowza… I like!

I took multiple notes as he addresses the images and pointed out different things within the age groups. He wrapped up the chapter with the following,’ Techniques represent ways of doing something, but techniques also reflect ways of thinking about the things to be done… it is a mode of thought.” I found this to be interesting and enlightening. I always am lax on grading technique and the way a student present a new skill on a project. I grade them according to the effort and the way they try to master the technique. So if they do not master the technique, does it show a lack of thought in that project?

 

Freedman addressed interpreting visual knowledge. I was not as invested in this chapter as I was in the Eisner chapter. From the notes that I took the main idea that I received from this chapter is following. Students relationship with visual culture will help them view, make, and respond to the world around them. The response is a personal act that helps form ideas, opinions, and beliefs. Through interpretation visual culture in a visual art curriculum, students will be enriched, think critically and reflect/interpret .

Response is a culture and a personal act.

Seeing is a selective activity shaped by the framework that serve as screens in our consciousness.

The arts help us become aware of ourselves. Indeed, at their best we use arts to remake ourselves.

Artists, through their work, can change our way of seeing.

8740 Blog 3

After ending class today with the discussion of the "Neighbor" exhibit, I went home and did my own research on this exhibit. I watched some more YouTube videos and examined closely the work itself. I am concerned about the boundaries that this artist took to cross into privacy issues. I am angry for the subject he chose to shoot. However, I find the work to be beautiful and mysterious. I am intrigued with it. How far can someone push the privacy line? I think he went too far but the outcome it great. I can not wait to start class with this tomorrow and hear what others are thinking!

The Man of Steel article frustrated me. I am not sure if this was its purpose but I did not like some of the opinions that this review author freely stated. I feel that others have the right to view something and like/dislike but it should not necessary be stated. for example: "so much meaningless art", They're still not appealing"... Humm, I just don't know. I also needed to look up an actual photography of the work to have an understanding of what she was trying to say. Shouldn't a writer be able to make the reader picture the image in their mind without the need for a visual aid? (Sorry... just what I am thinking in my tired state of mind. Don't get me wrong because I am a visual learner and love images with text. ).

to be continued....

8740 Blog 2

That was a lot of information to digest. In my head I made a lot of connections to the group discussion we had today in class!

I started off reading the two Barrett articles. They had a lot of overlapping information but the whole time that I was reading thought the articles… my head was screaming “VTS does all of this!”. What a great teaching strategy we are given and taught to by Mary Franco. I will never look at an artwork again and not run through the VTS questions out loud or in my mind. I will also never create a piece of artwork that is meant to be viewed without thinking about the VTS questions.  Barrett talked about interpreting art and creating discussions around an artwork. He presented a list of principles that should be considered. Interpretations should be given with reason and evidence (is that VTS or what!).  He also stated that there is “no one true interpretation of an artwork” but the interpretation should be compelling, original and insightful. It also does not need to be what the artists intended it to be.  Opinions may change when a interpretation is shared because it may be persuasive. Barrett stated that interpretation in Art Education came to being with concern with making meaning in art. Anyone can create meaning when interpreting a piece of work.

Interpreting art lead right into Freedman’s chapter with his discussion of finding meaning. The overall understanding that I took out of this chapter was the following. Art is the formal qualities of the work itself but it includes the experience you, as a viewer, have while interpreting and finding meaning in the work. That meaning and interpretation can be different then another viewers or even the artists.

I was drawn to one particular idea the was repeated in this chapter; personal experiences and life experiences creates extensions of  interpretations outside the art work, making meanings and connections. This idea leads into Eisner’s chapters about world environment and experiences.

Although I felt that I already knew a lot of what Eisner was stating about the teaching of art and what arts teach and how it shows, I like how it is all stated with an art classroom in mind. My undergrad work was done strictly in education leaving out the art factor. It’s refreshing to read about a art environment and how art teaches our students and the affect of the learning. A quote that I laughed about was on page 48. “ the surest road to hell in a classroom is to stick to the lesson plan, no matter what”. I thought this was funny because it is very true. I don’t think I have ever truly stuck to a lesson plan! Although I might have this “great idea” it never works out that way. Anyways….

The following list are ideas that were stated in these chapters that resonated with me.

Helping students find a voice and helping them find a way to say it in the arts. P. 51

The entire last paragraph on page 57 reminded me that teachers are important. And on the following page reminded me that you need to love your job and art to teach art… and that I love my job! “

The choice of material that I assign to a project, “imposes its own possibilities” p 79. I need to remember to think before I limit in order to not limit the imagination and the possibilities that another art making material might have.

I connected back to Barret’s articles on p 89 and the idea of VTS andhaving studnts taking and describing what they see in art work; in their own and in other works.

8740: Blog 1

Sorry for being late to the party again!
After an overwhelming night of reading and taking notes, I was exhausted and couldn't imagine opening the computer to write my Blog post. SO here it is.... fashionably late, right?

Imagination first:

I found this book to be inspirational and full of great ideas that I will use in my classroom for projects. The introduction gave examples of how the imagination and ideas of possibility were murdered. It  gave me the opportunity to think back on ideas I have had in the past and purposed that were shot down. How does that happen? and Why? In my teaching, when I ask if I can
have permission to do something and the answer was "no"; What difference could I have made in a student, my teaching style, or in the school community? Oh the possibilities!!!
Practice 12: Make a Gap: Obscure part of the picture.
I was drawn to this practice do to the fact that it reminded me of my students. They are fascinated by Op Art. I have some Optical Illusion art books in my classroom and the student pick them up all the time. They seem to like to be tricked and to look at something that may have a different illusion to it. In this practice, it referenced the four pack man shapes, positioned so that their open mouths form the illusion of a rectangle. Positive and Negative space- something that I am required to teach. I would have student draw an image and leave out a section of the image. This would leave room for the viewers imagination to fill the space. For example, If I was drawing a portrait of a person; I might leave out the inside of the eyes. What would it do to this image?! Would someone view it as evil and imagine red eye coloring?

Eisner, Learning in a Visual Age, and Freedman all mush together in my brain. Here is a short summery of what I thought to be important and highlighted while I was reading.
The one quote by Eisner, that I highlighted and put stars next to was on page 13. "The curriculum is a mind-altering device. We design educational programs not merely to improve schools, but also to improve the ways in which students think." What we do in the visual classroom is important. What we teach them in our classroom will effect their future. I went into teaching thinking about making a difference in my students lives. I never really thought about how much of a difference what I am teaching them can alter everything about their future. PLEASE don't get me wrong.... I know I make a difference in everyone of my students lives. I can sometimes see the difference. I can feel the difference. And I live the life as a teacher for that experience.
Imagination seemed to be a big theme in these chapters. I have struggled in the past to get students to use their imagination to come up with project themes. Because I have student, at the high school level!!!!, step into the art classroom for the first time in their educational experience.... they do not know how to think creatively and take chances. (Some private schools do not have an art teacher!)  This just shows how important an art experience is for everyone in the development process of thinking.
The idea of what art can bring to a students learning experience that other subjects can not bring was another theme in the chapters. Although I know how important Visual Art Education is in a students curriculum, others sometimes do not believe in it as much. Its always nice to have articles and books that supports how visual art makes a difference in a students educational process on the back burner, just in case I need backup to support what I am doing in my classroom.