PLACE BASED EDUCATION, SERVICE-LEARNING, SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES
EXEMPLARS from Community Works Institute |
Reality Teaching
by Dianne Turner, Professor of Art Education
California State, Bakerfield
Introduction
Pre-service education courses rely on the attitude and beliefs of those who choose to become educators. The most common beliefs among pre-service elementary classroom teachers in our Liberal Studies and Child Development Programs are that teaching is easy (because they themselves have gone through the public education system and think that they know what to do) and that the only thing they need to succeed is their love of children. Because there is a need for art at the elementary level in the Kern County region, and a need to educate pre-service elementary teachers in teaching art, an art institute at the University was established. The art institute provides collaborative partnerships with two schools whose parent clubs sponsor the programs, an art day for children on campus where art workshops are taught by pre-service teachers to families of patrons of the university, and a summer art institute which features children on campus for a two week art experience in drawing, painting and ceramics. The summer art institute features an artist-in-residence.
This paper will focus on the experiences of the pre-service students in the school partnerships. That is the largest part of the art institute at this time.
The California State University Bakersfield Children’s Art Institute (CAI)
The mission of the CSUB Children’s Art Institute is to serve as a primary public opportunity for showcasing academic year and summer education in the visual arts. The CSUB Children’s Art Institute, located on the University campus, represents high quality education through prospective classroom teachers’ experiencing a practicum teaching experience-utilizing University art facilities and the Todd Madigan Art Gallery. Dedicated to exploring various media, art history and art themes, the CSUB Children’s Art Institute strives to educate and enlighten the University community as well as the greater Kern County, CA community. The CSUB Children’s Art Institute was established to provide cultural enrichment to members of greater Kern County and honor the memory of Jane W. Turner. The Institute was made possible by the University and private donations.
The role of pre-service teachers and the CAI
Unfortunately students face a harsh reality when confronted with the tasks at hand outlined on course syllabi. In a course at our junior level pre-credential University course entitled “Art in the Elementary School” students not only learn the theories of art education in the classroom but the realities of teaching by participating in a collaborative effort between a local elementary school principal, faculty and University faculty. A study (1975) found that generally pre-service teachers are confident and enthusiastic about their abilities to teach effectively. That is true of our pre-service elementary teachers as well. However, that enthusiasm wanes as they learn of the course expectations and their beliefs about themselves are put to the test. The CAI establishes goals that assist the pre-service teachers in their pursuit of teaching art. These goals are aligned with their experiences in the classroom. The goals are:
• To support the professional education and research mission of the School of Education, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, through children’s art
• To provide a teaching model for CSUB’s prospective classroom, special education, early childhood, and art teachers through experiencing a hands- on teaching opportunity
• To be recognized for the study and exploration of art through culminating children’s art exhibitions and including artists represented at CSUB’s Todd Madigan Gallery
• To be recognized as: a center of study for children’s art in the state of California; a center that seeks to combine scholarship across disciplines through the visual arts
 Initial Beliefs
Our collaborative program with Ronald Reagan Elementary School in Bakersfield, California is set up so that the students are actually teaching in an assigned classroom for a total of four to five art lessons that require them to not only teach the lesson but teach it using power point to show imagery as well. Students who initially say they are enthused to be in a course about teaching question their own thoughts as they didn’t anticipate being put into a classroom so early on in their academic preparation.
The transformation of student attitudes and beliefs from the first day of the course to the last is one that enormously benefits both the students and the children whom they are teaching. The course requires that students have knowledge in child art development, writing and employing lesson plans, using technology in the classroom to show visuals and make main points, know how to create and make artwork with some facility and ease, and present a culminating activity in their classroom via a final exhibition and reception of all of the children’s art projects completed in the course.
Realizations considered in students are the 1) amount of confidence the experience provides for the student 2) the ease of the transition from being a student to a teacher, 3) the benefit to the cooperating mentor teachers in the classroom, 4) the adaptation of a professional attitude beyond being a University student, 5) the realization the teaching is hard work, and 7) that ideals are important, but relationships in the classroom and community are essential to the success of teaching endeavors.
Encouraging Confidence
A recent study involving learning styles of elementary pre-service teachers shows that the research that has been done suggests that elementary pre-service teachers often have been characterized as global or right-brain learners who initially seek the big picture and prefer to think in a divergent manner. The study further found that elementary pre- service teachers are conceptual learners or ones that preferred to learn with language-oriented methods such through lecture and reading. The students in the Cal State program are introduced to teaching in the classroom by experiencing modeling by the course instructor first and then asked to work in cooperative groups to then put the theories into practice. This includes the entire class studying the same artists and lesson plans that are introduced in to the classroom and having all art materials paid for and provided by the school’s parent teacher association. So some of the pressures of having to write and implement original plans and ordering are alleviated prior to the students entering the classroom.
Learning About Art Through Teaching
Artists chosen for this experience include those that are renowned. Projects are developed so that each quarter children in the elementary school experience a drawing, painting, and three-dimensional experience. The projects are accompanied by power point presentations that include a repertoire of works by each artist. In addition, the University students make themselves nametags that reflect the theme of the artist’s works. The artists selected for use in the schools include: Georgia O’Keeffe, Bridget Riley, Romare Beardon, Edward Hicks, Ed Ruscha, Frederic Remington, Grandma Moses, Roy Lichtenstein, Georges Seurat, Louise Neveloson, Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, Gilbert Stuart, Judy Chicago, Pablo Picasso, Claus Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Rene Magritte, Joan Miro, and many many more. Students teaching the elementary students frequently cite that they would like to learn more about art and teaching art after the experience of the five model lessons.
Student-Teacher Transitioning
Students’ initial reality of transforming into a professional is brought on by their own personal perspectives that they are not as prepared as some of their colleagues. According to a study published in 2004, the realization that individuals bring multiple experiences and perspectives to the classroom in turn the expectation that all program graduates will leave with the same, normative understandings demanded by the increased emphasis on professional standards for beginning teachers. Students who participate in the program have noted that they are intimidated by first meeting the classroom teacher and viewing the classroom set up.
Attitudes Toward Teaching
At the conclusion of their teaching experience which includes putting on a final art exhibition complete with inviting parents and administrators to the classroom and giving a power point presentation to explain the artistic process, students are asked to provide a reflection following their pre service teaching experience. One of the questions students must answer in their reflection is “which part of teaching the art lesson did they personally enjoy the most and why?” . Students most frequently respond to this with how they were able to take the basic model lesson plan that they were given in class to follow and go beyond it to provide a more meaningful teaching motivation. Whether it be by means of enhancing the lesson with their own set of visuals, a story relevant to the concept of the artist, a vocabulary game of some sort, or charts that the students make to help with the directions of the lesson.
Students also develop more confidence about their own artistic abilities through teaching it to children. Initially in class when asked to rate their artistic skills the first day of class, the average rating is a five or below out of a possible ten. Research findings in art education about pre service teachers in the art classroom indicates that the close observation and conversation with young children seems to help pre service teachers in a number of ways. These include finding that some are relieved to know that they can talk and work with young children. As a result many become fascinated with the way in which each child seems to go about solving the problems of graphic representation. Most are amazed to find that their results are consistent with the findings of published researchers.
Teaching Realities
For many of the students in the Cal State course the pr- service experience provides the harsh reality that teaching is hard work. Many observe that they see their college professors teaching everyday and think of how easy it must be without realizing the amount of time and preparation it took to get to that one lecture. Another reflective question the Cal State students are asked at the end of the course is to describe the children’s attitude toward the art lesson. Some children may be more oriented toward two-dimensional projects while others may be motivated by three-dimensional type projects. There are other children that may enjoy learning about the historical significance of the artist studies in the lessons. This question answers some of the most difficult realities of teaching for the pre service elementary teacher at Cal State. Because they must think for themselves how to engage those students who approach and think of art differently. They have to work with individuals who progress at a faster working pace than others, or those that think their artwork is finished way before others have just begun.
Students are often surprised when at the final exhibition reception when they have a chance to meet and greet parents of the class that parents can practically cite verbatim what the pre service teacher has said to the child to motivate them to learn about art. It is at this time that the students realize the impact of their teaching and slowly begin to see themselves as more of a teacher versus a student. All because they see that they have made a lasting impression, which the children have brought home.
Extended Outlook
The experience of having pre-service elementary classroom teachers working at the junior level has benefited those who take the course (the course is an elective within a requirement at Cal State) in many ways. The students cite that they are confident upon entering the classroom, know how to interact with a master teacher, know how to interact with children, look for alternative ways to introduce a concept to children and realize the importance of writing out a lesson plan. Research about types of learners and style preferences in pre service elementary teachers recently revealed that preferences of pre- service elementary teachers indicate that they are more inclined toward visual learning, are extroverted and are global learners. This experience has proven that the earlier a pre-service teacher can spend with responsibilities in the classroom, the more motivated and prepared it makes them for their credential work.
About the Images Above:
First Image: Examples of Culminating Exhibitions in individual classrooms at Reagan School. Artists represented in these exhibitions include Wayne Thiebaud (his series on gumball machines and a discussion on his marketing techniques with art), Winslow Homer (a discussion on his life in the Bahamas and how that influenced his work with watercolor paintings) and Judy Chicago (her interest in feminism and recognition of famous women in “The Dinner Party”).
Second Image: To reinforce the theme of the artist, pre-service students dress up and make nametags that reflect the ideas of the artists for each lesson. This group was teaching a lesson on Remington’s “The Bronco Buster”.
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