Sandel Elementary School

My time at Sandel Elementary was everything I wanted it to be and more. I learned so much during the short 7 weeks I was there that I will take with me when I do get a job of my own. When I began my student teaching, I was unsure about what grade level I wanted to teach at, but by week 5 of my time at the elementary school I was sure that I wanted to be an elementary school art teacher. The students kept me constantly engaged by asking questions, telling me stories, trying to keep them on task, and demonstrating to them how to do something. Because we only saw each class once a week, it was possible to only have two to three grades by the time the nine-week period ended. This made grading somewhat easier, but also more difficult when trying to keep on top of everything. My teacher let me ease into the teaching process, rather than giving me everything at once. I got a chance to get to know the students before I would begin teaching them, which I found incredibly helpful.

The amount of classes we had each day varied; Mondays and Fridays we only had 5 classes, Tuesdays and Wednesdays we had 4 classes, and on Thursdays we had all 6 grade levels. There were 5 kindergarten teachers, 5 first grade and second grade teachers, 4 third and fourth grade teachers, and only 3 fifth grade teachers. The teachers and students alike were very helpful about giving information regarding what they were studying in the classroom, which helped when planning lessons. Because we only saw the classes once a week, I did not get to see many final products of my assignments and had to go back at a later date to obtain examples.

Kindergarten:

Because it was the beginning of the year and they were still learning classroom routines, we were still working on the fundamentals like learning shapes, tearing paper, writing their names, and learning the difference between horizontal and vertical paper orientation. We had these students first thing in the morning and only for approximately 30 minutes and once we sat them, got materials passed out, and demonstrated the lesson to them. This made coming up with lessons particularly difficult – anything involving paint or clay was not an option this early in the year. Had it been further in the year, more advanced mediums would have been possible.

When I taught this grade level, I always reviewed horizontal and vertical paper orientation with the students and instructed them to write their name to the best of their ability at the bottom of their paper.  I would then introduce basic shapes by breaking down recognizable objects – animals, robots, people, and self-portraits. I would begin by starting with the top of the object (typically the head using a circle) and make my way down using other objects like ovals, triangles, squares, rectangles, hearts, and diamonds. After we finished drawing the basic outline of the object, the students used the crayons at their table to add other details – food, clothes, hair, eyes, the objects surroundings, or they would draw the object over again.

Once they felt satisfied with their drawing, they could flip the paper over and draw whatever they felt like drawing. This portion was always the most informative about the students. It gave me some insight about their development level, their family life, some of their favorite things, or they would make up stories about their drawings that were often entertaining.

First Grade:

I got to teach these students two lessons. The first lesson included printing black circles by overlapping or by stamping their paper with a plastic cup. This would create both small and large shapes that helped them for the next portion of the project. I demonstrated the process first by placing my cup upside down in the paint and then stamping my paper. When I was demonstrating I showed them how to make their circles thin or thick, and that I didn’t want them to take their cup and just smear it around the paper with paint on it because it wouldn’t give them a whole lot of space to paint in. After the demonstration, I then released them to their seat. I had small Styrofoam plates with black tempera paint to share between every two people and a plastic cup for each student waiting for them at their seat. By the time they were satisfied with how their paper looked they placed it in the designated area and had a seat while they waited to wash their hands. (The school for some reason didn’t give soap to the art room, but my cooperating teacher provided small cans of inexpensive shaving cream. It was fun for the students to wash their hands with it, plus it was fun for me to see how excited they got over it, particularly when they pretended they were going to shave their face like they’ve seen their dad do). 

The next time they came to class they were given small containers which contained red, yellow, blue, black, and white paint. I demonstrated to them that they would paint inside of the shapes they created by using the primary colors, and secondary colors.  I showed them how to create secondary colors, how to properly rinse their brush, and not to mix the paints. I loved hearing their excited “WOW!” while I was mixing the paints. I made it a point to show them what would happen to their paints if they went straight from one color into the other without rinsing their brushes. They had two weeks to fill in their circles and shapes, some finished and some didn’t.

The second lesson I taught them was about wax resist paintings. First, we reviewed the primary and secondary colors and I explained the difference between warm and cool colors. We then watched an animated video of the book “Giraffe’s Can’t Dance” and I then called them over to the table to show them the process of what we would be doing. They were instructed to choose an animal, and draw it to the best of their ability very large on the paper they were given with a black or brown crayon. Once they did that, they were given watercolor paints and painted their animals using warm and cool colors – if their animal was a warm color, they were to use a cool color in the background and vice versa.  I’m not really sure that they understood this concept very well, but the wax resist paintings turned out alright for the most part.

This was my example

Second Grade:

I didn’t get to teach any of my own lessons to the second grade students. When I first got there, they were working on a lesson similar to the first graders, just without the cups or paint. They were tracing shapes and overlapping them on the paper. After they filled their paper with the shape given to them, they would then choose oil pastels and crayons to color in each shape that was created and they were to have a different color in each shape. They didn’t get to finish this project in one sitting, so they began on another project that was required to be done by the district by a specific date.

Every year, Richland 1 incorporates the book “Carnival of the Animals” in all disciplines they can – music, art, and in the regular classroom. In the art room, we approached this by introducing the students to Mexican Amate bark paintings. These traditionally have bright colors, stark black outlines. Students were given vine charcoal to draw one of the animals from the story on parchment paper. After they drew their animals, they included the habitat – farm, forest, desert, jungle, etc., and a frame around everything. They were then given black paint to outline the animal, the habitat, and the frame, blue paint to do the sky or water, and then various other color paints to finish the image.  I unfortunately left before these were finished, so I never got to see the rest of the process. My cooperating teacher told me that once they were done painting everything they would crumple up their paper, flatten it back out, and then iron wax paper over top of it. The wax paper would stick to the parchment paper and then there would be some parts that were shiny and others that were dull.

Third Grade:

For the third grade classes, I worked on one project for the entire time I was at Sandel Elementary. In South Carolina, third grade students are required to learn about South Carolina history, regions, and other various features. I chose to concentrate on this and the students created landscapes using the different South Carolina regions: Piedmont, Sandhills, Blue Ridge, Inner and Outer Coastal Plains, and the Coastal Zone.

We spent an entire class brainstorming and listing the different features of each region – the physical landforms, the plants, and the animals. They began by choosing a region and drawing it on a piece of manila paper with pencil and then they went back with crayons and added details. I instructed students to draw their land forms large, in order to get more details in. They were told to keep these images as references for the large painting they would eventually be doing. After each student finished their drawing on the manila paper, I gave them each a sheet of 24”x36” white paper and they were told to transfer their image onto the large paper only using pencil. Once the students redrew their landscape on the large paper, they were given watercolor paints and brushes to begin adding color to the landscape. I made sure to tell the students that they needed to add a few drops of water to their paints, and to make sure their paints and brushes stayed moist. By the time I left Sandel, the students still hadn’t finished their watercolor landscapes, so they were left up to my cooperating teacher to finish. She showed them how to add salt to the watercolor to dry up some of the pigments, how to use spray bottles to make the paint spread out more, and other techniques to enhance their landscapes.

Fourth:

My fourth grade lesson with the students covered tessellations. The lesson before this covered Western Mimbre bowls, so they had already discussed geometric shapes, which was helpful. We discussed artists like MC Escher and pointed out how he repeated animals and geometric shapes. We created the shapes that they would trace and repeat on the paper that was given to them. I showed each class how to create their shape one way, but they didn’t seem to understand it very well – I’m assuming there were too many steps and it was way to sequential for them? My cooperating teacher showed me how to create a shape in a simpler method, and when we redid them they turned out much better. Some of our vocabulary include slide, flip, and rotate. After the shape was created, they traced it all over the paper and outlined each line with a black sharpie marker. After the entire tessellation was created, they began adding two colors (preferably complimentary in each alternating shape) and trying to figure out what kind of object they created from their shape – for example, I saw a fish in my shape once I had traced the entire thing. After they were done with the watercolor, my cooperating teacher and I wanted to combine everybody’s together to make one large tessellation but unfortunately I did not get to see these finished either.

Fifth:

For the fifth grade students, I wanted to do something more advanced and engaging than any of the other grades because I felt that they could handle more. I decided to go over Keith Haring Pop Art figures where we covered terms like movement and action, warm colors, cool colors, and contrast just to name a few. It was great to see how engaged and excited the students were when I introduced this lesson: we were writing on the smart board, they were asking questions, they were pointing out the different colors that were used, and once it came time for them to create their own figures they were up and posing for their classmates and talking to each other about what they were going to have their figures do. I demonstrated how to create their own Keith Haring figure: draw a simple stick figure doing some kind of movement, outline around the figure, erase the inside stick figure, and finally add movement lines to emphasize what the figure is doing.

They began by sketching their figures in a makeshift sketchbook, having them all do different poses and activities – some even included animals in their sketchbook. For each class, we had two large sheets of white craft paper and split the class into two. Again, I only got to see them drawing their figures on the large white craft paper, and nothing else. My original plan was to have each class come up with a large mural, and then there would be a “competition” between the classes to see what class would have their design chosen. The winning class would then have their mural painted on the fifth grade hallway (granted the principal gave her permission, which we were still waiting to receive by the time I left), but other elements from the other classes would be incorporated as well. In order to include all the fifth grade students in this mural however, we decided that each student would create another Keith Haring figure out of clay, and then it would be the border of the mural. Even if they did not get the permission to create the mural, each student would still create their clay figure in order to have a final product from this lesson.

During my time at Sandel Elementary, I loved how the children responded anytime you introduced them to a new topic. If the students had never worked with a material before, they were genuinely intrigued when you demonstrated it to them – clay, wax resist, mixing colors with paint, wire, everything. This held true for every single grade level.  The “wow” factor was always there, for both me and the students. I loved their innocence and the way they view the world – it’s much more positive than high school students who weren’t impressed by much or seemed to hate everything about life. I particularly loved the younger grades (Kindergarten through 2nd) because the things that they said on a daily basis made me laugh and kept me on my feet much more than the older grades. I would have liked to stay longer, but that wasn’t an option. I was sad to leave, but I was excited at the same time to get the experience from high school students.

*All faces have been blurred to protect the identity of the students.

Spring Valley High School

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Spring Valley but it was much different than I was prepared for. I had a great cooperating teacher who provided an immense amount of feedback and support that I definitely needed. I will be taking way more away from this experience than I expected to, about high school students, planning, grading, and about myself in general. The amount of planning and grading increased drastically from elementary school, but I also had a lot more down time because the students are typically much more independent and self sufficient –it was strange after coming from the elementary school, where the students constantly need or want your help.

There are some factors about teaching at the high school level that I enjoyed much more than the elementary school. For example, the assignments could be more in-depth and complex than they could with elementary school. I could also show the students a demonstration and they would understand it for the most part, unlike in elementary school where walking around during the entire class period was necessary in order to make sure students stayed on task and were behaving. Also, it was nice to have more mature conversations with the students – being closer to their age was good on this aspect, but also a problem at other times.

We had 6 classes, each 50 minutes long. The classes were three Art 1 (foundations and introduction to art) classes, two Art 2 (advanced art which included collage, sculpture, drawing, and painting) classes, and one Art 3 (drawing with different mediums: charcoal, oil pastels, pencil, watercolor, etc.) class. There were students from every different cultural background, special needs, different personalities in each class, and different attitudes. I ended up teaching four of the six classes: all three Art 1 classes and one of the Art 2 classes. Because of the lack of storage in the room, only one Art 2 class could work on clay at a time, so they would rotate projects between the Art 2 classes.

*All faces have been blurred to protect the students

Art 1: Lesson 1

I collaborated with my cooperating teacher to discuss what kind of lessons would be appropriate to teach. I asked what kind of material needed to be covered next, and we decided on value. Thanks to my 3 ½ years in studio classes, I had plenty of experience creating value. Prior to student teaching at the high school level however, I had no experience in doing scratchboard or monotypes. For the first assignment, my cooperating teacher gave me three full size scratchboards to practice with and I purchased one from a local craft store for additional practice, so I was able to get the feel for how the scratchboard would work along with how to manipulate the tools.

To introduce the concept of value, I had the students complete a 4-page worksheet packet which included solid shading, scribbling, cross-hatching, hatching, and stippling. The students had almost a week to complete the pages. Once the students completed the packet about value, I introduced landscapes and the different aspects about them: foreground, middle ground, background, and depth of field. They were given another small worksheet to practice landscapes and using the various techniques for creating value. After the students finished the worksheet, they were instructed to choose one of about 40 landscape images laid out for them where they then practiced using the scratchboard and tools by recreating a small section of the image they chose. Finally, students were given a large piece of 11”x14” scratchboard and were told to recreate the landscape they chose.  They were instructed to use at least three of the techniques for creating value which would assist in creating a wide variety of values in their images. Students were given a full week to complete their scratchboard For the most part, these turned out very well - the students who really understood how scratchboard works excelled, while others did not understand that once they've scratched it out, it's gone and there can be no putting it back.

Art 1: Lesson 2

For the second lesson that I taught the Art 1 classes, we continued with the landscapes but approached them in a different medium. I had seen the final product of monotypes, but had never done one myself. Luckily, my cooperating teacher gave me a crash course in creating monotypes. It was simple enough that I could introduce it without much confusion.

To begin this assignment, I introduced the concept of printmaking and went into different methods for monotypes. I made sure to establish that monotypes were different because they would only be able to create one print rather than multiples. I went over additive and subtractive, and what the difference between the two is. In my presentation about printmaking, I searched for videos about creating subtractive monotypes, which I included below. I did a demonstration for each of the classes, which included rolling the ink with the brayer, subtracting ink and using the different methods for creating value, blotting the paper, and running their plate through the printing press (which was to be done by myself or the cooperating teacher to ensure the safety of the students and to make sure they would not break the printing press)

 For this lesson, students chose a completely different landscape from the scratchboard.  They then chose one or two different colored inks to spread on their Plexiglas plate with the brayer and used the numerous tools we had set out for them to use (forks, q-tips, paint brushes, scrapers, towels, and they could use the end of their paintbrush as well), to then recreated their chosen landscape to the best of their ability. They were instructed they needed at least 3 different methods for creating value in their monotype as well. After they finished creating their plates, they gave them to me or the cooperating teacher to run through the printing press. In the next class after their prints had dried, I showed the students how to add details that were possibly lost during the printing process using watercolor pencils. They were told to add colors that would enhance their prints, not to cover up the areas that they subtracted, and to help create the different ways for making values. Using the watercolor pencils enabled the students to reactivate the water and ink from their prints, and made blending details easier. This entire assignment took a week, simply because monotypes are so quick and easy to create. Overall, I feel that these didn’t turn out nearly as successful as I would have liked. I did get some awesome prints, but the craftsmanship of the paper took away from the final product. The fingerprints on the paper were not 100% from the students, so I did not take off from that when grading.

 

Art 2: Lesson 1

Art 2 uses a wider variety of materials than Art 1 does, which was great for coming up with lessons. My cooperating teacher was going to cover clay as her next lesson, so I took over that lesson. The day I initially introduced that lesson did not go as well as I would have liked, so I had to approach the introduction a different way during the next class period. I included a brief history of pottery and how it was used through history, what a vessel was, and what the parameters of their assignment would be. After the presentation, I demonstrated to the class how to knead and wedge their clay, how to make coils, the different tools that they would be used, and how the slab roller worked. Because the class was so large, I had to split it into two groups which worked better than I would have thought – those who weren’t watching the demonstration could work on their sketches and design for the project and they would switch once the demonstration was done.

For the assignment, students were to create a self portrait vessel. The vessel had to be a reflection of themselves in some way – something that they are interested in, a hobby, or something that they identify with. It had to be a minimum of 10”, include three different textures, and they had to include one of the following: a lid, a handle, or feet. Their vessels were to be built out of coils, but for some it was easier to use slabs because of their design. I had a variety of designs: a shoe on a pedestal to look like a trophy because he was on the track team, one person really liked birds so he made a bird that has a bowl as the body and what is supposed to be the lid is still an open area, and one person created a dog with a lid where the top of the head is. Some of them really got the concept, while others struggled with the clay. I made the due date the final day of my time at Spring Valley, so I was able to see these pieces from start to finish which was really exciting for me.

During my time at Spring Valley, I realized that I am too close to their age to be an effective teacher right away. I feel that because I am so young, the students either did not respect me or take me seriously. I also realized that I do not have the patience for some of the attitudes that students can have, or for the immaturity. Teaching at the high school level taught me way more about myself than I expected, and about what I want to do with my career.

Student Teaching

I would have to say that student teaching has been one of the most rewarding and eye opening experiences I have ever been through. I have learned so much about myself and the students that I have encountered within these past few months that I will take with me when I finally do get into my own classroom.

During my student teaching semester, I loved more than anything the connections that I made with the students. Before this, I hadn't spent a lot of time around kids or young adults and was somewhat unaware of what to expect. Both the elementary and high school students made me laugh, taught me about themselves,  and helped me learn about myself as well. I fell in love with the innocence that elementary school children have, while the high school students could hold more mature conversations. I was more than sad to leave both levels of students, they taught me so much in just a short amount of time that I can't thank them enough for. Thanks to some of these students however, I did learn that at 23 - incase I or anybody else had any doubts - I am nowhere near ready to have children of my own.

One thing I did realize during this experience was that I am more likely to apply for a job at the elementary level rather than the secondary - although I will DEFINITELY go to whatever school takes the chance on me! I loved the innocence and pure amazement that elementary school children exhibited when introducing them to a new assignment, rather than the "whatever" attitude from high school students. I feel that I connected more with the young children, and also that I can and would love to be the role model the young children need in their life. I have to give major props to all my high school teachers over the years and to high school art educators everywhere. It's way more work and patience than I realized, and not enough credit is given to those teachers.

Some of my biggest struggles during this experience have included coming up with lessons that are engaging enough to keep students actively participating and focused while educational at the same time. I have surfed Pinterest for hours and hours, read magazine articles, talked with my cooperating teachers, but coming up with lessons for students has by far caused me the greatest amount of stress.

Another struggle I have experienced would be overcoming my hesitation with public speaking. I'm generally a very quiet and soft spoken person, so getting comfortable enough to speak in front of a group of students was difficult for me. I have found that the more I speak in front of students though, the easier it comes. I feel that it will come as a second nature over time, but for now speaking in front of groups is something I am still working on.

Planning far enough in advance is also something I never considered when it comes to teaching. Naturally, I like to plan far enough ahead so that I know what is going on but I never considered how far ahead I would need to plan lessons. Like speaking in public, I can imagine that planning far enough ahead will come as a second nature the more I do it.

This was probably the best semester of "class" I ever paid for - I absolutely think student teaching was more than necessary for me to become a successful art teacher. A huge thanks to my professors at UofSC , my cooperating teachers, the teachers I had the privilege of observing, family, and friends for supporting me through this stressful time!