Yes indeed i wrote a book!!

There has been a change in the winds.

What is it?

Well fellow people I have many things that I have wanted to show off and do on this site. I have said that I want to show off my book that I wrote and to update this blog site as much as I can with as many as I can. So today is the start of that. I will be posting in some regular format sometime soon.

The only thing more daunting than going to a classroom to observe them is that now you must teach them. It’s almost like a teacher’s point is not to blend in with all the background noise. I had a perfect time as a silent observer in my time with Mrs. Jane Hidalgo, but having the chance to be with Mrs. Ashly Ciccotelli was just something different. This time, I had to make my presence known and simultaneously get to know everyone there. This is my reflection on the time and data that I got and learned from when I was a student teacher at PS 34Q with Mrs. Jane Hidalgo and PS 31Q with Mrs. Ashly Ciccotelli.

In examining the art programs at P.S. 34Q and P.S. 31Q, there are notable differences in the resources and opportunities available to students. Through analysis of available data, we can gain insight into the strengths and weaknesses of each program and identify areas for improvement. The first thing I think about is the classroom location and shape. The way a student finds their way to the classroom and the classroom is set up. Both schools had a good setup, with PS 34 making a better example. The classroom was open and allowed the students to move freely through and around it throughout class time. But that may be too much freedom for the school. It allowed me to move and see anyone’s picture at once. The classroom in PS 31Q is tucked away above the school gym. It was not the best location for someone like me who was directly challenged and had yet to learn how to get there until someone showed me where.

The resources in the schools were deftly different. One different thing was that PS 31Q had an enormous closet to store away more items and fill up with more variety. It was the way that the classroom was tucked in and hidden so well that the space was just bigger. The room used to be a gym changing room for away teams and looks like one. The room in PS34Q was big and spacious, but the storage needed to be more extensive, and I wish I had more places to fit more things. This makes having the supplies to do different activities very difficult. The regular stores were out of what they had. Other than a floating rolling tray of collections around the room.

The pace of the classes was about the same speed. The art that the students created was very different. The students in the art class for Mrs. Hidalgo were all from grades 2-4, while the grades in Mrs. Ciccotelli’s classroom were kindergarten to 6^th grade. So, the difference is the amount of work the teachers do for the kids when one teacher is masking all one classroom lesson plan instead of multiple classroom plans for various levels of classes. One of the teachers had more things to do and to prepare for than the other.             My involvement in them and how they changed my look at how these two teachers taught and interacted with me changed. They intended to teach me all that they knew, and they taught me about the world and how to navigate the classroom.  From where they were to where I was and where I am, I know they were doing their best with the resources they were handed.

From a very young age, I knew I was “the creative one” of my family, and I knew that that had made me different. Or at least different from the people in my family. Now I view creativity as something we all have in different ways and need in everyday life and jobs. But the question still stands: what is creativity? And what role does it have in the art classroom? We can go over all the definitions, but creativity is the ability to make, create or develop many ideas. This is very important because, as a teacher, you must be creative with classroom things. Things like seating charts and lesson plans. All these things must be put together and work perfectly, so making this takes a lot of work and creativity. It is essential that in the art classroom that creativity has been pushed tenfold, not only with the posters on the walls and signs that help students understand things but also with the organization of the whole classroom. to the way the class is taught, creativity is employed. 

My artifact is an acrylic paint brush pen. As an artist I have always loved the art of painting and as a professional I prefer the feel of acrylic paint. So when these pens came to me I immediately loved them. The testing that I used was to go through all the mediums of paper that I had. First of course there was canvas and canvas paper. That was the best result that i had with them i got a beautiful color wheel and pride flag. We went to black paper and newsprint and many others and I realized that the color doesn’t dull and doesn’t need water because it was a pigment brush. Then I tried other surfaces around me. Glass and plastic surfaces on electronics.

I think it was the amount of exploration that I had made for all the mediums that I had used. Then there was a thought that maybe i don’t need to change my mediums but maybe the way i was using the pens. So the idea was to use the pens with different parts of my body. First left hand then mouth and ect. To try and see if the control and feel of the pens were still there. Of course I had problems holding the pens in places like elbows and feet.