Reflecting my interested in a career in education, I have been volunteering at a Primary School with art lessons and trips. Luckily, a primary school local to me is really hands-on with their learning and use art in many lessons, including outdoor learning.
Although I am keen to teach older children, possibly at secondary level or foundation, this is the perfect opportunity to learn more about learning objectives and the considerations applied to formulating creative tasks for young people. I am interested to learn more about the preliminary art education children receive and how this may effect their view of art and visual culture.
FIRST DAY OF VOLUNTEERING - British values workshop at Cartwright Hall
My first session was on a visit to Cartwright Hall with a year 5 class. The visit was to coincide with their work on British values, exploring displays of freedom, liberty and rights through art. This gallery visit seemed purposeful in its display to children that all kinds of issues are explored in art and that art provides freedom of expression.
The task to identify images of slavery and freedom across the works in the gallery encouraged the children to think more about what they were viewing. This approach to learning seems particularly engaging and valuable as the children were able to learn social, historical and political issues through imagery and creativity.
Translating their research into illustrative pieces of bunting using a wax-resist technique, the learning came full circle, linking historical research to cultural curiosity, through to political ideas and concluding with a practical creative task. This cyclic approach to learning seems imperative to a child's value of learning, demonstrating a purpose and link across all areas of curricula. Creating a personal response on a piece of bunting not only worked to encourage the children to realise their learning, it also demonstrated integration and team work; each child contributing towards a larger display of creativity.
This visit proved so valuable to me as I learnt of the power of art and creativity in a child's wider education. Providing visual tools to realise more complex or unfamiliar ideas seems to really unlock learning and create an overall more engaging and fruitful practice.
SECOND DAY OF VOLUNTEERING - Relief Printing
As an extension of some the learning the children have been doing on Brazil and the rainforests, the children have been translating their knowledge into artwork through relief printing. This translation of learning seemed to extend the children's values of what they had learnt, many of them commenting on the fun that art added to science and geography. Discernible here is that if a child can identify a continuation on their learning, they become more invested in developing the knowledge; only showing the absolute power of creativity in children.
While the process of relief printing, naturally, was simplified and scaled down for the classroom, this as a creative practice teaches the children the value of resourcefulness and a DIY ethic. Using polystyrene and blunt pencils, the children were able to translate their drawings into printing plates. Mimicking lino print, this process taught the children of more sophisticated approaches to image making that they may encounter in secondary school.
This as a task appeared successful in its conclusiveness; the children were able to extend their learning towards a visual realisation. Helping the children with the practical and visual considerations, I was able to learn how children think about drawing and art and I think for many of them, the relief printing was about creating a personal response to more general learning objective.
THIRD DAY OF VOLUNTEERING - Outdoor Learning Day
Furthering the learning focus of rainforests, the year group had a full day of outdoor learning, practising their knowledge about habitats and nature. For the most part, this worked to provide an engaging and exciting extension of classroom work, with hands-on activities, but it also gave the children the opportunity to apply their knowledge and creativity to their immediate environment.
I worked across science and art-based activities covering pond dipping, habitat analysis and natural dye workshops. As there were many different activities, I ended up leading a group of about 12 children on my own which was daunting but definitely a learning curve. Starting the day leading a science based workshop, when I moved onto leading the natural dye workshop, I was able to tailor the workshop to the knowledge the children had demonstrated earlier in the day. Using natural dyes and also rubbing flowers and leaves into fabric, the children hand-dyed fabric flags to use in a larger piece of artwork. Although the dying was a little bit trial and error and some children struggled to identify the creativity of the task, it was a great exercise in applying science and nature to art, again bringing together different areas of curricula.
This was definitely the most challenging day as I had not anticipated having to lead a group of children and I had underestimated how exciting the school grounds were, meaning that the children did want to run around quite a lot. It was a very inspiring day though. The school have some very extensive outdoor land, made up of all sorts of different plants and habitats and this proved very effective to the extension and maximisation of learning. Taking the learning outside of the classroom seemed to provide so many alternative approaches to visualising knowledge and definitely helped the children to be engaged with their learning.
CONCLUSIONS
My volunteering covered such a variety of activities and I think covering just three days, I was exposed to some very powerful teaching methods and approaches to learning, which really taught me the value of creativity in children. Seeing the children engage with different tasks enabled me to understand the importance of creativity in creating an inclusive and effective learning environment in which the children remained invested and engaged.
Carrying this experience forward with my studies and career aspirations, I have certainly learnt more of the importance art in schools and feel more aware about the exposure of children to art in their early years. I would be interested to see how different schools approach art in learning as this school certainly took a very active and forward-thinking approach which I think for many children, is stunted in other schools by taught ideas of creativity.
