Art as a Classroom Management Tool

Learning Through the Arts (LTTA) has been steadily gaining in popularity since its inception in 1994. "It is now the largest full school intervention program in the world, reaching more than 377,000 students in the last ten years," according to the LTTA website. And that's only counting the programs that are officially recognized as LTTA - there are more which use art integration without the formal designation.

I believe in the benefits of arts-infused learning. So much so that I abandoned homeschooling my children in favour of enrolling them in an arts-infused school 20 minutes out of town. As a soon-to-be teacher, I am confident enough in those benefits that I will be planning to infuse my everyday lessons with art.

But also as a soon-to-be teacher, something else has caught my attention about using art in the classroom. Using strictly anecdotal evidence, I am coming to believe that art can be a very powerful classroom management tool.

I have seen a teacher, who formerly had a class of kids who had difficulty settling down after each recess/ outdoor break, who now puts on some quiet music, and gives the kids ten or fifteen minutes of sketching time. That classroom is as quiet as any I've seen. And a peaceful quiet, I might add.

A friend of mine who used to run a home daycare quickly discovered that as soon as she had rowdy behaviour, pulling out the tub of Play-Doh was the music which soothed the proverbial savage beast. This was more than simply redirecting. Every mom of toddlers and preschoolers knows the beauty of redirecting. But most also know that when emotions are running high, energy begins to be used in negative ways - not just any old redirection will do. At times like that, if heading outside is not an option (the baby is sleeping, maybe, or you have lunch on the stove) - more often than not, you just grin & bear it. Wait it out. But not my clever friend - she had an instant fix, and one which every player appreciated.

I have seen it myself, as well. A creative project is hands-on, giving an outlet for that energy. It is a deep thinking, authentic process, leaving little of a child's energy or attention for mischief. Very much like inquiry learning, it is something which thoroughly engages the student, leaving no opportunity nor need for disruptive behaviour.

So curious was I about this connection, that I thought I'd take a look for supporting research. Mind you - here's my disclaimer - it was a little look - just a quick ten or fifteen minutes search of the research - but I don't readily see anything which directly addresses the issue. My interest is piqued. Perhaps I can find time to undertake a little research of my own.

In any case, I am eager to get to my next (and final!) student teaching placement, and to put that theory to the test in a classroom.

Now I will try not to leave the poor ol' blog for months at a time again ... see you soon.

Wakey, wakey! Rise 'n' Shine!

Yep, it's that time. Dust off the ol' keyboard, and nudge this blog out of hibernation. Well, when it's almost a year long, is it hibernation? No matter.

Several times lately, I've found myself in the blogging mood, but just waited it out and sure enough, it went away. But there comes a time...

The Great Job Hunt

I must admit that I'm a little in denial, and have been trying not to think too much about what happens between completing my degree and leading a class. Job hunting has never been a favourite pastime of mine, if only because every great job is preceded by a nerve-wracking interview process. Job interviews don't just hang dangerously low on my list of things I like; they don't make an appearance at all.

Don't get me wrong - I do fine in job interviews, typically. All but one time, and that was my defining moment - I think I developed my interview phobia courtesy of this early job-hunt experience. I was seventeen, had left home, moved to Toronto and was looking for work. I applied for an entry-level position in a Fortune 500 corporation. Happily, I was offered an interview - I thought I was on my way to something wonderful! I dressed the part. I talked to people about job interview skills. I had my eggs all in a row. Or so I thought. A woman called me into an office, indicating that Mr. So-and-so would be just a few minutes. She remained in the office, doing routine-looking clerical functions. She was making small talk, to which of course I responded, but in a fairly absent-minded way ... my mind was on the impending meeting with her tardy boss. However, after about ten minutes of waiting and cursorily answering the clerk's chit-chat, I was shocked to be dismissed from the "interview" by said support staff person. Huh? There either was no Mr. So-and-so, or else he was never meant to be in the picture. This was a "catch the applicant off guard" pop interview (a seldom-heard-from cousin to the quiz of the same name). Ugh.

After this humiliating experience, I faced interviews with an odd mix of trepidation and suspicion, always alert to the possibility of trickery and deceit. That sounds a little inflated. It probably is. But the truth is that there is something of that experience lurking in the depths of my mind when I am faced with a job interview, and that something is probably responsible for the fear that these darn meetings incite in me.

On the bright side, as I mentioned, I usually fare just fine in interviews. Evidently I'm pretty accomplished at shoving that fear and distrust down into some little, unseen corner of my psyche, at least long enough to get in, be interviewed, and get out again.

The job search for a teaching position will be different from my previous ones, for several reasons. First, and probably most obviously, I'll be looking for a position in a profession rather than a vocation, so the nature of the interview will be somewhat different, in that there will be a mix of the practical and the philosophical. The rest - experience, outlook, efficacy, personality - is pretty standard across job types. But aside from those things, there are other factors that will distinguish this process. My age and stage in life, my determination to spend my remaining fifteen or twenty years of working life doing something meaningful and satisfying, my commitment to finding a work environment that supports my beliefs about teaching, learning, and children - all of these will make the job search a much more reciprocal process than it has been before. I won't only concern myself with whether or not I am what they want - I will be looking to see whether or not  they are what I want as well.

Thankfully, I have time. I won't be commencing a job search for close to a year from now, so I have time to continue crafting my portfolio, learning methodology, considering philosophical questions of the teaching profession. Maybe this time around, I'll prevail over that thirty-year-old memory in the back of my mind, and experience the calm clarity that comes when valuation is a two-way street.

Just an observation

Well ... this is not an issue in teaching. Just an observation.
I was thinking today about my classmates in the early years stream, and about the strengths each one brings with her (and him, for those few who are guys). Every now and then I'm struck by how great this person or that will be in the classroom, and today it occurred to me that I've probably had that thought about every person in my class at one time or another.
Such a comfort, knowing that our future educators are such competent, dedicated people.

Long-Range Planning

The year plan. I'd heard of the need for one, but thus far, nobody had directly addressed this issue. Happily, Jackie saw fit to include it in her Professional Teacher course ...

The year plan is really quite a huge undertaking. Each of the curricular areas would have to be scrutinized, outcomes identified, themes chosen. The more that these areas are integrated together, the better. It sounds like a daunting task - though for me, it'd be more accurately described as a giant puzzle. This sounds like such fun! I really love digging into projects like this, and making it all work out. The worst of it is that I won't need to make a year plan for another year & a half, probably. )o: I suppose I could recreationally year plan in the meantime.

One huge advantage to having a coherent long-range plan is that, since you'd be teaching already knowing what's coming next, it would be easy to build into each unit, what will become the "assessment for" learning - to ensure that the kids have some sort of base, on which to build their new learning. Rather than relying on chance that the kids will have some knowledge of a new area in their schemas, you are in a position to guarantee it. And how much better would it be, when kids head into a new theme feeling confident because they already know a little bit?

There were some surprises today. I had no idea that MB Education set standards for how much of a day's time was allotted to each subject area, for instance. Reviewing their requirements, I could see that it would not be difficult to get in all the ELA time that you're ideally supposed to make happen. Some of the other areas, however, I am not so sure about.

I think this is where integration will really be advantageous. If I have only half an hour each for social studies and art, I can see feeling very limited. However - make a joint art-social studies project, and voila, one hour serves both areas, and you (and your kids) can feel so much more immersed in the subject. Integration of the various subject areas is really important, and not just from a practical standpoint. In "real world" learning, we always learn in an integrated fashion, not separating our learning into its component parts.

My hidden agenda? I'm so enamoured with the integrated arts program that my kids are fortunate enough to enjoy, I am eager to apply some of those principles when I have my own classroom. Generally I think it's really beneficial to nurture creativity in children - it encourages broader and deeper thinking, celebrates individuality, offers opportunities to learn in a social and accepting environment. It is difficult to be a linear thinker and an artist at once.

So when I look at the gargantuan task of long-range planning, I see how it offers so many opportunities to help the teacher prioritize and achieve her goals. I say, "Bring it on!"

Encourage the Heart

Perhaps strangely, I hadn’t thought of leadership in terms of  a key component of effective teaching. That is, I had thought of attributes of leadership that are critical to teaching, but I hadn’t couched it in terms of leadership per se. But now that the idea has been offered, I see how it absolutely is a key component of effective teaching, and puzzle over how I ever missed that idea.

Dr. Jackie Kirk introduced our Professional Teacher class to the Leadership Practices Inventory … a norm-referenced test to determine one’s relative strengths and weaknesses in what they’ve identified as the five exemplary practices of leadership. Each of us took this test (self-evaluated), and I found the results fascinating.

First, I’ll let you know (if you don’t already) what the five areas are:

• Modeling the way
• Inspiring a shared vision
• Challenging the process
• Enabling others to act
• Encouraging the heart

 Without formal definition of these categories, I could have rank-ordered my own strengths quite easily. I figured that my strengths would lie in modeling the way, challenging the process, and encouraging the heart. Not so great would be inspiring a shared vision, and enabling others to act. I think that I view these last two as very extroverted characteristics, which would not be my way. (Yes, I know, challenging the process is theoretically also an extroverted practice, but I know that I have that rebel in me, plus I do enjoy trying to find better ways to do things.)

But – surprise! – this is really not what my results established as my strong & weak suits. My strongest? A tie between challenging the process (no surprise there) and enabling others to act (what?!). My worst, by far, was modeling the way. That one was a real shocker. I really feel like I do as I want those around me to do (well, those within my scope of influence). So I was shocked to see it at the very low end of things (under the tenth percentile).

Jackie went on to talk about each category, and what sorts of things we do to promote each one. Modeling the way is still a mystery to me; I think that I do know what I want to model, and that my actions are aligned with my values. I will need to think on this one, and observe … maybe the reality of the situation is different from what I imagine to be true. It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on this for a while, and see if I can ultimately identify the sorts of choices I make that aren’t in keeping with this value.

Now – enabling others to act. Let me just say that I feel squeamish just even hearing these words. Maybe it’s just that – perhaps these words are not the ones I would use to describe what they are talking about.  Because when I heard what Jackie had to say about the kinds of behaviours that lead to strength in this area – making heroes and leaders of others in the classroom, embracing risk-taking, sharing power, seeing failure as simply part of learning – those are things I feel quite strongly about, and make a point of doing. So that one makes sense, in the end.

The other surprise for me was encouraging the heart. I view myself as someone who is very strong in this area. And yet, my result came out just sitting on the border between low and moderate. Huh. This, also, is one of what I would consider the “easier” ones to excel in. How hard is it to be appreciative? To send a thank you note? To celebrate achievements and successes? But somehow, I’m just not doing great here. So – another one that I’m going to be more aware of, make a conscious effort to improve upon.

I must say that I appreciate these sorts of new age-ish exercises that Jackie has us do in this class (and in the previous one, Classroom Management). It is unlikely that I would independently choose to consider the Myers-Briggs in terms of how I teach, or that I’d write a personal inventory poem, or statement of educational philosophy. Or that I’d take this leadership inventory. And yet, each of these exercises has been quite enlightening, and has raised that bar a little higher. There is a big difference between knowing things about yourself, and articulating them. The process of articulating them involves a great deal of introspection and wrestling with inconsistencies in one’s self. So for that, I thank Jackie – I think it’ll make better teachers of us all.

Techno-peril, Part 1

It seems that every time I turn around, someone else is talking about technology in education. Is it beneficial? Will kids get more out of their education if much of it comes through technology? Or do they get enough outside of school, and should we stick to traditional ways of teaching and learning?

The more I see on this topic, the more I lean toward embracing technology in the classroom. (Yes, Mike, if you are reading this, I voted yea for technology). If for no other reason, I am dedicated to making education relevant to the kids I teach, and most kids are “in their zone” in front of a computer, or using their hand-held devices. So logically, to engage students, to really have them take an interest – we should be incorporating technology into our everyday school work. I think that’s what we are seeing, for instance, when we are given the example of the school division in North Carolina whose tech-equipped student body saw a huge increase in graduation rates, and in academic proficiency. If we can assume that the changes were attributable to the technology, I would toss in another assumption: that the technology was able to provide an environment that presented students with authentic and relevant materials, and that is why their performance was boosted.

I suppose I’m not on the extreme in this matter of technology in education … although I’ve heard some say that handwriting has become irrelevant other than signing your name, I’m really not there. I think it’s still important to know some old-school skills, like writing with a pen, and reading printed words on a paper page. In fact, as with other areas of focus, I would like to offer my kids choices … write it out or word process it. Hand-draw a graph or create one on Excel. It’d be great to use technology to your kids’ advantage in terms of knowing the applications well enough that they can take a look at the project, and know roughly what the advantages and disadvantages are doing it old-style or doing it on the computer. Flexibility from project to project, and student to student, should yield the best results because it allows each child to do what works best for him.

There are social justice issues inherent in the move toward technology. As school boards embrace the idea of using student-owned devices for in-class work, they are also providing school-supplied technology for those who do not have what is needed. Isn’t this just destined to become a have/have-not situation, in which the socio-economically struggling child will be using the outdated, broken-down school equipment? And isn’t this just a stepping stone to requiring students to own that equipment? I think it is. And I think that technology absolutely will highlight differences in wealth. When you combine those issues with the more practical issues such as security of personal devices, and responsibility for lost, stolen, and broken devices – I really think that it is best if we move ahead with changes in how we approach technology only as swiftly as we can afford to outfit ourselves (as school divisions). And incidentally, if done division by division, the same issues will arise, only on a school division scale rather than a student scale. The have/have-not divisions will result in significant variation in education from place to place within the same province.

There are so many issues tied to technology in education – I’m sure I could blog about an issue every day, for years, without running out of things to talk about. So clearly, I’m not going to address much here – just a few, hand-picked aspects...