Whilst working within the professional confinements of the
Darwen Aldridge Community Academy (DACA) there has been some surprises and
unexpected aspects for me. For example I was so shocked to see how the way in
which the teacher acts in the first few minutes of class set a tone for the entirety
of the Lesson. I saw this in both positive and negative aspects; when a teacher
came in and walked to the front of the class room. Then stood straight up and
raised her voice level to address the class, she automatically gained respect
and the class were well behaved throughout. Whereas I experienced a supply
teacher come into the lesson and go straight to her chair, sitting down simply
telling the pupils to take a work sheet. Needless to say the class were disrupted
from start to finish. Body language is extremely important, this is something
that I plan to look more into.
Another thing that sadly surprised
me and I have seen throughout me time at DACA is the lack of creative independence
within the years 7-9. Each of the sketchbooks are exactly the same and the only
media that seems to be used is acrylic paint and occasionally water colour
paint.
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| Year 7s work |
This has been a key factor within my ideas and ha strongly
influenced my plans for the DACA workshop. I personally want to work with the
younger years to give them some independence within their work and allow them
to use a variety of media. I understand that there has to be some sort of control
as there are large classes but I feel that we could for example give them each
a canvas and let them individually express themselves on it. This made me think
about involving emotions within the DACA workshop maybe through colour
semiotics but making it relevant to the age group. I thought that we could look
for inspiration from artists such as Jackson Pollark and Ian Davenport, as
these artist work abstractly which I think would be quite refreshing for the year
7’s because they are used to working within strict guidelines.
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| Jackson Pollark |
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| Ian Davenport |
Another influential factor I found at DACA was the way in
which the work is made relevant to the pupils. As a group we were discussing
about making our workshop based on the Holi festival, which is a great starting
point but I don’t actually think it should solely be based on that. We were
planning on having a powder paint colour fight at the end of the day, which I do
feel is a great idea. However even I would think “paint fight” without thinking
about the Holi festival. So I feel we need to bring in something that will
engage and interest the pupils. I plan to discuss this within my group how I feel
that we should make the themes behind the paint fight relevant to the pupils and
their age group. I am really looking forward to this collaborative group, and combining
all of our different art disciplines into one hopefully amazing workshop for
the year 7’s.
This week has strongly impacted on my personal future in a professional
aspect. I have enjoyed pushing myself into situations that are out of my comfort
zone, both in terms of teaching and learning. I have been in classes such as
Fine Art and Art A-level and have learnt new processes such as dry brush cover,
and the amounts and order in which paint should be added when mixing acrylic
paint. These are both techniques that I will be taking through and
experimenting with in my own practice. I have also taught some pupils
techniques from my Textiles background such as pleating and cording. This process or learning while teaching is something I have really enjoyed and I plan to incorporate this somehow in the workshop.
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| Dry brushing |
As there is a general election coming soon I have looked
into the political policies surrounding education within the main political
parties as this is something that will impact on me.
Overall this placement has proved to me that this is exactly
what I want to do with my future. Due to this I have wrote a relevant CV and
wrote to All Hallows high school with a cover letter to try and get some
experience in another school.
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| Cover letter to which I attached my CV |
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