Week 5

This week on Tuesday there was a sub in for Gary, so I helped the students as Gary would since the sub wasn't an "art person". One student who I was assigned to help last week was creating a ceramic chip/salsa plate. They had to create this using an interest of theirs. This student was creating the roman coliseum and wanted a "roman style statue" to hold up the dip container. This idea, from which I found out later, came from another where they were learning about Greek/Roman mythology. I offered the idea to the student that the figure could be similar to the titan Atlas. Atlas was the fellow who holds up the earth on his shoulders, but instead of the planet he could be supporting the dip. He thought this was a great idea and began telling me about Atlas and other titans and gods. This was an interesting discourse that sparked other students' conversation on mythological characters. I thought that this project should have this theme throughout the classroom considering how everyone was learning about mythology. I guided him on simple proportions and carving methods and it turned out very well. We had to beef up certain parts so it would be strong enough to hold up the dip bowl. I hope it turns out well.

This seemed like a good opportunity to have the entire class create choose a mythological figure to portray in this or similar project. I thought it was great that this student was using the new material he had been learning on his own in the art room. I learned here that students can make connections to other subjects very well and that teachers can learn from this on how to incorporate ideas for their projects. This all goes back to having a good collaboration with other teachers and developing cross curriculum projects.

Ponz showed me an interesting "free" 3-D program that students could use for a number of projects. The program can be used for making landscapes, architecture, and sculpture design. This would work well when having students create "their own spaces" dioramas and designing abstract sculptures, which are two of my curriculum ideas for my thesis. There are many possibilities for this program instead of having the students drawing the designs as usual. I'm not saying that this would replace drawing designs, but could be supplemented in particular or proper projects. After I messed around with the program, I looked into other free programs that were similar. Google Sketchup is easy to use and free as well. It's a little more simple and is geared more toward architecture. This is the program that is used for some Google earth applications.

Thursday I was a student again and Colquit Tanner gave me some pointers on the clay wheel. Colquit has been throwing for 30 + years. This is the second time I really tried this I must admit I was a little proud. The information he was giving to me was invaluable for me and my future students. I would still like to take Gary's adult class on Saturdays.

Raku ceramics and how different it is from traditional clays and firings. The Raku is interesting because it is fired at enormous temperatures, but is pulled out of the kiln immediately and put into a smoke box. If other clays were handled like that they would explode due to the temperature drop. The next thing I learned was about glazes. It was simple information, but will be useful to me in the future. Glazes are a science and need to be applied evenly like paint. Different colors on top of others will effect the way they turn out; and based on this they may turn out different every time. The best thing to do is to make sample tablets sot the students can view what they look like in general and how many coats to apply.

I learned many tings this week, but the main things was that teachers may try to make or supply an opportunity for students to make connections, but when it comes down to it, the connections that students make on their own are more interesting and honest, than when connections are implied too much by an educator.