The Mural At The Manor

In collaboration of my EDUC2248 & EDIS2250 classes, I am working with a fellow student to complete a mural at The Good Shepherd's Manor.

The manor, for those of you who don't know, is a MRDD facility close to campus. Most of the residents there have some form of disability or mental retardation. Most of them are older gentlemen in their 50's or 60's. There are 3 separate housing units and one main building where the guys complete most of their daily tasks.

While taking a tour of the place for class, the manor's coordinators talked about how they just re-innovated a section of the main building and was looking for ways to dress it up. Since Keri and I are the only Multi-age Visual Art students in the class, we decided to take on that challenge.

We went to the manor today for our first consultation to see how large the wall, our canvas, would be and jot down ideas. We decided on placement and objects to be placed in the work of art. This is our basic sketch:


-It's an underwater scene complete with an octopus, mermaid, crabs, sea turtle and seahorse. To help involve the guys at the manor, we are having them create fish to be put up on the mural towards the end.

Is Teaching For Me?

Ever since I was asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?", my answer has been to be a pediatrician. It wasn't until I made it through my freshman year of college that I realized pre-med was not for me. I stepped back and thought about something I could do with my life that would make me the happiest of all, something that when I woke up- I could be excited about my career. Art. Art is what helped me relieved stress, art was what I was constantly doing in my notebooks as I took notes in class, art was what I wanted to do. Kids was also something I was interested in. I enjoyed babysitting when I was younger. Teaching Art was one of few things that involved my two passions: art and kids. I still enjoy the medical side of things, so I may go back and get into art therapy, but for now I'll stick with teaching.

I love art. I love working with kids. I'm a bit hesitant about which grade level I would like to teach, but with my degree- I can teach all grade levels. It's a toss up with the grade levels. If I get the younger kids- I can get all that raw creativity. No one has told these kids to draw a certain way- they're just so open and excited for the art supplies to enter their hands. Older kids are more experienced and most of them are there in the classroom because they want to be. To see really detailed, more controversial art- is to stay with teaching high schoolers.

I'd rather be able to have a good conversation with students and make a difference in their life at an older age, so I'm going to try for teaching high school.

For those of you who read this and actually have substituted or know me slightly- which grade level do you feel is the best or most needed of the arts?

Save The Arts

I worked as a math tutor for a private institution last year during school. Although I mostly helped the older high school kids with their math, I got a chance to work with the younger kids on reading and writing. One day when I came in for work, I had a student (we'll call him "George") waiting on me at the desk where I tutored. He was a young guy by the looks at him, and after reading his file I found that he was in kindergarden. The tutoring session is prompted by notes left by the teacher the student had had the session before. I am to do what the paper says and add my own notes about how the child did and what I felt he/she could improve on.

Today I was working on shapes, colors, letters, numbers, and writing his name correctly with George. I am an Multi-Age Visual Arts, so when we got to bring out the crayons and we got to work with shapes- I was excited. George, on the other hand, wasn't so much. As I pulled out the crayons, his face lit up... but when I told him I was going to work on his shapes and colors, the light dimmed.
As I sat there asking George questions about "What color is this?" and "What shape is that?", I could tell by looking at him that this is not what he wanted to do when I pulled out the crayons. He wanted to use the crayons to create pictures, draw trucks and other boyish creations. I allowed him at the end of the session to draw one-eyed monsters, big-tired trucks, and other typical things a young fellar would draw. I broke down each of his drawings to ask him what color he was using and what shapes made up each of his creations. From then on, the light began to come back on and glow a bit brighter.

Most of today's world feel that the art and music programs in today's schools need to come to an end. I, for one, do not agree with this. I was a honor roll student as well as an athlete from the time I could become one till my senior year. I was active in school and although I was generally decent in art, I didn't take art till my sophomore year of high school. Sure, I had had it in middle school because it was a class everyone had to take, but in high school- we had more options as to what we wanted to do. I started taking art again my sophomore year in high school and from then on- I continued to take it. When I was stressed out in my other classes or upset about a certain score on the playing field- I noticed I tend to draw to relieve that emotion. The art program at my school taught me many things. Art became an emotional release, I was able to interact and move about more within an art classroom than I could in any other classroom. Art programs have more hands-on attempts which students only retain 5% of what they hear; when they're actually doing something, they remember it more.
So art was boosting my memory skills. Art has so much more to offer students then just making pretty things to hang up on the wall. Save the arts.