Genealogy Education Vines

I felt that my genealogy was best displayed with the thought of a vineyard, as grape vines have to be continually nurtured and pruned to create the best wine. Here is the start:

First a few explanations- I feel that each and everyone of these people played a vital part in the growth of my vineyard of education, and their are still more to be added. The two "tear/rain drops" represent two amazing educators that left a lasting impression, but have since left us, and leaving an even harder learning experience of loosing people who were so influential. There are a few falling "dead" leaves that represent some of the educators who needed to be pruned, and their habits noted as weak and poor, therefore they have only taught me what not to be. What surprised you about your educational history? I was surprised at the magnitude of my list, and how vivid my memories of those people were, be it good or bad. I was not however surprised at how many names I put down as bad educators~ one of the many reasons I decided to go into education, be and do so much better than they had done. What patterns do you notice emerging? Interesting enough I found my roots of learning came from my parents, many of my beginning qualities I learned from them. I some how ended up with the post that helps to hold the grape vine being the two most influential art teachers. I love the way everyone is intertwined together to create my influence.  I have noticed that I have taken the qualities that I found so important in these people and have tried very much to put them into my teaching. Thinking about these specific qualities also gives me a good reminder of some of the qualities I had forgotten and thoroughly enjoyed, can't wait to re-invigorate my teaching and attitude with some oldie but goodies.

Week 1 article review

"The 12 qualities great teachers share"

Interesting article, though I feel that there are a few things I personally would add to my list:

13. The ability to be flexible, at all times. You have to be aware that plans change, lessons change, there is a fire drill, assembly, picture day, kids having a rough day because of something at home, kids puking on their table and project, administration making drastic curriculum changes just when you have things figured out... and so much more. Be prepare for changes and how to simply roll with the flow, allowing you and your students to be at your most successful.

14. Don't be afraid of failure and most of all Learning from that failure. Being able to be reflective and taking responsibility for a lesson gone south, but also being able to change your lessons to cater to the needs of our ever changing students, because failure happens and it's okay to say this isn't working and make the changes. It is also beneficial for our students to see that things may not always go right, but here's how you handle making work.

*This one isn't necessarily a quality of the teacher, but more importantly a quality of those that they choose to surround themselves with.
15. Every teacher needs a great support system. Making sure that you surround yourself with the people that will help you is vital. Picking people who you can seek advice from, get encouragement from, vent to, laugh with, and love you even on the days when you only want to hide under your desk due to wild children and poor choices you made. These people are the people who will push you through when you feel as though you are done, they will remind you why you do what you do each and every day, because there will be days you need them!

16. Keeping good physical and mental health. We spend our days worrying about those great minds we mold and many times we forget to take care of ourselves. You can only do your best, which means staying healthy, exercising to reduce stress, eating healthy, drinking plenty of water, giving your brain and self restful down town, and most of all (best for our mental health) having fun and laughing in and out of school. Healthy teachers help make happier teachers.

There are a few more thoughts on my list, but sometimes I feel that these had become more of a survival quality.
One of the things I enjoyed most about this list was how much our author clearly admired the teachers he was working with and found those qualities he enjoyed most about them. which brings me to final quality:
17. Have a great role models, strive to learn from them, with the goal of being at "that level."  Let the qualities you admire most in your role models be your compass for your learning and teaching adventure.

	Trait	ranking	Comments
1	Passion	1.5	Every once and a while I have to go looking for it again
2	Love of Kids	1	My best reminder- it’s the little things
3	Love for art	1.5	Most days :)
4	Understanding of the role of a school in a child's life	2	it's getting more clear with each year I teach
5	Willingness to change	2	I can sometimes resist to change because I can be uncomfortable
6	Work ethic	2	when I loose this it's my support team who reminds me of it
7	Willingness to reflect	2	sometimes "come to Jesus" moments can be hard to have with yourself, but it has gotten easier over time
8	Organization	2	It was going better before I was made to change… see below
9	Understanding that being a great teacher is a constant struggle to always improve	2	It's the motivation that can sometimes lack
10	Enough ego to survive the hard days	2	I can tend to doubt myself causing trouble
11	Enough humility to remember it's not about you	2	most days.
12	A willingness to work collaboratively	2	This is a two way street, but some days it can feel like a one way street.
13	Ability to be flexible	2	most days
14	Don't be afraid of failure	2	failure is not easy to swallow when it happens
15	Support System	1	The best around
16	Good Health	2.5	Still working on this being more of a priority
17	Having great role models	1.5	Most days I try to be those I admire
	1-Excelling, have strategies in place to maintain this level
	2-Good, developing strategies
	3-Fair, about half the time
	4-Need Support

I would very much agree with the qualities listed in our article, In fact #1-4 are for me the most important qualities you need everyday!  I find #8 to be a challenge for me, since my brain does not always work in the same was as my colleagues and especially my administration, It can stand out to some that my "organization" is not like theirs. However the way I organize works very well for me. 95% I know where things are within a minute of being asked for them, but I also believe in organized clutter. Over the last few years, and also because my administration said it's "their way" or a PIP I have had to change more organizational habits to look more like everyone else and to make the art room appear more similar to everyone else. This has resulted in mainly confusion on my part (where did I put that? where was it that I thought it belong to be more 'organized'?) but admittedly it has helped in a few aspects that I never knew I needed to fix (like having a clean desk in the mornings allows me to feel more prepared and less cluttered in my mind~ Unless of course I can remember where I 'organized' that handout to etc.). As I read these qualities, I was able to reflect upon myself and the work of my colleagues, some came to mind as great with a particular quality and others came to mind as someone who desperately needed to work on that quality. The beginning disclaimer "great teachers are as different as the students they teach" explains the real truth of it all, what makes us great and what makes a great team is that we all have different qualities that create greatness and the most conducive learning environment possible.

"Mrs. Schotte" Introduction

Hey all, for those of you I have not met (can't wait to meet more excellent art peeps), here is a bit about me. My name is Kelley Schotte, I am in the homestretch of my MU Master's Journey. I will be done after my summer courses and walk in December, it's bitter sweet, but excited and proud to be almost done. I teach K-5 art in Blue Springs, MO. This is my 4 year of teaching, and probably the most interesting thus far. I have a student teacher for the first half of the semester, he is my first student teaching... it's exciting and terrifying to be someone else example and mentor! It has also made me extremely reflective and analytical of my practices, more than I could have expected.
I have been to a slew of schools, I have my AA from Metropolitan community colleges in Kansas City, I did a semester at NWMSU during undergrad, and finally found my home and comfort in the 'burg' at UCM. And now here I am at MU for my Master's Degree and I could not be happier with this program :)
Being "Mrs. Schotte", and the art class everyone loves, has been the true motivation of everything I do! My 600+ artists make my day, everyday, and I love every minute of my journey teaching their sponge like minds. I am blessed to have an amazing support system of family, friends, and colleagues. Being surrounded by a great team of teacher/Master's students has opened doors to great new ideas and forever changed my teaching for the better, You all rock and I will be sad when I am not constantly surrounded by this utopian learning environment.
When I'm not being Mrs. Schotte, I spend time on the following: My family, my graduate work, reading and traveling. My husband, Brian, and I have been very fortunate to travel around the world, soaking up the art, food, wine, culture and sun! If I wasn't a teacher, I would find a way to be a professional foodie and wino that travels the world, making my own wine on the side of course.
I am excited to jump into this semester with my the drive of being more reflective and seeing how that can change my teaching and bring to light things we do everyday without a thought that are a vital part of our role as awesome art educators!!!

Read & React Story

Story- I feel as though story is something I relate to in many ways. But the best way I can think is that my Father and Grandfather are great storytellers. Oddly enough all of my Grandpa’s (5 total) were/are great storytellers in their own individual ways. So it’s funny to me that I was in the story group- like Father like Daughter J  I also feel that the ability to tell stories lends itself to the gift of gab. But on to the reading. It also helps that I was in the story group.

“Because in many ways, stories are how we remember.” (Pink 2005). This idea translates to the idea of how way back in time before we could write, people told stories to pass on the information and history of their ancestors. A great way that I learned something better was to turn around and explain it to someone else a tell the story of how I learned it.

Pink makes another great point, “What begins to matter more is the ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact.” (Pink 2005) Our students are inundate with facts or even non-fact that they believe are facts. As teachers when we deliver not just a story but also our lessons we have to deliver it with emotion and excitement.

I am very intrigued by this idea of a hero's journey. The hero’s journey- “just the same stories retold.” (Pink 2005) with a Departure, Initiation, and Return. Being a newer concept to me, I was totally surprised when I considered all the classics they were talking about and how they each contain the 3 basic parts. I'm watching Captain American and it has all three parts as well. I wonder how much story writing would change for students if we taught with this 3 part structure in mind. Many pieces of art work that tell a story contain the hero's journey.

“Scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we’re all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories.” (Pink 2005)  with Reference to how Xerox feels they need to run their business- they keep a database of all their stories of how to repair rather than the use of manuals. My father used to work in this manor, rather than teaching the new technicians about lasers from a manual, they would spend a few weeks with him on the road, doing hands on work and learning the stories of how things can go wrong/right.

There are two more statements that Pink made that really stuck with me:

“If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. ~ Barry Lopez” (Pink 2005)

“We are our stories” (Pink 2005)
Story was definitely one of my favorite senses!

Read & React Design

This chapter is not really my forte, but I did find the topic quite enjoyable.

The opening pages discussed an artist who visited school students and asked them to raise their hand if they were artists. The outcome of his question, they way less and less students raised their hands as they were older makes me so sad. I have fought very hard with my program at home to help my students realize they are all artists... But I still wonder what would happen if you asked my kids that when I was not around. I try to make it a point to always refer to them, as they are... artists, especially to their parents and the public. As Pink says, "it is a cautionary tale for our times." (Pink 2005) They need to continue to trust in their artistic decisions because it is those design types of decisions that will set them apart in the job market some day.

“Design, has become an essential aptitude for personal fulfillment and professional success for at least three reasons: good design is now more accessible than ever, design has become crucial for most modern business, and we’ll increasingly be able to deploy design for its ultimate purpose: changing the world.” (Pink 2005) That paragraph speaks volumes to the reasons our students and teachers need to be investing in the ideas and abilities of design. All of these reasons above shove the need for design for the future of businesses and even mankind; For design is everywhere around our students. It would be interesting to give my students the assignment to “keep a design notebook” or even “channel your annoyance” both of these activities would force students to stare at the designs that surround them, to analyze the choice that were made in that design, giving them a better understanding of how to design.

The CHAD school sounds like a dream come true!! Who wouldn’t want to teach there, I feel like I would love to be apart of their class to understand more about their “design-centered curriculum, which aims to use design to teach core academic subjects.” (Pink 2005)

“Design in its simplest form is the activity of creating solutions. Design is something that everyone does every day.” (Pink 2005) I enjoyed the idea of “why not” when it comes to designing a school that is aesthetically pleasing and comfort. I wonder if the choice to paint our entire school light poop brown and make it feel like a dreary hotel will poorly affect their test scores this year?!?! Especially considering those who made that decision were sent in to help clean up our testing score- Bahahaha, hate to say I told you so! Okay sorry enough of that rant. But my brain is pinging off a school from another country that Michelle talked about, where there are no classrooms, simply learning areas that are conducive to the different needs and styles of the students; Now that’s what I would call Great design.

Read & React 5

Lions and Tigers and Curriculum, OH MY!
Chapter 6 Eisner-
This chapter about curriculum didn't do a lot for me, but there were a few interesting tid-bits. The following quote makes me think about how my art fair is organized and what a simple snap shot it gives of my curriculum. “What I have suggested is the creation of educationally interpretive exhibitions that explain to viewers the features of the work on display and describe the forms of thinking that the child had to engage in to create such work”(Eisner 2002). Needless to say, I once again feel the need to do some serious reconstruction... just in baby steps. But SOOO many ideas are spinning around in my head that i know I will never settle for one great way for my curriculum. It will be forever changing like my students and myself.
The following quote makes me laugh out loud: “Thus, when policymakers and educational theorists define a curriculum for a school or a classroom, they are also defining the forms of thinking that are likely to be promoted in the school. They are, in effect, laying out an agenda for the development of mind” (Eisner 2002).   Wow, trying to think again about that snap shot of my curriculum and what that says about our artistic development... again, there is much room for improvement. 

Chapter 6 Freedman- This chapter offered an interesting view on curriculum. As we develop as teachers, our views on what curriculum should or should not be changes. Funny how we have been discussing the basic concepts for the common core and how our curriculum's need to give students the opportunity for creating, responding and presenting. "is a matter of revealing to students the ways in which curriculum is constituted through the actions of conducting research, reporting, "reading" and otherwise interpreting, planning and writing, and enacting, including the ways in which individual teachers come to understand curriculum structures and content and present these in class." (Freedman 2003) All of these ideas of what a really great curriculum should be are really beginning to connect together.
This is another one of those excellent art advocacy points that needs to be on a poster in the art room.
"and, in art education, the best outcomes are often those that are beyond 'the box' of the objectives in their creativity, imaginativeness, and originality. Art problems are authentic; they are some of the few problems in school for which the teacher does not know the answer." (Freedman 2003) This also a great reminder that there doesn't have to be 1 right answer, that there are many possibilities and that our students need to use this idea to keep that creative drive alive, always questioning and being okay with the unknown. I found that the scope and sequence for teaching visual culture examples for all art levels is something that is a great addition to helping with the development of big ideas for my curriculum~ Bonus :)


Visual Literacy White Paper-
Honestly this felt like a pamphlet for selling the ideas of teaching about visual literacy's. These were the lines that peaked my interest:

*  "To make meaning from the images, the ‘reader’ uses the critical skills of exploration, critique, and reflection"(Bamford).

*  "Visual literacy is what is seen with the eye and ‘seen’ with the mind. "(Bamford)

*  "Visual literacy also involves making judgements of the accuracy, validity and worth of the image." (Bamford).

*  "To be an effective communicator in today’s world, a person needs to be able to interpret, create and select images to convey a range of meanings." (Bamford)  PING-Kathy’s point about the three things our curriculum needs to do create, reflect and present!

*  "Visual literacy is a gradual process of gaining greater sophistication of perception, conception and visual and linguistic vocabulary." (Bamford)

The above points among many others were said in ways I had not heard before and allowed for more enlightenment on the ideas of visual literacy, if I wasn't already sold before, I certainly am now! The examples of visual syntax were interesting- may need to be a list in the room somewhere about ways to influence your art.

Part One Pink and Play chapter-
I was totally fascinated with the studies of the brain and the imagery used. If I wasn't so afraid of small spaces, I would totally want to do that.
I'm pretty sure I have read the chapter on Play for another class, but it was still a great review of wonderfully joyous things to think about. Pink makes several points that really impact what I need to think about with my students everyday.
*"He believes that laughter can function like a benevolent virus- that it can infect individuals, communities, even nations." (Pink 2005).
*"People rarely succeed at anything unless they are having fun doing it" (Pink 2005)
Both of these quotes put into perspective the ideas of how play and laughter can be used to elevate learning. Another point from Pink is the use of games to elevate learning, I'm not sure I totally agree with this idea, but I found it very interesting that Wardynski created the video games for the Army based on the idea of meeting people where they live. Isn't that what we as teachers should be doing each and everyday?!?! YES- So the more I read about gaming and how you can play, become someone else, experience something that maybe you couldn't in real life, might not be so bad after all. But I do have to say- What is anyone actually learning from games like GTA or Scareface.... NOTHING but bad attitudes influences and habits. From an educational standpoint, I agree children NEED to play... and since they don't go outside much anymore, they need to have an outlet for their imaginations. Looks like games are an options. I must admit when people ask me what I do for a living and I tell them I am an art teacher K-5, most respond along the lines of that must be nice, and I simply respond, I love my job, I get to play all day!

Daniel Pink’s interview with Oprah- 

Interesting, conversation, but I think I most enjoyed when Oprah said “And understand that it is only through story that you build connections.” Kind of ties into a lot of what Kathy says and how/what she explores in her art- Ping!

Read & React 4

Eisner-Describing Learning in the Visual Arts
Eisner even agrees with Dewey and Kathy- the importance of building a community where we can learn from each other. "It is also a function of what they learn from others as they become members of a community" (Eisner 2002). We develop that community feel in our current classes together. It is fortunate for me that even though I only see my students once a week, they are together in their home rooms as well and have that sense of community. After my students get to know me, we all try to take those risks together and I absolutely encourage the idea bouncing and discuss/learning. In the art room though I think it is very different than their classrooms. I have found that everyone seems to fit in, and many of those who may not fit in else where seem to feel right at home in our art room. "One of the potential virtues of situated learning is that it increases the probability that students will be able to apply what they have learned." (Eisner 2002) I think that they art room provides a more real world feel due to the types of discussions that students are willing to have, especially when you relate contemporary art to the contemporary issues- more of a risk taking conversation.
Eisner also made another great point that seems to be resonating, he spoke to the need for an experience that allows students to not only repeatedly use the media, but to experiment with it, find it's limitations and let the media guide the students choices. To just create with it. He likened this idea to the process of learning to play the piano, which I can relate to, it takes years and a lot of practice. I feel like this would be a great way to explain to parents why there child is coming home with experimental play art from different stations they are trying out and learning media play, rather than a bunch of finished products that doesn't truly allow them to investigate that media and it's capabilities.


Freedman-Interpreting Visual Culture
I was Pinging like crazy again with this chapter, resorting to a lot of thoughts from our Visual cultures class. Another ping from this statement, "The contribution of student interpretation to classroom discussion can be increasingly meaningful as they change their thinking through processes of critical reflection."(Freedman 2003) was to VTS. It is amazing to watch their wheels turn as they change their minds because of other ideas, or spending time away and thinking, only to come back so excited to tell me what else is happening.
"but a person does not have to visit an art museum to see forms of visual culture."(Freedman 2003)This point brings home the concepts that we as well as our other authors have been saying. Today's students are totally immersed in visual culture, heck it's probably even in their dreams :) Well it is for me!  But the reality is that our kids spend amazing amount of time taking in visual information and it's time to arm them with the skills to decode. I think about how often my students would (hopefully) change their perspective about a product or piece of information if they really understood what they were looking at.
PING- "The Impact of contemporary imagery has generated a wide range of sociopolitical and economic issues, including its influence on student identity, notions of citizenship, beliefs about democracy, and so on."(Freedman 2003) I'm Pinging from a comment that Michelle made in studio- but this statement and Michelle's point about needing to show our students contemporary art so that they can see how the artists are thinking and working with current topics! Great point, sometimes with the elementary art I am guilty of sticking to my old reliable favorites (oldies) and forgetting these is a whole new world of excited art that my students MUST be exposed too.
"If we want students to think critically about visual culture, they need to actively engage in reflecting on their own art and their responses to postmodern culture".(Freedman 2003) this keeps bringing me back to the idea of how important it is to spend time with your art and discuss it, reflect upon it, change it etc. I am looking for suggestions for quick and easy ways that my elementary kids can reflect on their work?
The following quote speaks for itself:
"The expanding realm of visual culture is not just worthy of study because it's out there, it is worthy of study because  it's in here; through art making and viewing, we shape our thinking about the world and about ourselves."(Freedman 2003)
And needs to be a quote on my wall for my kids, especially the final part of this thought. It makes me want to pose a very simple question to all I meet, Would you be who you are today without art?