Never Underestimate the Urban Grade School Artist
I have often been asked, “What age students did you teach?”
My answer: “Grade school English language learners, in the basement of a decrepit, 100-year-old school.”
Their response fell like a dull thud: “Oh.” Then, a bit of looking down the nose. A raised eyebrow. Isn’t teaching art to grade school children all about rainbows and unicorns? A timeout for the brain? A break from “real” subjects like math? Anyway, it’s certainly not High School.
The assignments I gave my elementary students were hard, and I never gave them an assignment I wouldn’t want to tackle myself. The. greater the challenge, the better we all liked it.
To launch one project, I took my class to the computer lab. I asked them to investigate at least two different websites — one featuring images of galaxies taken by the Hubble Telescope, and another with images taken through a powerful, magnifying microscope. My artists discovered that the images they initially considered “realistic” were actually made up of abstract forms.
In the computer lab, the students choose images that fascinated them and sketched quickly with colored pencils. They made notes about color and form, and they wrote about their personal responses. What does the image make you think? What does it make you wonder? How does it make you feel? What questions does it bring to mind? Most students were able to execute from six to ten images during this first session.
Back in the studio, referring to their drawings, the students went to work. From this starting point, the work in progress required them to make artistic choices and decisions not necessarily dictated by the original images.
Soon my grade school artists learned how to generate and execute original ideas in their own work. They learned to develop a unique vision, make changes, change direction, review, critique, discuss what worked and what did not work, and why.
