Kerin-Week 2 Drama

Kerin-Week 2 Drama
Having lived in New Zealand for many years and experienced some scary earth tremors,  I could relate to the children and I had already heard from friends there that many families had relocated to Wellington from Christchurch for the start of the school year and then again been through violent tremors in Wellington and many children were retraumatised. The "Torn Cloth of Dreams" is a wonderful concept....the land of everything, recipes for magic threads, belief, hope, adventure and gathering dream dust were stuff from the imagination. I especially was drawn to the group holding hands, closing their eyes and jumping into a new land..... Imaginative, creative, escapist, childlike.
     All year from the beginning of term 1 and due to their teacher having a tough year, I have had the good fortune to take a regular grade 5/6 class. Relief teaching is not an ideal situation and a lot about behaviour management, so this is an important opportunity to develop relationships with students and learn on the job by trying different subject matter and teaching strategies to find out what works and what doesn’t, getting to know each student and how they  learn, what they are interested in and how they respond to me and also importantly, a chance to do some planning of hopefully engaging projects for the next time I am called in for them.
      Relief work teaches you to plan on the run in the car on your way to a job, have a good collection of resources laid out, ready to grab and to draw upon on all subject areas and for all levels and learn to improvise if something seems to be not quite working and the “natives are getting restless”. Ha ha!  There are some harsh wake up calls too when you realise that what is successful with one class can be a complete failure with another.
In primary school I was in the choir and took part in plays and have a fond memory of sitting on the front of the stage in a cowboy hat, swinging my legs and singing the songs from Oklahoma. However in high school, although I was a comedian and loved to hear my peers and friends laugh, I was painfully shy to stand up and speak or perform and went into a strange blank terrified zone. I have always been literally afraid of drama and resisted including it in my teaching knowledge BUT how things have changed. I now realise that drama can make a valuable and unique contribution to development by an enhanced awareness of self, and the surprise bonus is that they love it.
One day with the 5/6 class I decided to try drama to see what would happen. I thought they would groan when I told them but a huge cheer went up that nearly bowled me over. I was astounded. They quickly formed groups and made animal masks and organised what their performances were going to be about and who would take what parts.  I acted as the director between each performance. One group of boys didn’t make masks but did a play about learning to drive. It was very Australian and VERY funny and a confident performance. A few weeks later their regular teacher and the principal arranged for them to perform it at assembly. Luckily I was there with another class and felt so proud when my part in instigating it was acknowledged. Now I LOVE drama as a subject for teaching over several subject areas and also for establishing positive relationships with students.
Most importantly I really understand now why students love drama and art so much, because it is part of what they are as children.  Drama relates directly to play and imagination like playing cowboys and Indians and taking on an imagined persona and activities, and of course art stems from early mark making  when young children draw pictures and then “read” the story to you about what they have drawn. Art and drama are both “states of play” that young children are familiar with. They show their independence, creative thinking abilities and imagination.

Picasso was so wise when he said “All children are born artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up”.

 DRAMA Part A

The whole Fox case study struck a nerve with me with the realisation that drama can be based on picturebooks instead of just prepared plays and emotional performance activities. After some efforts, I managed to find a hard and soft cover copies in Hobart and what an inspiring work it is on many levels. With the case study for guidance I will make several lesson plans based on this book for both art and drama lessons. Fox by Margaret Wild and illustrated by Ron Brooks is evocatively Australian, tells of friendship and betrayal, supports teaching material on acceptance of those with differences and is certainly for middle to upper primary group and middle school. My regular class love being read to by the teacher.

I would consider the following strategies in teaching a drama workshop like Fox.

·         STORYTELLING - Gather the class around you in close proximity to each other. Read the story to the class with emotion and tension in your voice and body movements that relate to actions within the story.
·         TEACHER IN ROLE – I would show my physical interpretation of the creatures in the story ie blind dog, slinky fox and bird with injured wing.
·         THOUGHT TRACKING and SPOTLIGHTING – I like this questioning style where students can contribute with their own ideas about the characters they are acting out.
·         I would have students act out various animals with injuries and also interpret how animals who may not have visible injuries but be sad or bitter may act.
·         FREEZE FRAMES – I would have student groups freeze in their acting out of a scene so that other groups may have the opportunity to discuss what is happening.
·         I know that I would want students to write their own small plays including artwork of scenes.

 DRAMA Part B

Thanks Mark for attaching the Melbourne Declaration.
I have used some drama and acting out in primary classrooms especially with grades 3 & 4 for fractions. It helps them understand the concept. They tell us not to use pizza scenarios but the students relate to this humble food. I made a big drawn pizza in sections and put it together on the floor and did a story about hungry little rats in the city coming out to find food and they could rip the paper pizza and act like they were gobbling it up but it had to be in the fractions that were given.  It was a bit silly and we had fun but I think it helped in some small way.

I agree with you wholeheartedly that understanding and using the separating into Making, Presenting and Responding adds structure to the process. It also helps relate every stage directly to the specific sections for assessment in the curriculum documents.

 In one of the videos there were the words “dull transfers of knowledge” when referring to teaching strategies from the past. The constant downgrading of past teaching techniques sometimes irritates me as so many successful people in all walks of life have come through that system.  I loved and was engrossed by many of these transfers of knowledge. It all depends on the enthusiasm of the teacher and what the child may be interested in. I strongly believe that the students also need to learn to be settled and take in pure information at times and have a varied day at school. When there is play like activity often, the rampant students won’t engage in anything structured and selfishly stop other students from learning by acting up in class. I am often shocked by the low literacy and numeracy standards of my primary students who are taught using contemporary techniques.

Role play activities are excellent for getting the imagination working and directly related to play activities which become less as they age. For free downloadable primary drama lesson plans, visit shamble.net/pages/learning/performing/drama and a good internet site with lots of information and resources of strategies for drama is dramaresources.com.

 REFERENCES AND RESOURCES:
Drama in the Primary Curriculum. Retrieved from www.curriculumonline.ie

Drama Strategies by David Farmer, 2010-2013. Retrieved from
 http://dramaresource.com/stratagies

 

 

Mark - Week 3: Music

My Musical Story & Role of Music in My Life

Experiences

• Piano lessons with Mrs. Mumford

• Listening to Rage after waking up on a weekend

• Music class at school and my inability to read music

• Music festivals/concerts

I have two contrasting themes that run through my life regarding music. Firstly, how much I enjoy and appreciate what I perceive as good music, and secondly is my aversion to playing music myself. As a child growing up, myself and all my siblings were lucky enough to have been given piano lessons. At the time I detested these, as did my brothers. We saw it as eating into the daylight hours that we could have been playing cricket and football. I’m not sure if the teacher, the instrument or the fact that it wasn't sport or TV was the reason behind this but regardless I wasn’t a fan.

Alternatively, Pop, Rock and any other music that I enjoyed I feel completely the opposite about. Listening to music has the ability to evoke so many emotions, take you away from what you are doing or bring back memories like they were yesterday. In fact the irony is that I regret not being able to play music myself so I could strum out my favourite tune on the guitar or key a classical song on the piano. I’ve wondered if I had the opportunity to play the guitar instead of piano, would I have actually learnt it and put the effort in? The answer is probably not. The reality is that I still would have seen it as a waste of my time when I was younger. However as I’ve got older I appreciate music more and therefore what goes into playing an instrument. The skills that are within playing and instrument may assist within other academic domains, as I remember friends who played an instrument always seemed to  be smart! These days I really appreciate music, throwing the IPod in when I go for a run, listening to live music or unfortunately (for bystanders) hitting the dance floor at a wedding. I think as appreciate now days, the artistry that goes into music, whereas before I thought it was a few beats and sounds.

Soundscape
What amazed me from the video “Find a sound of your own” and after doing my mini soundscape was the place a random individual sound can hold in a piece of music. I really enjoyed how in adding them all together it started to resemble a flow and rhythm. I also like how in the video it showed the places for different tempo’s and percussion strikes. I’ll definitely try and incorporate this type of soundscape into a classroom, it maybe just as a working together exercise to show how small pieces of sound can add up to make a piece of music. Much like if everyone goes their little piece in a group task it can come together to complete a job. This really opened up my eyes to the possibilities with music, even for a self-proclaimed 'battler' in this domain.

Finally after reading Deep listening to the musical world and some of the other points posed this week I’m appreciating the difference in listening and hearing. More than anything has made me reflect on the use of music within the classroom may it be to teach or as calming influence. The points to consider in regards to music are greater than I’d ever considered in the past. The three phases of pedagogical listening allowed me to realise a little better how students are stimulated and engaged by music (Campbell, 2005).


Tool kit - Music

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/music-activities-for-kids2.htm
(TLC, 2013)

http://www.atlantasymphony.org/aso/asoassets/downloadcenter/Symphony%20Street%20Activity%20Sheets.pdf
(Atlanta Symphony, 2013)

I thought these might be able to assist in thinking of idea to make musical instruments if you were to your own soundscape in the classroom.


References
Atlanta Symphony. (2013). Make your own musical instruments. Retrieved from http://www.atlantasymphony.org/aso/asoassets/downloadcenter/Symphony%20Street%20Activity%20Sheets.pdf

Campbell, P. S. (2005). Deep Listening to the Musical World. Music Educators Journal, 92(1), 30-36.

TLC. (2013). Music activities for kids. Retrieved from http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/music-activities-for-kids2.htm

Mark - Week 2: Drama

Teaspoon of Light

It was really interesting to see how the use of the “cloth of dreams” was therapeutic to traumatised children. The imagination that the children developed within the video provided not only an outlet, but also a belief and hope. The use of drama, dance and arts in general within this particular setting allowed for the continued use of creativity, regardless of how strange it may have seemed. To me it shows that if in these circumstances the arts can be used in such an effective fashion, imagine the possibilities within our own classrooms. There was talk of “increased focus” for the children as the workshops continued, which shows a real benefit that can assist in all learning for students.

Drama – Part A

I really liked the warm up game - the evolution game/adaptation technique that was played within the case study (Sinclair, Jeanneret & O'Toole, 2012). To me it seemed like a perfect way to engage primary students into the drama workshop and also the animal characteristics of the characters within the book The Fox.  

Another strategy that I felt appealed to me in providing more information and allowing students to understand the characters was Hot-Seating. This is strategy where the students interview the teacher, who takes on the character's persona.  This aims to build up the students’ knowledge of the character. This is a technique I found in a website by David Farmer, which I will add to the toolkit (Farmer,  2013).

Conscience alley is a strategy that I also felt would fit within this workshop a primary setting. The whole class involvement, combined with brief sampling characters role-playing and then the persuasiveness required in character would be a great way for students to embrace their imagination and creativity.

Finally I would like to see their interpretations of another scenario through an actual Role-Play of a setting within the book. I feel this is where students can release themselves from worries and pressures and enter a world of imagination through their creative nature to help them develop understanding.

Drama – Part B

I’d never considered how the use of drama could be used in a Mathematics lesson. I have used Role-Play in Science before in my PE3 and saw benefits but not in the way it was executed in this video. It was great to see how the different techniques, like the "teacher in role" and how it could be used in practice. To start off with I thought there was a lot of drama and very little Maths, however the video continued I saw how they transitioned into a real mathematical problem. The students were engaged from the beginning and the motivation continued all the way through the lesson, I have definitely taken a lot out of this to hopefully put into practice.

Finally, I found after reading the Making, Presenting and Responding section within the text it gave me a more structured view to understanding the process involved. For example, I see the use of the initial games like the Dog, Bird and Fox game as drawing on aspects of “making” as outlined in Education in the Arts (Sinclair, Jeanneret & O'Toole, 2012). This gives me more confidence in structuring/incorporating a drama lesson within a classroom environment.

Tool Kit: Drama

This website was really useful in regard to strategies, however it also had planning ideas and was easy to follow.

http://dramaresource.com/

References 

Farmer, D. (2013). Drama Resource - Creative Ideas for Teaching Drama. Retrieved from http://dramaresource.com/

Sinclair, C., Jeanneret, N., & O’Toole, J. (2012). Education in the arts: Teaching and learning in the contemporary curriculum. South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.

Mark - Response to introduction and the reality of Arts in schools

Great summary, it seems like our backgrounds within Art are completely different, however I think that will assist both of us to learn off each other. It's great to see you've been able to use your love for Art and creativity throughout your working life thus far. I can imagine using these skills within primary classroom would make the learning experience in your class much more engaging and therefore effective.   

I really like how you mentioned the Melbourne Declaration, I have found this as really valuable reading. Like the moments you've mentioned, I too have had some fantastic experiences on my placements. It was great to see students go from being disengaged in some classroom situations to embracing learning when it has been delivered in a fashion that grabs at the senses, in domains such as drama, music and visual arts (Sinclair, Jeanneret & O'Toole, 2012). The week 1 readings have allowed me to gain an understanding of how it motivates and engages.     

Thought I'd add the link to the Melbourne Declaration as a useful tool also

http://www.mceecdya.edu.au/verve/_resources/national_declaration_on_the_educational_goals_for_young_australians.pdf

Sinclair, C., Jeanneret, N., & O’Toole, J. (2012). Education in the arts: Teaching and learning in the contemporary curriculum. South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.

Kerin-The Reality of Arts in Schools

Ken Robinson made some excellent points in promoting the importance of arts involvement in schools, like the federal governments Melbourne Declaration which I felt was an inspiring document that supported the Arts and elaborated on how the arts enhance learning in other areas and how they would become major learning areas within Australian schools.
Even though my experience is limited, I haven't found that this is necessarily so. All the high schools I have been in have moved on art teachers if they couldn't teach in other areas, packed away pottery wheels and big equipment, stopped whole school renovations when they reached the art room area, turned art rooms into maths classrooms and hired untrained art teachers because they could teach maths and SOSE. HOWEVER, this year, the big surprise has been primary schools. Many I have done relief in have specialty arts teachers and each class meets with these various teachers of art, drama, music etc every week or fortnight on average.  Richmond Primary School, where I work regularly, have a whole separate small building as a fully equipped art classroom and a drama lady has been doing some residency work with  small groups.
I am doing this unit because I have found that primary kids have a different attitude towards art than high school kids, grade 3/4 like sponges for constant new information, especially always want to rush from one activity to the next with not much consideration for aesthetics, planning or taking their time to consider anything. I felt I wanted to learn how to settle them down and help them commit more fully to a creative project. But that said I have seen these young kids produce amazing work and they mostly all love art and drama it is an excellent way to draw in the troubled unco-operative kids, and the ones who feel alone and picked on as well. Literacy and Numeracy always feature before lunch in primary schools but after lunch I usually do some sort of art project that ties in with science or environment etc. Most will engage strongly in something that is challenging and a bit too hard for them.
I have had some amazing teaching moments this year that bring a tear to my eye eg. I did drama with grade 5/6 and one of the plays was so hilarious that it was performed at the next assembly, that makes you feel proud, but the most significant has been with a boy called Hugo, moved to Richmond after Dunally school burnt down, is diabetic and felt picked on and even though a clever boy, did not want to do anything and often got angry. I ate my lunch with him in the classroom one day and had a nice chat about what he wants in life. I recognised his individual style in art, put him in charge of my microscope one lesson on microscopic images of hair, as being a responsible person, encouraged and helped him with maths.
Last time I was at the school, he and others invited me to come and see the rehearsal of grades 3 to 6 in a musical play he had organised with dancing and singing. I was the only teacher who bothered to go, some of the other teachers thought it inappropriate but I thought the kids were brilliant. He came up another time and said that I was his "favourite teacher". This brought tears to my eyes. Its just all about TAKING TIME with them and how much good and healing creative pursuits can achieve.The Arts have the power to turn a little life around from hopeless to amazing. My other big realisation is how much what happens at home affects the kids at school, especially negatively.
I've had some very scary kids who are basically just in pain and confused mentally because of what happens outside school eg. their older brother got bashed or the dog died or their mum is sick. School is a roller coaster of emotions sometimes for the teachers who have empathy for their students.

Introducing Kerin Smith

Hi Mark and thank you for your purposeful posts.
I did art all through high school and it was my whole purpose for being there..... for living in fact! I did a lot of ceramics, had my first exhibition at age 15 and sold 20 white clay bowls with paisley type designs glazed inside and produced some large hand built pieces for my major works for high stakes assessment in NSW. I took part in several commissions and group projects, did Level 1 to Grade 12 with extra training after school in art history and passed in the top 10% of the state. Our art teacher was amazing and inspirational simply in the calm and minimal way he interacted with us. "Call me Justin" he said when he walked in for the first time, treated us like adults and even met us on weekends and took us around the galleries in Paddington and Sydney. Also with my best friend Gail, we were the first 2 girls in NSW to do Technical Drawing in high school in the 1960's. I loved lino printing, did a lot of black and white designs and loved the German Expressionists and prehistoric and the art of Crete were my favourite eras. My life has been all about creativity and producing useful things and I have made money from my art all my adult life. I have studied overseas, various art courses in UK, NZ and Navajo rug weaving in Arizona. Have Diploma in Textiles and Design TAFE in Sydney and Vis Arts degree from Curtin Uni in Western Australia and really want to apply for some art/textile teaching jobs over there but tied down to my house in Rose Bay.
Buried myself in creativity from a young age, had my own business as artist and weaver in NZ for 12 years, worked as graphic artist in Hobart in the 90's, now involved in gallery admin and creative accounting!!! at Detached Contemporary Art Gallery (private collection, residencies, MONA FOMA etc) working with Access Art at TMAG and MONA. I like going to Tas Art Teacher Association events and PD's. I am a practicing artist and exhibit and also a musician.
I already have my Masters Teach Secondary but have been called in regularly all year as relief teacher in many primary schools so I am doing primary units in order to improve my job prospects.  As an older career changer, my teaching is informed by a wealth of life experience and lots of stories.  I am in Limboland this year, still on a journey of study and wish so much I could get a full time teaching job and leave my office job behind instead of having to juggle it with relief teaching. Its not much fun teaching all day then having to do lonely office work at night.
Cheers Kerin

Mark - Creativity and Education

Tool Kit
I had seen this before and thought it would be an interesting video to upload.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U 

Given the Ken Robinson talk in the tutorial activities and the videos creative nature, I thought it would be worth having in the Blog. To me it was engaging and shows how any art/drawing can help convey the message being addressed, just like was mentioned throughout week 1. 
Ken Robinson's messages resonate with me, it shows just how important creativity is with all students. The challenge for me is to enable students apply of this within the classroom.   

Mark

Mark - Introduction and Art Experience...

Even though we've introduced each other over email, I thought I'd put it on the Blog as a start. 
My name is Mark Stewart and I'm in my second year of the MTeach. At school I did do art (even though I was poor at it) and really enjoyed it, more for the fact that I viewed it as a lesson to cruise through, and a good way to get out of a normal classroom. I always thought of good art as being a painting/drawing that was so detailed that it could be a picture. As I've got older I've realised there's a lot more to it and many different art domains as was outlined in the week 1 readings.

The three art experiences that stick out to me over my life have been varied from a school experience to other in everyday life.

- Firstly, I was in about grade 7 when we were allowed to choose our own 'type' of art to draw. I immediately chose 'Pop Art', the type that looked like cartoons. I actually really enjoyed these art lessons for the fact that I enjoyed the experience and art I was creating, rather than the idea of being out of a normal classroom. 

- My second experience was being in Canberra at a young age and viewing Blue Poles by Jackson Pollock. I remember being told it cost millions, I couldn't believe how a whole canvas of squiggles could be worth so much. The best experience came when it dawned on me that maybe I could earn millions from a bunch of squiggles on a page... For some reason that hasn't happened yet!       

- Lastly, I attended MONA when it first opened. I really enjoyed just how awesome the building itself was, having been cut into the side of rock. I thought the fountain with the words coming down from it was very cool, however there were other aspects I didn't find at all that interesting. 

I guess it makes you realise that art is so wide ranging and varied that there will usually be something appeals to the senses no matter who you are. Due to this range the application within a primary classroom not only can cross curriculum's but also aide in creativity and a deeper understanding. 

Mark

Mark - Second Entry

I also agree to contribute 50% to this Blog and accept that, in the summative assessment we will both receive the same mark. Mark Stewart

Kerin - First entry

I agree to contribute 50% to this Blog and I accept that, in the summative assessment, we will both receive the same mark. Kerin Smith