Touching History with Art - Walking in the Footsteps of Sojourner Truth

For my Art and Human Development class, I put together a webquest that addresses the life and times of Sojourner Truth:  A Sojourn for Truth.  This online lesson guides students through a series of projects in which they use art to represent and retain what they learn about history.  The ultimate goal is for students create a thesis statement by which they define their truths.  And guess what?  I found my truth in the process.  Shot with an iPhone:



I chose Sojourner Truth as a topic because she is a courageous and colorful historical figure. She stood up for what she believed in.  That she did what she did at the time she did it is worthy of deep respect and admiration.  She was also my choice because of the local connection.  I found it deeply meaningful to see and sketch the house she lived, to do grave rubbings of an ex-slave’s grave across the street, and to touch and observe with drawing and photography the life size monument of Sojourner Truth in Florence, Mass.

What is your truth?  Drop a comment!

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Creating a Student Gallery Activity Guide for Environmental Art at MassMOCA - Journey to Seeing Green

For my Art and Human Development class, I just put together a gallery activity guide for students visiting the Under the Sea Kidspace exhibition at MassMoca.  Many of the exhibiting artists use found trash to express their views on humans and the environment.

Message in a Bottle - The Sands of Time

I went to the beach in Boston in search of trash to make environmental art myself.  I found this artifact, the seawater in the bottle's neck frozen.

Click here for the complete story, presented in the dynamic Prezi format.  (If you give presentations, want to move beyond Powerpoint and are not familiar with Prezi, you might like it.)

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Using New Media and Aerosol Cheese to Interest Youth in Poetry

How to use New Media to interest youth in poetry?  Have them take pictures, create music and then make a video.  I created this video for Jack Prelutsky's Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens using a point and shoot digital camera and iMovie, for my course on Language Arts and Literacy at the Middle Level.  To accentuate the feel of the poem, I concentrated on image duration and the effect of the music.



Then next step was to write an original poem and then shoot video to accompany it.  With apologies to Walt Whitman, here is Extra Cheesy.



Big thanks to Clifford and Sorrel at Upinngil Farm in Bernardston, Mass., where there is fun to had!

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Small Town Occupiers - Fighting on the Homefront

Wheelchair bound decorated Marine veteran Jack Kelley from Greenfield, Mass., fought in Vietnam. He is now fighting again for his country.

2nd Time I've Fought for this Country - I am the 99%

He says he is fighting for the soul of the middle class.  He feels the middle class has been destroyed by rapacious banking practices and corporate money machinations.  He is fighting to get money out of politics. "I am part of a grassroots movement that is actually doing something, that has changed the dialog from debt reduction to jobs. I am in no way a spokesman or a leader.  I am a grunt."

Class Warfare? We Didn't Start It

He was joined by others demonstrating in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.  I tried to capture the brick building former industrial feel of Greenfield, Mass.  The protestors lined Main Street near the town green.

We Are 99% - Standing with Occupy Wall St.

In the center of the town green is a Civil War Memorial.  At the top is an eagle, combating snakes in its nest.

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Rationale for Celebrating Diversity Through the Arts

Below is the supporting statement that I wrote for my graduate class on Celebrating Diversity Through the Arts.  My mother, a former library development officer, extols the virtue of looking for books in library stacks, as books adjacent to the one that you seek can prove to be gems.  I found the concept of "species-centrism" using this method. 

Hands On

Schools cut arts education to focus on standardized test prep.  Critics claim that most teachers are unprepared for roles as multicultural educators since 90% of teachers are white and 36% of students are minorities (Parks, 2004).  Furthermore, as student diversity increases, time restraints might necessitate ignoring certain groups, negating the goal of fully inclusive multiculturalism (Adejumo, 2002).  Alternatively, a broad-brush approach to cultures can lead to superficial treatment.

I believe, however, that the arts are a wonderful way to celebrate diversity and to guide students towards visual and cultural literacy and academic thriving. Therefore, I will counter these criticisms.

           

 Beyond Black and White (Venetian Blinds)

Sternberg (2010) listed qualities of creative thinking – create, design, invent, imagine, suppose – and gave examples of how these key artistic ideas relate to learning across the curriculum.   For example, challenging students to “Invent a new means of transportation.”  Likewise, Baker (2011) studied the effect of music and arts instruction on the state test performance of 8th graders in Louisiana and concluded that students excluded from arts instruction to focus on math and English did not increase their scores.  However, scores for students that attended music class were significantly improved.

Art: The Heart of Education - Greenfield (MA) High School

The white teacher/minority student ratio will shift as minority populations continue to grow, but teachers learning about their students’ cultures is a key tenet of effective teaching:  know thy students.  Provided teachers work through their own biases and prejudices, Roland (2006) points out that: “The Web offers unprecedented access to the work of countless artists from historically underrepresented cultural and ethnic groups.”   This easy access to material makes for easier inclusion of all cultures that are represented in a classroom.

In our class, James Rollins (whose article mentioned Music In Our Schools Month) reminded us that authentic multicultural education needs to be continuously woven into curriculums, rather than ghettoized into superficial theme months.

Intertwined Synapses (Rail Yard)

Andrea Swenson’s arts exemplar of her elementary students drawing portraits of each other demonstrated not only powerful artistic expression, but also pairing Limited English Proficiency students with native speakers in an engaging task allowed for socialization and English language development.  Likewise, creating an art project relating to English Language Learners’ home cultures activates background knowledge and creates important connections to school learning. (Carrigo)  Prior to his captivating participatory drumming arts exemplar, Shawn McGann noted the many ways music can reach Special Education learners, including building self-esteem and integrating development of cognitive, motor and emotional responses.

Many Kinds, All Corn

The possible downfall of multicultural arts education is the focus on how students are different and different from each other.  These differences can be fodder for teasing or bullying.  Therefore, it is vital that teachers incorporate “species-centrism” into their arts education.  Species-centrism suggests that “we can appreciate that the arts are common to humans of all times and places (Dissanayake, 1992, p.15).”  This central task of creating a unifying connection as “inhabitants of the Earth who also belong(s) to many social groups (Matonis, 2003, p.37)” is key to using the arts as a vehicle for global education and understanding.

From Mandarin to Sanskrit to Jeans

Artist, educator and photojournalist John Nordell is pursuing a Masters of Education in Arts Education at Fitchburg State University.

   
Adejumo, C. O. (2002). Considering Multicultural Education.  Art Education, 33-39 

Baker, R. r. (2011, May 1). The Relationship between Music and Visual Arts Formal Study and Academic Achievement on the Eighth-Grade Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) Test. Online Submission, Ph.D. Dissertation, Louisiana State University. 212 pp Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Carrigo, D. Strategies for working with English Language Learners.  Center for Collaborative Education, 1-6

Dissanayake, E. (1992). “Species-centrism” and Cultural Diversity in the Arts.  Seminar Proceedings:  Discipline-based Art Education and Cultural Diversity, Santa Monica: The J. Paul Getty Trust

Matonis, M. (2003). Towards Multicultural Awareness:  Problems and Perspectives.  Dialog and Universalism, 1(2), 27-38

Parks, N. S. (2004). Bamboozled: A Visual Culture Text for Looking at Cultural Practices of Racism.  Art Education, 14-18 

Roland, C. (2006). Promoting Respect for Diversity.  School Arts, 16 

Sternberg, R. (2010).  Creativity is a Choice, Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/UTDslides/sternberg-creativity-is-a-decision-3415440

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Visual Thinking - Creative Comprehension

Street Art

I felt a thrilling chill as my psychology professor at Fitchburg State University explained that the ability to see from multiple perspectives is a key aspect of adolescent cognitive development.  What does Tamika imagine that Judy is thinking about Jose?

Public Works

This idea deeply resonated with me as in my photography classes for aspiring professionals I returned again and again to the concept of photographing a single subject from multiple perspectives. 

Guide Lines

I was so excited because now when I teach adolescents, I can use this photographic approach for the dual purpose of teaching how to see and how to think.

Prius and Possibility

So then, a few days later, I was reading a chapter on text factors for promoting comprehension in Gail Tompkins's Literacy for the Middle Grades.  Discussing the importance of point of view, along with other story structure elements such as plot, setting, characters and theme, the author mentioned several stories told from the viewpoints of multiple characters.  Bingo.  Now I can add a reading component to this concept of learning to think and see from multiple perspectives.

Can't wait for my next class!

P.S. Enjoying conceptual artist Sol LeWitt's wall drawings fundamentally altered and enhanced the way I see and appreciate line - and life.

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Organic Pam. Really?

I think the title says it all.   Please see my previous post comparing organic versus sustainable.  The post includes an image of petroleum intensive rows of plastic cups of fruit at a Whole Foods Market.  Discussing the image with a friend, he commented:  "They are destroying what they are creating." 

Is the Propellant Organic?

Ingredients:  Organic Virgin Olive Oil, Organic Grain Alcohol (Added for Clarity), Lecithin From Soybeans (Prevents Sticking), And Propellant.

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