Problem of Practice: Material and Supply ManagementWith a multitude of students ranging broadly in grades and ages coming through an art educator’s classroom each day, doing a wide variety of projects using many different mediums, material management obviously plays a huge role in the job. Organizing, keeping inventory, storing, distributing, setting up, taking down and cleaning up materials and supplies can become an overwhelming and challenging task for an individual to bear. For my empathy report, I wanted to find out more about what other art teachers struggle with the most in terms of supply and material management. I created a survey that was sent out to many art educators. I tried my best to get a wide variety of opinions. I hoped for feedback from all grade levels, both genders, many races and across a couple of different districts. However, the survey was done anonymously so I cannot be exactly sure of the makeup. In total, 14 art educators took the survey. A majority were relatively experienced, having between 6-20 years, which I do think made a difference in my results. 93% of these teachers have between 100-200 students that they teach every day. A solid 93% agree or strongly agree that material and supply management require a lot of time and effort on their part to do their job. One of the most interesting pieces of information I received was how many preps these teachers had (see Chart 1). From my experience, teachers with more than 3 preps have a lot of hard work and preparation that is put into lesson planning. 50% of these art teachers had 4 or more different preps (i.e. art projects, classes) that they had to prepare for and teach on a regular school day. That is a great deal of lesson planning and managing materials. Additionally, 79% of those surveyed say they are not using their prep period (conference period) to actually lesson plan but rather take care of materials and supplies. In my opinion, this means that these teachers are lesson planning on their own time either before, after school or even at lunch. Above, Chart 1 demonstrates the amount of preps art educators have on a regular day of school. Something else that took me by surprise was the amount of art educators that felt like they did not have enough storage space for student artwork(See Chart 2). 43% either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement: I have enough space to store student artwork. This is definitely another problem of practice and does effect material and supply management greatly. This was a question that I threw on at the last minute and I’m glad I did. Chart 2 above. Finally, the clearest difficulty demonstrated through my survey (see Chart 3) shows that 64% of the those surveyed disagree or strongly disagree with this statement: there is enough time between classes to get out and arrange necessary materials and supplies for the next class. 72% agree or strongly agree that they could use some help getting out, distributing, setting up, cleaning and taking down materials and supplies. This is exactly how I feel and I would have been entirely thrown off if the results were different from this. Chart 3 above. The last question of the survey was a short answer and said: In your opinion, as an Art educator, what is the toughest part of material and supply management? I copy and pasted all of the short answers to create one large word cloud. Here, you can see which words were most common in each response.
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Can you imagine being five years old again? The world is so big and sometimes, as adults, that can be easy to forget. My elementary Art classroom is very different from a general education elementary classroom in that my room has a wide variety of ages come through on a daily basis. I have students as young as four and as old as eleven. That's a pretty huge difference considering my average four or five year old is about three and a half feet tall and my average eleven year old is over four and a half feet tall. After working in this position for three years, I could see a lot of things that were poorly designed and furniture that was poorly chosen for my younger students... But I didn't realize exactly how big the world was in the Art room until this perspective taking project.
I decided to take on the perspective of one of my younger students by reenacting a series of tasks that I would typically ask my students to perform. The trick is that I did this all on my knees, cutting my height to about four feet tall (which, ironically is still significantly taller than some of my littlest and youngest students). I wanted to make my arm length and my wing span a bit more realistic, as well, so I tried to keep my upper arms a bit more glued to my sides during this recreation.
I reached an understanding that, for my younger kiddos, supplies at our supply table should be pushed forward and items should not be in large buckets or bins. Perhaps where I most experienced empathy the most was when I tried to wash my hands. I quickly realized how difficult this simple task is for my younger students. My sink and counter is much higher than them and it is definitely not safe for them to be standing on chairs in order to wash up. I think a stepping stool would be really beneficial. One last thing I'd like to share is that some of my students are even shorter than the height that I was when I was on my knees. If this was difficult for me at about four feet, I wonder what it is like for my students who are three and a half feet tall...?
Creativity can be taught. It might not seem easy and assessing it may be challenging but it can be done. I strongly believe that creativity can be incorporated into any content or subject area, as well.
As I look at the breadth of my work in this course, I am amazed at the processes I have gone through and the products I have created. I don't think I have ever dug so deeply into a topic in this fashion; exploring it with so many different cognitive tools. Additionally, my definition of creativity has grown into a personal journey and is especially significant to me considering I am an art teacher and creating has always been so important to me. The best part about this journey is that all of the skills that I've learned and the activities that I have created are practical for my elementary art room and for my students to use... with some hard work, the activities could probably be altered to fit any classroom in a meaningful way, too!
Above is a fun video that highlights most of the work I have done over the course of this semester.
Teachers can support creativity in teaching and learning within classrooms by fostering an early and basic understanding of various these cognitive skills:
Perceiving - Deeply observing and completely understanding something in its entirety. Encourage students to not only see with their eyes but, when appropriate, smell, taste, hear, and understand with their minds and hearts. Teach active observation as opposed to passively looking. Patterning - Using one's senses and intellect to find or make an understanding of combination or order out of information or things that repeat in some way. Abstracting - Taking an idea, thing or concept and translating it into a different form that still demonstrates or communicates the essence of the original idea in a different way. Embodied Thinking - Representing a concept by using one’s body in a kinesthetic or physical manner. Modeling - Creating a two dimensional or three dimensional visual representation that demonstrates a concept or some type of reality in some way. Playing - Play, whether being done intentionally or unintentionally, is typically a no-rule, risk-free and experimental way of creating.
Above is an infographic I made on this topic.
On a final note, remember: it is not only important to incorporate these skills into our classroom for our students to learn but to do it in a creative manner. I hate to say it but things don't stick when they are boring! So, yes, this does mean that you will have to do some hard work and creative thinking, as well! In my opinion, the easiest way to do this is to, whenever possible, create lessons and activities that are not on 8 1/2" x 11" sheets of paper. Get creative. Box outside the think. You've got this!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cqHBWETj0pcQ5cU09vkrEbDAwyntZ21zDW7gwUVQt58/edit# My definition of Play within creative thinking: Play, whether being done intentionally or unintentionally, is typically a no-rule, risk-free and experimental way of creating. Play is an essential part of creative thinking because it allows one to feel less fear for failure. When a person is less afraid of failing, they are more likely to think a different way, take risks and try something they've never done before. Sure, it could go "wrong". But if it goes right, in my opinion, that's usually where originality and innovation come from. The significance of my introductory activity is twofold: first, the presentation gives a brief synopsis of the pop art movement along with some of the most well-known artists within the movement and examples of masterpieces from these artists. Secondly, it is a risk-free guided pop art drawing lesson. Let me explain the second part further.
While creating this activity, I knew that I wanted the students that participate in it to feel successful in creating their own pop art masterpiece. However, a blank canvas - or a blank drawing sheet in our case - can be intimidating. Furthermore, I needed to add a playful element into the activity. This is where the pre-decided backgrounds, subjects, and dice came in. These pre-decided elements take away any worry or intimidation an artist who has just been introduced to the topic might feel. Additionally, the dice add a playful component that leaves the whole masterpiece up to chance. I added in one guideline: If you'd like to use your own pop art inspired background or subjects, you may. The whole point of the game is to play and experiment! So if one of my students wants to put a Fortnite character as their subject, they should!! As long as the subjects and backgrounds are pop art inspired, they are more than welcome to add them. The topic of "Pop Art" was quite broad for this activity. It has history and depth that, at first, seemed to reach beyond an introductory activity. I knew I wanted my students or participants to get two things out of it: basic knowledge about my topic and a creative, risk-free experience in creating an art piece for themselves. Because of this, I had to create an activity that gave a concise summary of what was most important to know about pop art (defined, time period, well-known artist and masterpieces) and then have participants playfully experience creating their own. Abstracting: taking an idea, thing or concept and translating it into a different form that still demonstrates or communicates the essence of the original idea but in a different way. For this assignment, I was inspired by the artist Roy Lichtenstein. This is ironic because I was thinking of using him as inspiration before I even read his name and the example in our book, Sparks of Genius by Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein, in chapter 5. In a large quantity of Lichtenstein's artwork, he applies a process of making dots to create art. Roy Lichtenstein's Crying Girl. Click the image to go to the website that it was retrieved from. This is closely related to a type of art called pointillism but his end result is different because he creates a comic book style as opposed to solely using dots. I have always been fascinated with pointillism. I’ve done my own projects using this type of art in the past and I’ve taught it to students in my own lesson plans. Once I started reading the abstracting chapter, I almost immediately knew that I wanted to work with Lichtenstein's concept of using dots to create an object within an artwork. I had a couple of different ideas so it was convenient that this assignment required us to communicate our abstraction in two different manners. At the end of chapter 5, Robert and Michele suggest that the reader should "Inspire yourself by collecting examples of abstracting by masters. Imitate." (pg. 90). So, I did. I also wanted to do something similar to what Pablo Picasso did with his bull abstractions. My goal was to abstract something that is concrete and real using dots and pointillism. I decided on a rose. Attempt #1 There is no solid line in the finished project. The rose is made up completely of dots. Once I completed my first rose, I was happy with it and proud of it. However, I realized it was drastically more realistic than abstract - which is the opposite of the goal of this assignment. Abstracting has always been tough for me as an artist. I love drawing and painting realistically. I came to terms with the fact that I spelled the rose out way too cleary and I challenged myself to try again. Attempt #2 This attempt was better but I was still not completely content. In my opinion, the second attempt still spelled it out a little too clearly. I had to try one more time. I decided that if I were to minimize it even more, then I wanted to use red and green colors. Attempt #3 I believe my third attempt has finally met the goals of this project. I do not think my creation spells out rose too clearly and I believe without the colors added then it wouldn't be clear enough. For the second part of the project, I wanted to step out of my comfort zone. I’ve noticed a pattern within my assignments thus far throughout this course: I’ve played around a lot with fine arts. I was determined to challenge myself to make a poem and use words instead of my visual artistic side. Naturally, I had to incorporate some kind of visual aspect into my poem... I just couldn’t help myself! I created a poem that I titled "Dot". Above is a photo of my poem called "Dot" Author’s Note: A few words of advice - back up, stray; my poem is read best from far away. Despite the fact that the poem is made up of a singular, repeated word, it isn’t necessarily simple looking, like our book argues abstracting should be: "[Picasso, Wilson, cummings] reduced complex visual, physical, or emotional ideas to bare, stripped images..." (pg.72). My poem is visually complex when you are close up reading it. It might even hurt your eyes to look at. But from far away you see the extremely simplified abstraction. The audience will recognize that although the poem is overwhelming from close up, from a distance, the colors and words simply form a dot. I suppose some might argue this isn't necessarily a poem since it doesn't really have a specific structure but I thought it was clever and creative. I also liked the fact that my poem is basically mass producing the word "dot", which plays off of the idea that pop art uses mass produced objects to create art, as well. Something I’ve noticed about myself as an art educator is that it can be hard for me to come up with lesson plan ideas sometimes. You would presume that the art teacher would be one of the most creative when it comes to this but I definitely struggle. I look at a lot of other art teacher's ideas for help. I always felt bad about doing this because my conscience told me that teachers should be creating their own lesson plans. This assignment helped me realize that what other art teachers are doing is simply an inspiration and an abstraction from what other famous artists have done throughout history. Now, I would like to use this tool of abstracting and apply it to create a lesson plan for my students that is completely created by myself. References:
Root-Bernstein, Robert & Michele. (1999). Sparks of Genius The 13 Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People. Houghton Mifflin Company. New York, New York. Who is Roy Lichtenstein's Crying Girl? (2019, September 15). Retrieved October 11, 2019, from https://publicdelivery.org/roy-lichtenstein-crying-girl/. Finding Patterns in Pop ArtPop Art photo of myself Patterning: Patterning is using one’s senses and intellect to find or make an understanding of combination or order out of information or things that repeat in some way. For this assignment, I was asked to find some type of pattern in my topic area which is Pop Art. Then, I was given the challenge to create a new pattern that could apply to the same topic. I created a video that explains the original pattern and my new patterns. You can watch it here. This pattern definitely helps my students access pop art easily. In my very own art room, we can take images, objects and other resources that they see, use or interact with some way on a daily basis and create art out of it. This would actually make the project even more personable because they would get to choose a specific popular culture product, image, character, celebrity, etc. that is significant to them to use as the subject of whatever art project we are doing. Additionally, with technology today, popular culture is even more easily accessible in the art room. We can use computers, tablets, cameras, printed images, magazines, and so much more for inspiration. When I show this to a class of students or when I see something similar to this in a museum, a lot of reactions I hear are things like "Well, I could've done that!" or "That doesn't look that hard to do!" or "How is that art??". To which I typically respond, yes, you absolutely could've done that but Andy Warhol did it first. You're right, maybe it wasn't that hard to do. Does art have to be hard to create to be considered art? And it is art because the painting is making you have a strong reaction. Chances are, that's exactly what Warhol wanted you think! And now, he's got you looking closer at and talking about a soup can that you've probably seen hundreds of times in your kitchen cabinet and didn't think twice about. Pop Art challenges the world to look at ordinary objects in a different way. Anybody can be a pop artist. You don't need professional training or years of practice. The trick is to find your own way of creating the art - you know, the whole being creative thing! It just might take you a while to get as good as Warhol. References
Warhol, Andy. “Andy Warhol. Campbell's Soup Cans. 1962: MoMA.” The Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79809.
I asked her six questions:
However, as noted above, him and I do not completely see eye to eye on one thing: Robinson defines creativity as “the process of having original ideas that have value” (Robinson, n.d.). I agree to a certain extent. Like I mentioned above, I would argue that creativity doesn’t necessarily always have to be completely original. I believe that ideas and inspiration come from something that has already been done or someone who has already done it. Whatever is produced in the end initially was a combination of inspired ideas and thoughts, which are then transformed into something new. I feel like I’m am still learning how to express how I feel about this idea. I’d like to dive deeper into this throughout the semester and build up a stronger argument with evidence and reasoning. For now, the reading and the interview have helped me shape my definition of creativity in a few ways. I do think that being creative takes hard work and practice, so I incorporated the "putting your imagination to work" in my definition. And I also firmly believe that creativity is within every human being; it is not something that some people are born with and others are not. My definition now includes this idea, as well. After talking with Claudia, I feel that creativity is a personal journey. Those who are open to learning how to be creative, can open many doors and apply creativity to many aspects of their life. THE EVOLUTION OF MY DEFINITION OF CREATIVITYFirst definition of creativity: Creativity is the use of a collection of ideas, thoughts and different inspirations that come together to produce something. Creativity is a journey of experimentation, questioning and remixing. Second definition of creativity: Creativity is putting one’s imagination to work through the use of a collection of ideas, thoughts and different inspirations that come together to produce something. Creativity is inherently within us all and is a personal journey of experimentation, questioning and remixing. Reference
Out of Our Minds Excerpts.pdf. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GGVABT9l9MnzZ0fz-BmbrjLVmURQWGqU/view I have always been a question asker. When I am unsure of something, or don’t understand, I have never been afraid to be the first to raise my hand. I always wondered if this was a bad thing. Does this mean I’m not understanding things the way others are? Why are others “getting it” and I am left feeling unclear? After reading the book A More Beautiful Questionby Warren Berger, I am actually starting to feel the opposite. Why aren’t others questioning as much as I am? When I am presented with some kind of problem at work or a situation where I need to make a decision, it typically must be done quickly. I usually don’t have the time to run through the methods that Berger presents in his book. After reading it though, I realize the importance of stepping back from a problem, and running through the why’s, what if’s and how’s. My days run quick and some decisions/solutions will simply have to be made just as fast but, ideally, I’d like to apply it as much as possible. There are a lot of advantages to asking “Why?” to a problem and it’s important that it is done first. It helps me understand the problem in a different way and can even help me see from another person’s point of view. It’s also a bit liberating to allow yourself to ask the why questions without judgement or the pressure of having to come up with an answer. An example of an ill-structured problem that I face in my classroom that I can ask “Why?” to is behavior and discipline issues. Like most teachers, I have certain students that are chronically more difficult behavior wise. Instead of jumping to conclusions or some kind of consequence as a solution, it would be much more beneficial to ask “Why?”. There are so many possibilities as to why a student is making poor decisions and there is a chance I will never fully know. But, asking why and considering the child’s viewpoint will at least lead me to some insight on who they are as a person and their needs as a learner in the classroom environment. In their book, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, Bransford, Cocking and Brown highlight the importance of learner centered classrooms where the teachers “pay close attention to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that learners bring into the classroom” (pg. 23). Taking the time to ask why demonstrates the fact that, as an educator, I care so much about that individual that I want to understand more. The “What if…?” stage also does not require a solution to the problem just yet but rather possibilities of what can be done. This stage helps my thinking move forward. Let’s consider the same example given above. Remember, we are talking about a student that persistently misbehaves. After asking “Why?” questions about this student, the “What if…?” create many different options. Considering as many options as possible is extremely important in this situation. Think, for example, if I skipped this stage. I decided on the first consequence that came to mind. I may regret that decision, it most likely isn’t the best choice for the student’s actual learning needs, and the poor behavior will most likely continue. In this case, the “What if…?” stage is meant to avoid those circumstances. Lastly, the “How?” stage will lead me to the best, well thought out solution possible for my problem. I think if I actually apply this whole process to the next difficult problem I come across, it would make me proud of the solution I come up with. There is a lot of time, effort and sometimes research that goes into it. It has definitely helped me become a better questioner and even look at difficult situations more optimistically because I have a great tool to guide me through. One big takeaway that I plan on incorporating into my own classroom is the “Question Formulation Technique” (p.65) designed by Rothstein and Santana and presented in the book A More Beautiful Question.I love how kid-friendly it is and the fact that it levels the playing field for all of my students because the point isn’t to know the answer – it’s to come up with a great question. References
Bransford, J., Brown, A.L. & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.), How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Retrieved from http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368 Berger, W. (2016). A more beautiful question: The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. New York: Bloomsbury. Kirby Ferguson created a 4-part series of videos called “Everything is a Remix”. In this series, Ferguson describes remixing as the process of “collecting material, combining it and transforming it” (2015). As an artist and as an educator, this string of videos really caught my interest. When beginning a new art piece, I am staring at a blank canvas. What should I draw? What colors should I incorporate? How can I make the background interesting? Then, my thumbs go to work… on my phone, looking up ideas on Google images, pictures of masterpieces, inspiration off Instagram, Pinterest and so on. This is not to say that I go online to find projects and photos to copy completely. I use the internet for bits of inspiration. Things that really stick out to me go into in my sketchbook. Then, when the time comes to create on a larger scale, I usually pull all of my ideas together to create something that I would consider my own. But is it really mine? In Ferguson’s point of view, it’s a remix. I would identify my process of creation the same way Ferguson defined it in his video: a collection of different material, combined or rearranged and transformed. I relate this process to my own teaching, too. I have worked for two different schools as an art educator: 3 years at a high school and 2 years at an elementary. Both times, when I got hired, I had a very short amount of time to move in, get my classroom ready and become accustomed to the new everything (schedule, students, coworkers, administration, building, etc.). At that point, some of the things that I wish could be higher up on my to-do list, like lesson planning, were pushed down. Before you know it, school was starting, and you better believe I hopped online and looked up ideas of what other art teachers were doing in a high school or elementary art class. Although I did make changes to projects and remix them sometimes, there were other times I completely took someone else’s idea and used it in my class. Even though these teachers had their lessons up on their website for the public to freely see and take, I still felt bad for doing it. Like really bad. I felt like I was failing as a teacher because I wasn’t doing my job of making something up from scratch. I was comparing myself to these expert teachers who had years of experience. Looking back on it all, I now know I was doing what I had to do to survive that first or second year at a new school. Now that I am going into my third year at the elementary level and my sixth year of teaching overall, I notice myself becoming more comfortable, learning what works for me and what doesn’t. I’m transferring the skills that I had learned from experts and creating my own projects. I am realizing that, as a brand-new teacher, I just needed a place to start and to grow into my own from. Ferguson mentions this in Part 3, when he talks about copying; “Put simply, copying is how we learn. We can’t introduce anything new until we are fluent in the language of our domain” (2015). This made me feel a whole lot better about copying other’s ideas in those first years. I was simply learning. In both cases explained above, when I taught at the high school and elementary school, I had never been in either of those positions before. Sure, I did an internship and had a degree but it was still way different. I had never had a classroom that was completely my own. I didn’t realize this back then, when I felt bad, but when I was copying off of other teachers, I was building a base of knowledge and understanding of how to teach each specific grade level art. Now that I have this knowledge, things are evolving in my own way and I’m excited to see where it goes from here. Ferguson’s ideas are also supported by the concept of transfer. In their book How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, Bransford, Cocking and Brown state that transfer is “defined as the ability to extend what has been learned in one context to new contexts” (Pg. 51, n.d.). They also maintain two key characteristics of learning and transfer: 1. “All new learning involves transfer based on previous learning” (Pg. 53) and 2. “Initial learning is necessary for transfer” (Pg. 53). If both of these key characteristics are true, then it is essentially necessary for a novice (like me as a beginner teacher) to copy an expert (like the ones who have been teaching for years) before they will be able to transfer any knowledge to create something new of their own. You can buy Kirby Ferguson's merch, too! Click on the picture above if you're interested. References:
Bransford, J., Brown, A.L. & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.), How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Retrieved from http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368 Ferguson, K.(Producer). (2015, Sep. 12), Everything is a Remix Remastered (2015 HD) [Video file]. Retrieved from http://vimeo.com/139094998. Accessed 5 Aug. 2019. The achievement gap is something that I have personally seen happening in my own school. The statistic I’m about to give is completely based off memory and I don’t have the proof that my principal gave me anymore but nonetheless, it has stuck in my memory and has left me feeling disturbed. In a staff meeting, I found out that, according to the MSTEP standardized testing done for 3rd-5th grade in our school, that 0% of the African Americans in our school had been rated efficient in mathematics. Zero percent. That hit hard. Until that point, as an art educator, I had never seen statistics like these. Administration has presented on school wide statistics but not on individual races, genders, etc. Truly, this was a turning point in my career. Although I have over 500 students, I connect closely with each of them and when I found out about that statistic, it was heartbreaking to know these students who were struggling so much in their core subjects. On a side note, that must be extremely difficult for the general education teachers who see this statistic and probably consider it a failure on their part. Which is awful because there really are so many factors contributing to the situation, and it is definitely not fair to simply put blame on the teachers. Which is being done anyway but that’s for another blog.
Personally, I had never done research on the achievement gap before and I really only knew very basic facts. Once I was finally exposed to hard truths occurring right in my own school (and thanks to the wicked problem unit with MAET), I felt a strong desire to understand more about it. In a TED talk titled Solving the Achievement Gap Through Equity, Not Equality, Dr. Lindsey Ott states the achievement gap occurs when “one group of students scores higher than another when they’re grouped by gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status.” (2017). If all of the students in our school – no matter what race, gender, status – were receiving the same education, standards, rules, - why were some achieving lower than others? And what can I personally do to help close the achievement gap at my school? According to another short video I watched titled How to Close the Academic Achievement Gap That’s Hurting America, there are numerous factors that (positively or negatively) impact the achievement gap but can be basically grouped into three categories: quality of education, environment at home and overall health. This is further supported in online article published by the news organization, Education Week, where these resources are referred to as “opportunity gaps” (2019) between poor vs wealthy children. The video also provides a solution to closing the achievement gap by basically stating that this could be solved by family friendly policies that ensure each child has 1. the opportunity for a good education with quality teachers 2. parents that support children’s schooling at home, have a decent income and live in a safe, diverse neighborhood 3. Good overall health and nutrition with access to healthcare. Obviously, we cannot promise all of these opportunities to every child in our country unless we seriously invested a lot of money. So, again I ask, what can we do? What can I do? Another screenshot from How to Close the Academic Achievement Gap That's Hurting America that visually represents the resources that all students need in order to be successful in school and help to close the achievement gap. This brings me back to Dr. Lindsey Ott. In her TED talk (2017), she argues that equality and equity are not the same thing. For example, equality is giving everyone a size medium uniform to wear to school, even if that simply will not fit some students. It is given to them anyway and they must deal with it. Equity is giving everyone the same uniform but in the size that fits the individual. Then the playing field is fair. I can translate this idea into my teaching by providing assignments and projects that are not a one size fits all but rather, tailor each to individual students. This is an incredible amount of work and a daunting task – I already mentioned that I have over 500 students. But the beauty of art, in my opinion, is that it can be much more easily personalized than say a math class. I also feel that as long as I am aware of the achievement gap within my own school, keep myself informed and do what I can to help close it, then I at least am doing my part.
References: Ansell, Susan. “Achievement Gap.” Education Week, 21 Feb. 2019, www.edweek.org/ew/issues/achievement-gap/index.html. Talks, TEDx. “Solving the Achievement Gap Through Equity, Not Equality | Lindsey Ott | TEDxYouth@Columbia.” YouTube, YouTube, 5 Dec. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOQbu_3M0_Q. seeprogress. “How to Close the Academic Achievement Gap That's Hurting America.” YouTube, YouTube, 12 Mar. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJtMlS8Gk_I. |
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