First off, I love that the book acknowledges "We will shape and reshape and revise our question many times!" Which is encouraging! But also worry some, how many times will I "fix" my question? I don't want to waste research time, but know that it is going to be helpful for me to narrow down my topic.
I want to take a step back to "what's bothering me." New topic/question
This past school year, a new kindergartner arrived that challenged my way of thinking. Let's call him K for now. You see K is extremely visually impaired, it is also important to know that my elementary has now become with visual school for our district with about 10 kiddos that are visually impaired. K arrived about a month into the school year, and we were told that he was totally blind. As the year progressed we learned he can see more than we realized. For example, on track and field day, he looked up in the sky and said "what's that?" referring to the big black cloud in the middle of the blue sky. His communication skills are extremely low, but he can do things like "K can you take the ball from my hand" when it it a several inches from his face. We are not totally aware of how extreme his visual disability is, plain and simple, he cannot communicate what he can and cannot see. He came to art every week with his fellow classmates, about 21 other kindergartners. He had a table to himself and a para-professional. She and the specialist didn't know much for him to do, nor did I. As a team we have struggled through this year to get a grasp on how we can teach K. He is still nowhere near a Kindergarten functioning level, and will move in to first grade next year. His specialist have almost no suggestions for me, and it has become evident that I am on my own for how to teach him.
So this summers up my current problem I would like to look at tonight and possibly research. How can I teach the glories of art when the biggest sensory component is basically "out of order" for lack of a better term?
Explore Trial Questions
Teaching Practices
*How can I better myself to communicate the ideas of art to a child that is blind?
*Do I spend one-on-one time weekly only or do I continue to spend only a short few minutes with K and give instructions for the Para every class? (this question sounds bad, I know, but I will only have segments of 5-15 minutes for my "plan time" next year, and It was almost impossible to keep a large of group of Kindergartners busy and working on their own long enough for me to spend 5 minutes each class with K).
*At what point to do we say, maybe we are not equipped and trained enough to be an effective teacher for K? (Which brings me right back to the first question of how then can I better myself?)
* How do I get student motivated to understand something that is mainly about the visual aspect?
Curriculum
* How do I even come close to meeting my standards with this child, if he can't even answer yes or no to a question without adult prompts?
*How do you adapt your lessons without totally loosing the concepts?
Position yourself in relation to the question
I feel as though in this area I am going "blind" myself. This seems to be slightly uncharted territory among my colleagues. There is not a lot of support, help, advice, suggestions, training. So my training thus far has not prepared me to feel even remotely successful as a teacher of K.
When you raise the question "are we adequately prepared to handle this hurdle?" people get offended and upset. This study would serve K first and foremost, but also myself and my program. The hidden bias is that the VI specialists have been working really hard. So they immediately come to the defense of the VI program rather than looking at what is truly best in ALL aspects for K.
I think they assume that information should be easy enough to find, and as always "well it's not like he is going to be great in art anyway"..... (Soap box moment) Ahhh how dare you assume that this child or any for that matter will not be "great" at art due to their visual disabilities. If you really feel this to be true, then why are you wasting my teaching time and this child's learning time if you really don't feel it is going to be valuable to him. I could go on, but there is no point in getting the blood pressure too high. I don't feel that changing my question would do my student the justice of a fight for all areas of his education! I like to grab the bull by the horns... so let's get this problem fixed and ask the difficult questions even if it makes us uncomfortable.
Refine Your Question
I feel like my question is clear as it pertains to my teaching and K.
That was like a brainstorming/questioning rant session, but I am hopeful that even if this is not my research purpose this summer, someone can shed some light on the areas that are very dark gray for me.
I think this would make very interesting research. I would pursue this area of inquiry because it will have a satisfying and educative outcome for you and K and the rest of your faculty. I think you should concentrate on sensory materials for him and invite him to manipulate clay and other forms of media that are tactile. I am very interested in what you find when you do your googleography for Chapter 3.
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