Blog #5 Junior High Visit Reflection with Connections to Class Readings

We will start off this post by just quickly reflecting on the AMAZING experience that was the junior high visit/ art installation completion last week. I had a blast working with them, watching my specific group of five students plan and paint their pieces, and then watching them as an entire class figure out how to arrange all of the pieces on the big sheet of plywood. It makes me really excited to bring in CBAE within my own classroom in the future. I was able to spend most of the day with the students while they were on campus and it was a gratifying experience.

I was able to make a few connections to some of the readings that we've had lately. We have also been talking a lot about culturally responsive teaching in my Human Relations course this semester. In the article, " The Family Quilt Project: The Power of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy" it talks about how the quilting project arose all over the community, enabled families to explore their own cultures, and others' cultures and histories. It became an amazing outpouring of stories, and most importantly a sense of "self- understanding" and "other understanding." Something that connects this and the opportunity with the junior high students is that the teacher involved and our professor Dr. Miller were able to work together to build a project with these students and UNI students to help continue to put an importance on building up school community. This project will continue to engage families and build school community as long as it's up in the cafeteria. 

The second connection that I was able to relate it to the article, "Culturally Responsive Teaching for 21st Century Art Education". Right off the bat the article talks about how important culturally responsive teaching is to how students and teachers interact with each other. Another few reasons why this is important are teaching students how to ultimately understand cultures outside of their own and promote social inclusion. This comes into the picture with our visit with junior high students because the goal of this CBAE project was to promote all of the same things listed above to build school community. The students wanted this piece to genuinely represent their school and all that encompasses within all students. 

In my Human Relations course we have been doing a lot of class discussion on topics related to culturally responsive teaching. One thing that has stuck out to me recently in that class that closely relates to the ideas that we've been talking about in this class, that is the idea about community inclusion and how to get students, families of students, and the general community involved. In my opinion we (Art Education) have done this by working collaboratively with the junior high students. They were able to come spend the day at the university doing things that are not normal school day activities. We were providing them with an opportunity that not all students get to do. Overall the day was super great and loved being a part of it. I look forward to seeing it up on the wall completely done. 

Blog #4: Chapter 3: Community- Based Art Education Across the Lifespan

With the Junior High Students visit quickly approaching I can't help but be excited. I really am looking forward to completing this project with them. When reading chapter three in the book the first header that stuck out to me was, " Work With the Community to Develop Pride" and that is exactly what were doing - encouraging school pride because each piece of the installation correlates to a part that students are proud of as well as encouraging it within the school culture. In this section on page forty-two it talks about leading all participates to broaden their idea of art. I feel like we have already begun to do this with the students and will continue to become more prevalent as we finish this up with them. A quote that stuck out to me was, " This can lead all participants, including the facilitators, to broaden their definition of art - including who is an artist - and expands the realm of possibilities in which artists live and work, and by which they enrich our communities daily." I feel as though we are doing this with the junior high students and with us as UNI students. We are enriching our community and it makes me excited for the end result.

I was also able to connect this project with the, "Work With Community to Express Identity" section of chapter three. It encourages us all as stakeholders to creatively express a sense of self,  sense of place, and a sense of community. I feel that we are encouraging the junior high students to do this in their installation because it is solely based on the things that they thought were most influential to their school and what they wanted this piece of art to be a representation of. It states in the section, " We are developing strategies for "life- long, self -determined, multi-contextual skills for productive and creative participation in society." I feel like this should be something we all strive for and if we encourage this with the future generations of students we are helping them become better people, and that's part of our job as educators isn't it? We could all use a little more connection between each other so why not make art.

"We develop understanding through validating diversity and contextualism" was a quote in chapter three that really got my wheels turning. If we encourage CBAE in our classrooms this will lead to all participants gaining a better understanding of others' opinions, lives, and experiences. We can build a lot of trust when working on something together because of the discussions, learning, and conversations that happen while art making.

Being able to complete this project at UNI provides a lot of resources that may not have been possible at a public junior high. Working collaboratively is bettering all stakeholders involved. Partnering with UNI Art Education and students was really influential to the success of making this installation. In chapter three it has a section on partnering with institutions and although we've only had a little bit of insight on the necessary planning, I can see that it is extensive with time management of the project, materials, funding, space needs, etc. These all had to be figured out to make this project work and let me tell you, I am only a very small portion of this. I think that it will really help me in the future as an art educator that wants to encourage community based art education in my own classroom setting. 
                                                                                                                                               

Black out Poetry: "Sapsucker Woods"

Blog #3: Chapter 2: Community-based Art Education Across the Lifespan

I am going to focus this post on Bell Hooks, engaged pedagogy, and andragogy. I am also going to spend some time connecting and reflecting on the new knowledge gained from spending my morning at the "Supporting Emergent Bilingual Learners and Their Families” workshop. Bell Hooks was a social activist writer and author, who spoke to the phobias that inhibit society from moving forward into the future in a more positive and culturally inclusive way. The discriminatory practices such as racism, sexism, gender bias, classism, religion, etc all contribute to the challenges that education reform has to deal with. Hooks explains that if we can succeed in preventing the boredom, disinterest, and apathy that both teachers and students feel about the overall teaching and learning experience. 



An engaged pedagogy means that learning and teaching is engaging because it connects to their lives, supports student empowerment,  encourages a society where multiculturalism is important, and learning is intrinsically motivating. 

CBAE artist educators build curriculum that are culturally responsive to student learning needs and backgrounds. It encourages students to be transgressive, which basically means to encourage students to question and crush barriers, be self expressive and empowered, and the most important being using collaborative creative efforts. Simply, it motivates students to use personal and collective creative expression within a community ultimately encouraging empowering and transformative experiences. 

I had the opportunity to spend some time at a workshop for emergent bilingual learners and their families. It was quite an eye opening experience to me and the need for resources are only going to grow because the number of people migrating to the midwest continues to grow. I also learned that the resources available aren't as available as I thought they were. I do recognize now how important it is for me as a future educator to be aware of the bilingual students in my classrooms and how I can include their families just like I would with students who have parents that speak english. I think I also need to make sure to build a community where cultural inclusivity is an important aspect of classroom environment. After this experience I am more aware of ways that I can do to encourage family and student normalcy at home, for example; working on homework together.