Read and React~
Well this weeks readings make me smile- One of my books I read for this class was all about Play! I love the idea of the freedom that play provides our students. It helps them to grow and experiment, and most importantly learn. I am loving the idea of "Jason's" ceramics play assignment~ This is my assignment to myself tomorrow when I get to work, simply playing with the clay to see where it leads me and what ideas it leads me to, without the thought of a finished project idea- Just good old fashioned play :)
Which brings me to another thought that I kept having during this unit and if I don't get it out now, I will not be able to focus on the rest of the assignments at hand. So here was my thought.... What if my room was for artistic play? What if I could teach art for elementary kids in a way that resembles middle/high school level? What if my lessons were more open and not so regimented and structured? What would that look like you and I both are asking~ maybe instead of a seating chart we would simply have play stations. These stations would hold different media for students to play and become familiar with. The idea being that they I could still use my curriculum and standards to guide us, but they would not be working at the same assignment as another student. Maybe that means I would need to have video prompts with information about the particular media they are playing with, like mini lectures with the research links so that students could spend time using their brain to learn and play! Ha it sounds so Artopia- but doable...
What stands in the way? It has to connect to the required gle's etc. Can a kindergarten student handle this... Maybe with practice, or is this too much of an independent work time all year for my elementary kids?!?! Also I feel a lot of 3-d projects would emerge from this exploration, how am I going to store all of that?
This could be a really cool way for me to run my 3-5 grade classes, but it would be difficult to change out the stations everyday to prep for a totally different style of teaching for K-2.
Any thoughts/idea/creative input would be greatly appreciated :)
Back to the reading. So I really enjoyed the idea of the teacher who had her kids "sketching with clay" and creating things just to smash it. Ahhh this could open some amazing doors for some of my kids, yet cause major melt downs for others. This idea of stretching and exploration is something that should be implemented into curriculum's more. I think students do this in writing and other creative classes, but as many of the speakers and writers from this week stated, everything is very serious now in education. Many believe that you cannot learn while playing, that you are simply using silliness and not gaining anything. What a genius idea to wear a white suit to a meeting, and then write all over each other... the meeting comes back with you, always there for you to refer back to, but then you can take it off "and the really work/fun begins." I once watched a documentary about an inner city school who gained a new principal and many new staff members that ran the school to be more student exploration driven~ Long story short, it was a very different feel than the traditional classroom today, and the line/wait list to get in was huge. The students were motivated by the fact that their education was made to fit their interests and needs. They were allowed to play and learn freely. Still gaining the concepts needed, but in a more self satisfying way. Wow- what a way to teach and learn :) One of the videos made the comment that when we play, we are learning in a fully encompassing way. With more implementation of play as a teaching strategies, I do believe students will not only be happier, but also better learners, and more creative problem solvers, as well as great with groups, but will learn how to be more independent learners and explorers!
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