Week 6 Reading

Aside:

 I would like to question a statement made by Zander, that seems based on a faulty assumption, rather than experience.

‘Gallas (1995) says that in teaching science, the kinds of questions that engage her students are the questions that children naturally wonder about. “How do people age? How does the brain work? How is blood made?"(p. 70). The kinds of questions that children wonder about in art are likely to be very different. They might be questions like, "How do artists get ideas? What do artists do? Why did they use a particular style or material?”

To be argumentative, the same kindergartners that ask how a brain works will not be asking how artists get ideas, or why the artists use a particular style.  They will ask, “When do we get to paint? How do I draw a pig? How do I open my glue bottle?” The same students that are gaining basic knowledge in science need to gain basic knowledge in art.  

Now that I have those things out of my system, I found numerous statements in Zander’s article that echo what I have learned so far about becoming a VTS practitioner.

·       The article class for more active student involvement, and less didactic teaching.

·       Dialogue is a process in which the teacher is a facilitator (Burbiles, 1993).

·       The purpose of dialogue is to get to know different points of views.

·       There should be guidelines in dialogues that help develop good listeners that are respectful of differing opinions.

·       Student statements should be made using conditional language.

Two insights I take away from this article are that I need to question my students before I start “teaching.”  It would be such a simple question, “ What questions do you have as you look at this artwork? I feel KWL charts working into my unit plan.

Another insight is the use of open-ended activities. Such practices are also recommended in other class readings, especially in the course text. But the application of open-ended activities is starting to make more sense after reading this article, though I think I would have to structure it a bit more for the kinders, maybe by setting up centers.