The Art of Teaching.

So now as I approach the busiest time of my working year, this blog becomes about the Art of Time Management as much as about the Art of Teaching! As I work forwards into the GCSE marking stage of the year, pretty much everything else stops as hours of grading kick in for me…

Yet… I still want the artist to have a little life. As vice versa, he now supports the teacher – offering relief from the comparisons, the backwards and forwards of the order of merit in the course work finally submitted… the pressure of necessity to get it right; to get the best I can for my pupils… whilst they plow on with the pressure and huge ask of the externally set exam…

… Other Year groups also need catering for… as a one man department I cannot stop teaching those who will over the next few years also seek examination… they need feeding, nourishing and challenging. Things cannot stop.

The artist works quietly; occasionally sat at the front of the room, another pupil sharing in the workspace, preparing the ideas and initial sketches for his up coming show in October – which will soon be here… An equilibrium exists for now… balance… teaching and Art harmonized…

Other students come up and question the work… discussion breaks out and new ideas evolve from their curiosity… it feeds their work to, showing them an artist at work… a teacher capable of doing what is taught… an example… an exemplar…

Things start to fit together… sense makes sense… the thoughts and storms correspond at last and slots for various tasks are allocated. Teacher teaches artist and artist teaches teacher. There is an Art in this, a pattern, a formula. Cohabitation is possible… the best of both… like sliced bread…

Structure is imperative. The pupil needs order, so why not the artist? The artist craves that adventure, that discovery. So why not the pupil? (I worry that all I do is repeat everything that I have written before, just changing the words… semantics… but for me this is process… onion skinning… layer removing until I reach that point of clarity that moves me forward… rekindles my confidence, enables my teaching… my learning… my making.

I don’t know how much time I can give to this for the next few months. I will try and sustain one blog per week… if only briefly. This to is a part of my medication. This, my subconscious thought helps clarify and allows me to go home calm and whole… baggage left on the doorstep.

My second blog also needs nurturing. It carries different responsibility… occupies and illuminates the processes that I explore. It is closely linked to this… this being responsible for it’s own existence… besides it has a moral voice within that questions and brings me back in the form of Elena… unlike here… yet still echoes resonance…

Education… timetable!

Timetable? Six 50 minute periods a day. Six different subjects. Six separate opportunities to time manage… Art and teaching linked. Lesson learnt. Solution found… and then the bonus of the “free”… my time… Bo time… playtime… artist time… five times a week… this time…

I have the time.

Do I want to write today?…

Madness sits uncomfortably on my shoulder, urging me to pour my heart and frustrations out in search of consolation and sympathy… yet my life is good and I have nothing to complain about!!!

The artist completely took over half term two weeks ago, and art once again took me to the edge of distraction. I HATE Art at times…

Do you get that? Have you felt that?..

You embark on a rich vein of research… you know you are making good progress… the work is flowing, coherent, supported with well-documented evidence… image after image moves the work forward and you intuitively know your progress is good… you feel enlightened…

There’s a word… Enlightened!

You don’t want to do anything else… your concentration and focus clash as those around you try and engage your attention… late nights… early starts… that sickness of creativity…

Then the crash… the doubts… the misgivings… the pressures…

What if I’ve got all this wrong?.. The work is crap… unconnected… the research faulty… those in the know will shoot you down… laugh at you… pull you apart… ridicule…

You check… double check… go over… revisit… and whilst you’re recasting progress halts… unfounded uncertainty annihilates that feeling of earlier euphoria…

So you stop… everything stops… shut down…

It’s that painful reactivation… that necessity to breathe… function… that slowly lifts you from the dense murkiness… days have passed… tolerant loved ones have bemusedly soothed, tolerated… and you awaken from the daze to try and rationally correlate your thoughts… re-adjust and re-engage with your responsibilities…

The work now sits… neatly stacked and bundled… filed and indexed… waiting patiently… baiting you enticingly… summoning you like sirens away from your duties…

I have to work… teacher is required… bills need paying… family needs caring… pupils require instruction… friends awaiting responses…

Yet… I want to submerge and bathe in the mania again…

Why?

Art is my drug… my fix… my get me up… my pick me up… it lifts me… motivates… inspires and animates me. Privileged; it is my luxury that I occupy daily…

Obsessional… addict… addiction… there’s the myth, isn’t there? The myth of the artist… tormented soul… I get that. Perhaps that’s why I need to teach? Balance? 24/7 Art would surely lead me to the mad house…

So why not others? How do you address the balance?

We see it so often; fallen stars. Van Gogh, Pollock, Modigliani… the list is endless, yet in modern times, not such an occurrence. I pray I’m not tempting fate, but I would ask; how do you stay sane?

The teacher tells me to finish “writing up” my previous two blogs. “Let the world know about your final thoughts on your iPad training day”. But the moment has past. The momentum gone… Art took over and muddled the memory… obliterated…

Is Art a drug? Certainly a form of escapism for me. Why do we make it? Why do you make it? Does it fulfill a craving, a need? Do you get a rush when you’re on it? When did you first feel that? When did I first feel it?

I work in series… short attention span… three to four paintings and then move on. The iPad has changed that a bit as I can rapidly produce hundreds of images… yet I still produce series… swop… change…

I always sell the first one for a million… (in my head)… that allows me to produce more… sets me up… literally and metaphorically… fuels the fire of the fantasy… I’ve made it before I even start work on the second… name up in lights… glory… recognition… fame… destruction…

Should I be allowed to teach? Fantasist!

Teaching is my sedative… surrounded still by Art, yet restrained… having to focus away from the ego… sickness restrained… young minds constantly questioning sidetrack my malady… restore my reason… rationality…

… for now…

Yeeeha…..! Celebration time…

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/michael-gove-forced-into-humiliating-uturn-over-exam-reform-8484074.html

Sorry… bit immature I know… but great news…

…continued…

I would be lying if I said everything ran smoothly. There were some interesting lessons to be learnt and a few minor teething problems lets say… but these are issues that I will attribute to the learning curve and a setup of ICT capability that I had no control over.

Throughout my introduction, pupils were distracting each other by Face Timing one another! This is of course easily resolved. By going to settings, Face Time can be deactivated, ensuring pupils can’t use it… something the ICT department in the school and myself failed to think of or check. Secondly, one of the teachers who loaned us their iPad failed to turn off their email, resulting in an email being sent and circulated around the whole school!.. Again easily resolved with a simple check… my mistake…

I took these things for granted as the ICT technicians in my school sort these things in advance of me getting the hardware… good lessons learnt for future visits.

Another issue arose when it came to printing pupil’s introductory images. At my school each pupil has a school email address that can be accessed from any computer/tablet through our VLE (via the active directory user account)… once again set up by the ICT department. This hadn’t been set up on the iPads the students were working on in this new school, but was resolved with a quick demo from their own technician to the pupils, who were then able to send their work to a classroom computer and print. An easy option around this for future demonstrations would be to use a wireless printer and send directly to that… providing email accounts had been set up.

Once these issues had been overcome the day took off and for the most ran smoothly…

I rarely use iPads as my canvas. I try not to teach using the iPad as a canvas… it is a powerful development tool that is often compared to other software such as Photoshop… but for me it is far more than that. I tend to teach developmental skills.

I need to show pupils all options, and when the department isn’t mine it’s also advisable to let other staff know all the options.

From Photo Booth, work was saved onto the iPads camera roll making it accessible in all other apps. As a warm up, pupils traced their photos in a fresh app using a variety of brushes and colours (image 1) prior to printing off. I needed a starting piece of work, which generally I would have produced with groups prior to using iPads. This obviously throws up some issues – tracing work at GCSE? I’d like to debate that – a photo taken by the pupil, as I understand it, is a primary image. Illustrators, graphic designers, advertisers all use this method to produce new imagery. By introducing mark making etc, I contend that the new images produced are primary images and therefore usable. Illustrator, Photoshop, both contain these assets and have historically been used in exam work. As a starting point; its what you go on and do with the image that counts for me.

The resulting drawn images were turned into stencils using traditional paper cutting techniques before being spray painted onto cardboard and re-photo’d with the iPad.

Play time.

I’m running out of words again…

I could show pupils a 100 different apps, all of which do something slightly different. For me the whole process of using iPads stems down to a selection process… selection of app, image, manipulation, combination of apps etc. Give pupils to much choice and you cause confusion, mess and irregularity.

I had pre-selected 17 apps for the school to load onto the iPads prior to my arrival at a cost of £25… a reasonable price for a whole set of new options… film, sculpture, drawing, painting, photo manipulation and animation…

“Use your stencil photo to create something you can turn into something new…”

To be continued…

This should be easy to write today, shouldn’t it? But I want it to read right… I want to contaminate you with enthusiasm…

Eight years I’ve been working with tablet technology. Eight years I’ve been waiting to get into a classroom where every child has been issued an iPad/Pod… Thank you to the staff of the school who I visited yesterday, to those of you who gave up your iPad for the day to make this possible for me and the 28 pupils I worked with.

A while back I submitted a proposal to my bosses that outlined and requested the implementation of a minimum of 15 iPads (one between two pupils) to add to the four I already have in my classroom. After careful consideration, my request was turned down; with the suggestion that I get some other departments on board before resubmitting for further consideration in the future. To “play the game”, I have been canvasing other departments, but the truth is that if I got them, I’d be loath to release them… I would use them every lesson…

Funding is an issue, but plenty of companies offer very competitive packages to encourage these proposals… yet evidence is also a key factor in many schools holding back on investing.

Build the evidence…

Opportunities to experience the new are sparse in this profession, yet our job is to offer fresh and supplementary encounters every lesson. When you get a chance for yourself, take it.

I don’t like taking money out of other Art departments. I think the money is there for resources to inspire kids and give that opportunity not exposed to before. For me to facilitate my day’s residency, my school requested that I should pay for the cover in my absence, so it was necessary for me to charge. And yet, I am a resource… a valuable resource… so it was nice that on my arrival I found the head teacher had changed the brief and requested that I worked with those who were underachieving or failing their GCSE, and had become willing to pay for my time out of his own budget. Thank you.

On our arrival, my brother introduced me to a few other people we bumped into along the corridor. “The Art room?” they asked as they tried to hide their expressions. “Good luck!”

28 GCSE pupils.

28 iPads.

6 hours.

I love fishing. Why don’t I do it more – get out there, away from familiar complacency? Different establishments? Different faces? Casting my hook and slowly reeling them in. Watching their body language and expressions change as their interest awakens. What I wonder, would education be like if teacher’s swopped schools more often… used their specialisms to inform and give pupils tasters… Ha! Ha!.. Maybe that’s it??? Artist teacher?

?

As the students filed in, they helped themselves to an iPad. Instantly they started caressing the screen, intuitively knowing how to turn them on and Face Time one another. The more inquisitive started opening apps – behaving as I had expected them to.

None owned an iPad. Three had iPod touches. All had mobile phones. Only one pupil had ever downloaded an Art app across all platforms, confirming the research from my Masters that it tends to be a far older age range that use iPads.

They wanted to play with the familiar rather than work. My question and answer intro went down like a lead balloon. They weren’t engaging with me. One female became spokesperson for the group – I suspect out of sympathy for my plight.

Give up? Run?

Secret weapon. Engage.

“I would like you to open up Photo Booth please and take a picture of yourself”.

Photo Booth if you didn’t know, has a number of different distortion filters that will morph your face like those magic mirrors you find in Fun Houses at the fair. It’s a great starter. Save the image and you’ve got something to work with. Kids love to laugh at one another…

…They bit,… The hook was loaded. The room became animated. I had their attention. They wanted to know more. They became hungry for information and listened attentively as I set out the plan for the day.

Ten or so apps and six hours later, the majority of pupils had produced at least fifteen useable images each to the astonishment of their teachers, in a variety of mediums.

I am out of words!

To be continued…

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