Arty On

How does a choice-based classroom allow for student artists to develop their ideas in a meaningful way?  This is a question I am currently experimenting with and offering varied solutions for in my PYP art studio. For the most part, I'm finding that there is no end to the ideas that students want to investigate.  However, some of them enter the art studio with so many ideas that they find it difficult to stick with just one.  They are enthusiastic, they are motivated, and they want to try it all!  They ping pong from here to there, experimenting with one technique, then collaborating on another, engaging in making mistakes, and finding out what they like and don't like as an artist. I love this about running a choice-based art studio. However, I also wonder what the limit of these explorations should be?  At what point does a student need to choose a topic, medium, or technique and explore it more in depth?  What is the role of the teacher in ensuri...

"It's like I'm a real artist today." (G3 student comment as she made the choice to use an easel to create for the first time.) "Wow, everything is so organized.  We should keep it that way." (KG student commenting to his peers as the class took a tour and observed all of the new materials available to use.) "So I can spend the next 9 classes on just ONE artwork if I want to?" (G5 student considering the options available to her as she decides how best to spend her time in the art studio.) "I like it this year, because we used to save all of the good art materials in the store room, and now we get to use them!" (Art Teaching Assistant comment about the variety of materials available at one time for students to create with.) As students begin the new school year and are introduced to our choice-based, student-centered approach in the art studio, their comments say it all.  The overall feeling to the start of the year...

Ever feel like you're in a funk?  Like there's something not happening that should be?  Not that anything is wrong, but just that something is...missing. I had this lingering feeling last year about my teaching practice.  I was teaching PYP visual arts at the International School of Phnom Penh (ISPP) and after 5 years of experience, getting to know the PYP, establishing a rapport with my students and colleagues, I had the premonition that it was time for a big change.  Not in schools, not in what I was teaching, but in HOW I was teaching it.  I realized that I was stressing out and spending my time planning Units of Inquiry that were lacking...something.  That sometimes, despite my best efforts to allow for student choice and voice, the exhibitions of student pieces ended up lacking...something.  That even when I had a super supportive admin team that appreciated both the process and product of art making, our curriculum was lacking...something....