ITM Ex.7- pg.10 3c

The following is my chart from the excerize. I decided to put the categories in order of what is the most important to least important in terms of building my identity.

1. familty-- sister: Ellen is my best friend and one of the strongest people I know. She inspires me to be myself and ignore the pressures in life that might try to change that. She makes me laugh and I love her so much.

2. gender-- female: I am proud of being a woman and I try to embrace my feminine qualities. All my role models (except my dad) have been female and that is what makes this important.

3. sexual orientation-- straight: I strongly believe love is love and I am open to all orientations but mine defines my identity because my boy friend plays a huge role in my life and like my sister he inspires me to be who I am. This keeps me going and makes me who I am

4. preferred leisure activity--art!: My artistic self makes me confident, creative, challenged, and happy and I am lucky enough for it to be my career too!

5. state of health--healthy: In the last few years I have realized how lucky I am to be so healthy and know that this does not limit what I love to do.

6. Education--UI and LT: Through out all my schooling I have been given an amazing about of information that challenges me and brings out my organizational, and dedicated side. It has taught me to be disciplined and driven.

7. Economic status--Middle class: Being middle class has allowed to purse my goals and allowed me to go to Iowa to study art education. It has taught me that I have to work for what I want however we were never hurting financially while I was learning this lesson.

8. Neighborhood-- Suburban: I loved growing up in the suburbs of Chicago. I grew up naive but I had a great childhood with no fear of my surroundings. It had great school systems and I made great friendships there.

9. Nationhood--American: Being American has given me freedom, pride, and opportunity. Many people may disagree but I am proud to be an American and include this in the make up of my identity.

10. Race-white: I am still learning how this has effected my identity but I am aware that being white has given me a certain privilege.

11. religious affliation--UCC congrationalist: This has given me the moral foundings that shape my identity.

12. political belief--moderate/liberal: I have to admit I am not as involved in politics as I should be but I am VERY liberal on social issues and this shapes my relationships with people.

Advocating for the arts

When advocating for the arts in your school, I think that the most effective argument is that it makes for a well-rounded student who is good at problem solving. Although art is not tested in the standardized tests, problem solving is something that will help the students achieve better test scores. Although I HATE having to compare a students academic success to how they score on those tests, that is how most school districts view the importance of certain subject areas over others. The risk with advocating for the arts in this way is that the school might only see art as it relates to other subjects, and miss the art for art sake argument of things. I think this can be VERY dangerous because it continues to heighten the stresses put on math, science, and reading and refuses to recognize that there are other types of intelligences that are equally important. At the elementary level I think it is important to advocate for the arts because they need more play in their day to encourage creativity, produce a well rounded student, and to avoided providing stress for students at such a young age.
I think that you could involve your students in the advocating by having them do service learning projects and other instalments around the school. This makes the art-minded people feel included in the school community and shows the administration that there is talent and importance in the subject area. It also show what it can do to your community, and people in need. Which are both very positive aspects of art that could encourage a school to keep the arts in their school. You can "go-with-the-flow" in the respect that when a administration gives you a limit you need to take it creatively but also keep within the parameters. This way you do not get in trouble but are continuing to show that art is important.

In the Making Ex 6

The work discribed in the book by William Kentridge is definitely politically charged which would allude to an extrenal source of inspiration, like the book claims. However I think that his work seemed more internally motivated due to the emotional impact the apartheid had on him and the way this affects his work. Although the emotion stemed from an external source I think the actual inspiration for the work was internal. This in turn made me question if there was such a thing as work truely inspired/motivated by an external source. I think that the process of making art is too emotional, time consuming, and personal for the the motivated to only come from your surroundings.
To answer the question from the book I do not think that his work is propagandistic because his work is not being displayed to the public in a way that makes them want to take immediate political action. It seems that the point of the work is more to make people aware of the way the apartheid has effected the people of South Africa. I think that for the same reasons you cannot really consider the work revolutionary either. I think that it is therapeutic for him and the viewer. For him the process fo making the art is the therapeutic part, it says in the reading that the working and reworking of the drawings to make the anamation has this effect on him. Than for the audience it is probably theraputic to see these major topics addressed and perhaps make the viewer feel less alone.

I plan on using collaborative art making with every grade, every year I teach. I think that creating a piece of art together in a group gives students such a sense of pride and school spirit along with developing their communication and copperative skills. Since being in the art education program I have learned so many amazing projects to do as a school that hold each student accountable for part of it and also allows them to show their place in the school community. I especially loved the totem pole idea from chapter 5 of From Ordinary to Extraordinary.
There are so many places you could fit service learning into the curriculum because pretty much any meduim could be turned into a collaborative project that in turn can be manipulated to fit what ever aspect of community service you are trying to acheive. It would be important to view the service learning project as simply an extention of any other project you would do in the art room. Students would still be learning about the materials and art making processes but instead of it being for personal use they are giving back to the community and in turn learning also what it means to be a citizen.
When I was in elementary school each year the 6th grade class did a legacy project which was a group installment to be placed in the school for rememberance. I was "graduating" from grade school in 2000 so for our legacy project why teach cut out a huge wood "2000." Then we each painted a small portriat of ourselves in the inside of the numbers. Although I enjoyed the project and was really proud when it went up in the hallway, I was disappointed because my teacher had tried to "fix" some of my small mistakes and ended up painting my portriat for me. The installment is still hanging in the school along with the various other legacy projects and I think the kids really enjoy looking at what other students have done and how dated somethings are now.

I found the chapter on disability in Adolescents at School REALLY interesting. I have had many experiences with people with disabilities through school, church, and other extracurricular/volunteer activities. I think the most memorable relationship I have had with a personal with a disability was in elementary school. There was a girl named Katie in my grade and she had Down’s syndrome. The school formed a group called Peer Helpers that were a group of kids that learned about the disability and were taught how to best interact with Katie and build a positive relationship. The group also planned activities and formed study groups to help her with her homework and other class work. Through this experience I grow to develop a huge respect for people with disabilities and at a young age learned to see past people’s disabilities and get to know them as a person. This benefited me greatly when in high school I when my homeroom was place in one of the special education classroom. Many of my peers where overwhelmed but I found it easy to form friendships with many of the students in special education.
This experience will completely change the way I present and treat students with disabilities in the sense that I will be sure to teach all my students to not define any of their peers by their disability. I think that it is important to make sure that your students are getting this kind of education at the elementary level so that they can carry out these ideas for their whole life and are prepared when they meet a person with a disability for the first time. In art I think a good way to incorporate these ideas into a lesson would be through introducing an artist with a disability into a project and capitalize on the amazing and unique qualities of their work. This way, students learn to focus on the positives and see their disabilities not as limits but as part of their personality and art work.
A good artist to introduce would be Chuck Close because he does really amazing work despite his physical disabilities. He is also the perfect artist to present because is still currently working and can easily be incorporated into a painting or self portrait lesson.

The reading from In the Making really did make me contemplate on what the source of my inspiration usually is. This is not something I had analyzed before because these ideas just come to me and I fly into action right away without stopping to consider what had moved me in the first place. Out of the list presented on page six of the manual under personal sources of inspiration the ones that spoke most to me where: imagination, memory, spirit, bliss, joy, travel, encouragement, comfort, and beauty. The nature of my work is usually very personal and trying to express something about the way I see things or what I have experienced. I feel that art is about opening people’s minds to new ways of thinking of things and therefore these categories usually speak most to where my ideas are coming from.
Out of the list of things that activate my inspiration they are usually systematic, passionate, and predetermined. When I am working on a personal piece of my own work I like to work solo but in terms of teaching I really love collaborative projects. I like to invest lots of time into my pieces and usually do not do things spontaneously. I like to fully think out my work before I do it and feel that I have invested the most time and effort I could in the final piece. One my favorite aspects of making art is the feeling of accomplishment at the end and this is something I would also like my students to experience.