Put First Things First, especially before a holiday

I've been saying this a lot lately "put First Things First" to the students as they impatiently await the next step on just about everything I've shown them this past week. My art lessons are broken up into small segments and a project can easily take five weeks to complete. At the start of each segment I usually perform a demonstration of what I want the students to accomplish in class that day. The last week before Christmas break I gave our older students a choice of either painting a hand-made Christmas card or making a wire sculpted reindeer. I split each class in half and had the students who were painting attend the first demonstration. As I'm showing them the first step which is marking out the border, some students are questioning the second step... "How do we draw a santa... or reindeer etc." And I say "lets put first things first, pay attention to the first step and then we'll continue on to the next step."
I later joined the other group as we worked together, one step at a time on the reindeer sculptures. I demonstrated the first step, and then the students would follow along with the instruction. Not everyone works at the same pace however so some students get it right the first time and others struggle. As I help the students who need assisstance, the others grow impatient and want to know whats next, some start guessing and try to continue without knowing the next step. I had to keep saying "first things first, remember? You can't go on to the next step until you know what it is, be patient and lets all take it one step at a time". Or as we're working on the first step they're already far ahead in their thinking, talking about the third and fourth steps.
Maybe its the excitement of the season that makes my students so impatient, but every project always works out in the end including the wire sculpted reindeer.

Leader Portraits

I've decided to borrow an art lesson from the AB Combs presentation that we viewed this past September during our training. The lesson was the TIME Magazine self-portraits which I really liked. So I created a lesson plan to present to my 6th grade art classes. I started the lesson as I always do by showing them a power point presentation. The slide show begins with this question "What Makes a Person a Leader?" I ask the students this question and they answer... "someone smart, a person that tells us what to do, someone responsible, someone that is proactive, etc." which are all good answers. We begin to view the slides which are actual TIME Magazine covers with portraits of leaders; some well known like Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Bruce Springstein... and others not so well known like our American Soldiers, Michelle Rhee, leader of the Washington D.C. schools, and the creators of GOOGLE. After viewing all the slides a statement is next that reads... You could be on the cover of TIME Magazine someday. I ask the students if they believe that statement and most of them say yes! The next slide asks... "If you were on the cover of TIME magazine, what kind of leader would you be?" Here's the reflective question. What do these 6th grade students imagine for themselves in the future? I want them to imagine images of successful, happy, well adjusted adults that are doing what they love, leaders in what they wish to do in life. So I ask them to look into the future and picture what type of leader they will be. Stay tuned for the Time portrait results, I'm sure they will be very interesting, imaginative and entertaining!

Winchester Art Club Puts First Things First

The after school Art Club at Winchester is working on a mural based on the 7 Habits. The students are always so excited to paint and since Winchester has never had a student made mural they are ready to jump right in and start painting. Of course there is planning to be done and you have to put First Things First before the painting process begins. So we spent three weeks working on the drawing aspect of the mural, re-drawing and re-working the figures so they will look just right. The students kept asking "When are we going to paint? Are we painting today?" and I have to tell them "No, we have to put first things first by planning the compostition and refining our drawings, then we'll be ready to paint."
This past Monday was our Art Club meeting, the club is so large that I had to split the groups in two, meeting every other session. This first group finally got the chance to start painting and they were very excited to do just that. The painted areas will need two coats of paint and some fine details will still have to be drawn in once the paint dries. So before we can finish the painted details of the figures faces, clothing, jewelry etc... we'll have to put First Things First and refine our sketches once again!

Everybody Synergize!

We've been synergizing at Winchester to create a Goal Hallway where student, teacher and parent goals would be displayed on 3" x 5" cards attached to the wall. Three of my 5th grade art students synergized to create the sign "Goal Hallway" which is displayed in the hall. Over 300 people have already synergized to create personal goals that will be displayed in the Goal Hallway. Mrs. Brachmann had a great idea to hang a net on the wall for the goal cards to attach to. It took a while to find the right net and it was ordered online and delivered. The net was ready to be put in place until maintenance pointed out that it was a fire hazard, and could not be hung in the hallway. This posed a dilemma, so it was decided that the net would be painted on the wall. Mrs. Szewc asked if I could paint a 3-D looking net on the wall where the net was going to be hung. I told her yes, I'd do my best and now there is a 19' long net painted on the wall. Mrs. Szwec and her team will now be able to begin hanging the goals on top of the painted net. It really is amazing how many people have synergized to create our Goal Hallway.

Be an Art Leader

At the end of each art class I call students by specific colored tables to line up by the door and wait for their teacher to arrive. In one of my first grade classes, I noticed that the "red table" was particularly good one day. They listened well, stayed on task, were respectful to eachother and offered to help at clean-up time. They were also the table that I called first at the end of the day to line up at the door. (I should mention that students love their tables to be called first). After the red table got up to stand in line, the other students were still at their tables, standing by their seats and talking freely. I clapped my hands to get their attention, and said "These fine students at the red table, were exemplary leaders in art today, they listened well, created awesome art, were respectful of others and helped clean-up, they are proactive art leaders." I gave a high-five to each student from the red table and told them how proud I was of them today. And then I said "Who will be the art leaders next week?" and everyone sat straight in their seats like little angels. Kids really want to be recognized for what they do well, and this is one way to do it in the art room.

Is it a Win-Win?

Many things happen daily in the art room that are considered win-win, and win-lose. But today I noticed a lose-lose that should have been a win-win.
A boy in the fourth grade dropped his books and other papers while standing in line to leave the art room. No one volunteered to help this boy that was really struggling to pick everything up. His situation was very noticeable, and I think its the first time in art that I ever witnessed nobody volunteering to help someone in need. So I said to the class, "If you turned around you would see that somebody is in need of help at the end of the line". Everyone turned around to look at the struggling boy. I said "It would be nice if someone volunteered to help him pick-up his papers, that would be a win-win situation". A student in the class yelled "yea, he's in a lose-lose situation right now". "I agree", I said. "Let's make this a win-win situation" and the students around the struggling boy, helped him pick-up all the papers that were on the floor.
This was an unexpected learning occasion for myself and the students. For them, I pointed out that helping others is a win-win situation, and for me I learned that there are many teaching moments in a day, no matter how small they may seem. I was happy to hear the other boy realize the fact that his lack of aid was a lose-lose situation. Even though I was originally disappointed that no one helped the boy, it turned out to be an important lesson learned.

Synergize 'em

In the past week I've noticed myself using the word "synergy" in the art room quite often. Our Winchester artists are working on their "Reflections" projects, and the students are interpreting their own idea of what beauty is, into unique works of art.
In the beginning of class, I've been showing class artwork as examples to the students, and I ask them "What can this artist do to enhance the details in their work"? And I explain to them that we are not criticizing, or picking on any one, but rather we are synergizing and working together to give this artist suggestions on how they could enhance their work. I explain that the decision is always up to the individual artist. But when we synergize as a class, we come up with many great ideas, more than anyone would think of on their own. So it helps all of us as individual artists to hear the synergized thoughts and suggestions of others.

Another way we synergize in the art room is at clean-up time. I love the kindergarten students reaction to leftover paint that I leave on the table during my demonstration. They always get in a panic that I got paint on the table, when I instruct them to paint all the way to the edge of their work. I tell them "Don't worry about paint on the tables, concentrate on painting to the edge of your artwork and at the end of class we will synergize to clean-up our tables". You can imagine 20 kindergarten students putting wet paintings in the drying rack, carrying paint to the sink area and wiping down the tables with sponges and paper towels. You can feel the synergy as you watch them in clean-up mode. They do an amazing job and they clearly enjoy synergizing to clean-up the art room.

I'm constantly thinking of ways I can incorporate the 7 Habits into my daily routine in the art room at Winchester. Proactive is one of my favorites and also one of the easier habits to incorporate. I'm almost sick of hearing myself telling the kids to be proactive, in a discipline situation. I rather use proactive in a positive situation like, let's be proactive about completing our paintings so we can add a layer of chalk pastel next week!
I do start my lesson explanations by telling the students to begin with the end in mind. Try to imagine what your project might look like, and try your best to achieve it with hard work and good craftsmanship. I love looking at their faces and seeing the wonder in their eyes (and the wheels turning) as they try hard to imagine their artwork. But you always have to put first things first, and my art students create an initial sketch of their ideas for all projects. So the first three habits have been easily covered in the art room.
Today I had a particular discipline issue with a fifth grade boy who seems to do the opposite of what I ask, and enjoys making it a public display. After he was done with his antics, I had a one on one conversation with him. I told him that I was not going to play this game with him, and that he needs to be the leader that everyone knows he is and show everyone how to behave in the art room. I then gave him a stack of drawings to hand out to the class so he would feel like and important leader. Shortly after that I had no other problems with this boy. In fact, the rest of the class ran like a well oiled machine, even though it started out chaotic. There are other challenges in this class involving other boys that can be very disruptive. They too continued to work and do very well for the rest of the period. I almost could not believe my eyes.