NOTES 5/2

WHAT DO YOU NOTICE?

There's a diverse spectrum of work. The small things that they notice in life. As they get older they become more perceptually aware. They become more focused in perceiving. Across all the art work, each one possesses a really great personality and voice of each student. Nothing was haphazardly done. Personal voice, and Personal Voice of the Teacher. Empowering the voice of the individual so they can become expressive and really are in possession of a thoughtful repertoire of possibility. The growth of a competence with materials. Things can sometimes be shaky with middle school. 

Drawings of labels. How you created a label from something that was inside a box or jar. Jar of strawberry jam. 

More discriminating and perceptually aware. 

The teachers really gave a scope for the children to explore their visual curiosity.

Developmental range in the works. 

So many variations and so many interpretations. 

There is no one way of doing something. 

There is a lot of overlap and kids will go back and forth. 

There is always this overlap between kids moving forward and kids moving back. 

New means, new repertoire, in order to give new meanings to what they make. 

WHAT DO YOU SEE IN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE SCHOOL, AND HIGHSCHOOL?

There's a narrative seen in many of the works. Sometimes middle and elementary. 

Theres a sense of freedom of trying to make something look real. The work has an energy and life that doesn't have care of what the person looks like. 

High-school, how to make things look real. Surrealist work, make the weirdest painting you can make. 

The issues of making it look real. Let them find their way through that in terms of their own personal imagery. 

People interpret things in very different ways. 

Is a portrait by a cubist painter any less real or right than a Rembrandt? 

You could argue that a cubist is more real because they are giving you more information and references. 

Or 

Well it lacks the deep expressivity of a Rembrandt. 

There's different markers. They are not to be compared from one another, they are the same. 

Young people are beginning to envision the whole world from multiple perspectives. You can look at things from many different perceptions. 

Depiction of volume is a cognitive trait. 

Trying to now integrate difference perceptions of the world. 

Wonderful opportunity to play with these ideas. 

There's a basic pre-disposition to reexamine the world in middle school years. also becoming critical of the world. 

Erikson, who tells me what the truth is. Is there one truth, who tells it. 

Well it depends (middle adolescence) 

Many children's drawing incorporate words and images. What do words say? Students can see in different ways of imagination. It works in relation to our experiences. 

Incorporation of social justice is good. 

It is important to understand that the imagination is a cognitive activity. 

Help kids be curious, help them ask questions. 

Imaging things that take their minds and thinking forward. 

It's so important for kids to know that they can use their imaginations and there's somewhere for them to go internally. 

How things might be otherwise. 

Words extend the image. 

Conversely, when kids are writing, and teachers says make an illustration of their writing. That is not trying to double up, but see if you can help them extend a verbal idea into a visual form. 

EXTEND EACH OTHER 

Think about that tree differently. New information from thinking different ways. 

Symbol systems allow us to extend out knowledge. 

In the early years they are understanding using materials, gradually out of that comes this story telling, out of that comes their interest in specific imagery. 

Expanding of the world. You have cognition changing, the environment changes. Process of transformation. 

Ideas are running a head what is in their repertoire. It had nothing what so ever with being gifted or talented it has something to do with being human. 

We need to really go back to play. 

Not how they perceive the world, how they experience the world. 

One of the things we need to do pedagogically is take them back to play. Going back to focused play, serious play. Open up the possibilities of new and open experiences.

Middle school, transitional period of questioning and disjunction. 
Finding your own personal style and identity.  

Finding own sense of self and a long is a sense of style. 

With a good community you can make something work really well. 

WHAT QUESTIONS DO YOU HAVE? 

What was the dialogue like? What would these images look like in a different medium? Technology in the classroom? There's not much technology out there. 

WHAT KIND OF RESEARCH DO YOU THINK WE NEED MORE OF? 

I think we need more quantitate research 



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What material would be best for your idea? 

First thing you do is problematize it.

Why do you think its like that? What made you say that? Without giving any judgments. That's what the spark is, to problematize it. Ask them to re think things, to think differently. Why did you say that? What else does anyone see. 

Why would anyone make something like this? 

Where do you think it's from? 

HAS ANYBODY GOT ANOTHER IDEA. 

Make them figure it out for themselves and come to their own conclusions. 

If you could take it home and put in anywhere in your house, where would you put it? 

How can i get to know this object differently. Affirm when they are on the right track.