I hear and I forget
I see and I remember
I do and I understand
I think this stood out to me because not only is it the way I personally learn, but I think a lot of other people can relate to this as well.When I was in school I never thought about being a teacher, actually it was quite the opposite. I thought about not being a teacher. My mother is teacher. She teaches 7th and 8th grade special education. And she does so much for them. I now aspire to be just like my mom because she is completely inspirational. But while I was in school I always thought I don't want to do that, I could never be that patient, I could never be that amazing. But as I got older I found my self saying 'How can I be like my mom, I want to help people, I want to show people what I see when I look at the world'. Art education became the answer. I always liked to make things and do things with my hands. But I only took one art class in high school because I was in band, and you could only do one. But when I got to college I decided to go for it and I took some intro art classes. I loved it and the next step was realizing that I wanted to bring this feeling to other people.
The article What Education Can Learn from the Arts by Elliot Eisner is striking. He is very clear about what he believes and I agree, visual arts provide so many opportunities to learners. In school I had a bad experience with an art class in fifth grade and I wasn't interested in taking anymore art classes for quite a while, and that was okay because I didn't have to. But it wasn't okay because I lost a lot of learning opportunities that way.
I believe that today more than ever a visual arts background is essential to students' education. We live in a culture surrounded and driven by images. In order to succeed students must know how to read these images. So many jobs today come from a visual arts background and to let students miss out on those chances is just as devastating as letting them slip through high school without knowing how to read a book or do math. Parents should be involved in every aspect of their children's education and that means art education too.
My program will be one that encourages students to bring knowledge from other areas into their art work and vice versa. Students will make connections to their world through the visual arts and become fluent in reading and responding to images.
I totally agree with "I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand". This is also the way I understand and I think it is how most of students will understand as well. Another saying I usually think of when trying to remember something is if I make a mistake I usually remember how to do it correctly about 82.6 percent better than I would if I did itcorrectly the first time.
ReplyDeleteI also love how while you were in school you never wanted to be a teacher. When did you decide that art education was your answer? Were you still in high school when you first started thing about it?
You did a great job of understanding how you will teach art. I also want to know how you would advocate for the arts. What will you say to the PTA on Back to School night about your program? Why is art important. I also want you to synthesize the Erikson, and Freedman articles in your manifesto.
ReplyDeleteYou brought up a point that I didn't catch on to at first. The fact that so much or our world in visual images is a great point. It's completely true. You can't anywhere or see anything without images being shoved in your face. This is a big part of life learning how to interpret the images and shuffle through the crap that gets put up all around us. How else will your students learn to do this other than art classes teaching them how to look at images and figure out what it is really trying to tell us.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you when you say "In order to succeed students must know how to read these images..." but not just from an occupational or educational standpoint. I believe that this is true even in social and financial contexts. We are constantly being bombarded with images that are trying to get us to do certain things, buy certain materials, expect certain things of ourselves - we need to be able to recognise when we are being duped and understand the difference between our actual values and our indoctrinated values. It is our duty, as educated people, to provide the background for other people to realise all of this.
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