This week I have been reflecting on the artistic process and its relation to the standards. In our classes, we have been discussing that all lessons should engage students in each of the art content standards and the artistic process: comprehend, create, reflect, and transfer. The lesson planning process has led me to think more critically about how to create experiences that lead students to work through each of these stages. As I have been planning and teaching lessons, I am realizing that teachers need to focus on finding balance between each of these processes in the art making cycle.
There are also elements of teaching that play into this cycle, such as planning, classroom management, assessing, observing, scaffolding, and reflecting. All of these different parts are closely connected and cannot exist without each other for real learning to occur.
Throughout my high school art experiences, I don't think my teacher ever created lessons where we engaged in the entire art making process. We mostly focused on creating realistic drawings or paintings that were imitations of artwork from the internet, which never allowed us to think creatively, problem solve, relate to the art world, critique artwork, or reflect on our own work. On the other hand, the art lesson Katie and I created for our last Polaris class, as well as the art activism project we did in Art Ed Studio, both engaged students in the entire art making process. These experiences led students to challenge creativity, problem solve, and relate to the world through art, which are both major learning objectives in art.
In the Lakota culture, the medicine wheel is a symbol that uses yellow, red, black, and white to represent the four directions: north, south, east and west. These directions also embody different emotions, feelings, times of day, and the four seasons. The medicine wheel is meant to act as a tool for finding balance and harmony between all of these different aspects. Living a balanced, healthy life means living in harmony within all the directions, seasons, spirituality, nature, and all other aspects of life.
Recently I decided to start practicing a traditional Lakota technique called peyote stitch beading. In the image below, you can see the medicine wheel that I created by beading into a strip of leather. As you can see, the medicine wheel is similar to the standards diagram. Both represent #cycles that require a balance between different elements and processes, which can help you find harmony.