Blog Post 1

Introduction

I am Beth Williams and I teach K-5 art in Clayton, MO.  This is my 13th year teaching!  (wow, it still amazes me.)  I have taught every grade and have loved them all...even middle school.  Elementary students have a special place in my heart and I can say I absolutely love what I do!  I graduated from SIUE with both my Bachelors and Masters and now I am working on my Masters + 30.

My colleague and good friend Diana introduced me to VTS.  I had shown students art prints before, so I could VTS, right!.  How hard could it be?  I did this for 3 years with my kindergarten students.  Our schedule is set up where kindergarten students have art for an hour and an additional half hour each week.  Diana showed me what she had learned in training and along with a few segments I had watched on the VTS website, I fumbled through for the past couple years.  I used the questioning and seemed to do an adequate job.  This past fall, I took VTS I and learned how to correctly facilitate a VTS session and the subtleties that can only be learned through practice, research and study.  Because of the work I put in during VTS I, I enjoy VTS so much more and I believe my students have come a long way

I am going to continue my work with a group of kindergarten students I worked with in VTS I.  It's a great group of students and with the addition of a little guy W., there is a new energy to the class.  He has an aid that tries to reign him in. 

As I started to think about Big Ideas, I was lead back to the "big ideas" we are focusing on in our building.  Two areas that I would like to drive my image selection is Empathy and the work we are doing to close the achievement gap.  These are big topics for 5 and 6 year olds but I feel it's possible.

I hope to select images that include African American figures and locations that students who live within the city can identify and make connections.  I hope to also search for images that include empathy or ways to tie in our character education work.  From the reading and based on the age group of my students, I know that this is a big topic but love and relationships such as family might show up in my images.

I have gotten away from themes in my teaching and not for a particular reason.  I used to guide my teaching for the year within a theme.  I even developed a spiraling curriculum that was theme-based.  At this point, my curriculum does not feel connected and the idea of a theme or a big idea to drive student work is intriguing.  I liked the quote early in the reading that states:  "becoming personally connected to a big idea is highly important for art making; otherwise, art making can become merely an exercise in problem solving.  So often we use "problem solving" as a way to justify our subject area.  The big ideas help to bring connections outside the art room and help to facilitate transfer.  I hope to see this as I introduce images that make connections for students outside the art room.