My Philosophy
When I was in my 6th grade I had an eye-opening experience. My art teacher, Ms. Vukelich was teaching a ceramic lesson about the Maya, Inca and Aztec peoples and their artwork. Through her, she opened the world to me. I learned about multiple civilizations that existed and died out long before I was born. I understood that they all had some form of symbolism within their artwork that had a significant meaning to them. I grasped just how vast the world was, how fragile people were. This simple coil pot lesson changed my life. It gave me a hunger to know more about the world around me and to seek out lessons from those who have lived before us. It struck me to take my own artwork more seriously and see them as artifacts of my own time here on earth, much like the clay vessels that survived from cultures of the past. It made me want to uncover meaning in paintings of my own culture, and those that were different from my own. I wish to pass on this same revelatory experience to my students through art analysis and creating works of their own.
When I began my path to pursue teaching and still lacked that "A-ha" moment that I wanted to replicate for my students until I had read a book that gave me wisdom on how to implement this. Visual Intelligence by Amy E. Herman, describes a medical university professor who wanted to help his students be able to diagnose skin diseases with more accuracy. He found that the advent of the internet made students less able to properly diagnose, using the web as a crutch. To this, his solution was to take the students to the museum and have them observe paintings. He made them describe each one and what they saw. Who was looking at whom or what? What colors were used and how? Through this discussion and detailed description of each painting, he found that the students scored higher on their diagnosis tests. Seeing its success, Amy Herman, created a training seminar at the Smithsonian Art Museum for students and professionals alike. The highly participatory seminar, Art of Perception, teaches professionals how to enhance their observation and communication skills. This method of teaching was picked up by the FBI, CIA, NYPD, and expanded globally with other intelligence agencies. These institutions saw an increase of more detailed descriptions that were communicated about the perpetrators of a crime, which in turn led them to higher rates of identifying criminals.
After reading this, I too used this method of art analysis and description with my K-5 classes at Montessori I taught at. I did it to keep them a little bit safer by being more observant of their surroundings, and to further their understanding of art. This way they would take in the full details of the picture and pick up on the hidden meaning. Not only this, but students were able to empathize with the subjects in paintings. They successfully inferred how the woman in Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth was feeling. They picked up on her isolation with the atmosphere and the large expanse of grassy field before her. I then told them she was a real person, and her name was Anna Christina Olson. I explained that she had a degenerative muscular disorder and was unable to walk since she was a child. We took a closer look and noticed her hands clawing at the earth, we inferred the direction of where she was going based on implied line, which leads us to conclude she is going to the house. A little bit closer and we see lights on upstairs, a ladder at window, the ajar door of the hay loft, and clothes hanging on the laundry line. These were things she would not have easy access to. The worn tire tracks in the field showing fast movement, something that she didn't have on her own. It led one student to putting herself in Anna's position, understanding and sharing with the class that, "Anna must have felt really sad." I agreed and said she probably did feel sad at some point, but also, that she refused a wheel chair. I extrapolated that despite her limitations she was absolutely determined to be as independent as possible, which makes this painting defiant in a way. Ms. Anna showed bravery. This lesson helped students to understand lives of those who are differently-abled in a rich and meaningful way. Something art does to all of our lives, if we take the time to explore.
As an educator, my goal is to create an observation-based curriculum, heavy in art analysis so students can understand the world around them. Ideally there would be a weekly ritual in which we observe a painting and talk about the basics of Elements of Art and Principles of Design within that painting, Then, we would look at the historical use of symbols or and use of colors so that the student can pick up on the message to the viewer from the painter and what is the overall meaning of their work. I hope to bring about a change in my students so that they can take this with them wherever they go, and out into the world as they grow. I want them to investigate and watch what a politician is doing, rather than listen to the hot air they speak; to be safe by being aware of their surroundings, being able to see suspicious looking characters, rather than be oblivious. I want them to try to understand the manipulation behind advertisers vying for their money. My students should use their minds and think for themselves, than to follow along blindly. In my estimation, this is a person who can navigate the world clearly and that will thrive during their time here on our Earth. This is what I think sets me apart from a standard approach to learning art, because I don’t want to just teach art, I wish to give them sight.
