Students Are Speaking the 7 Habits

My sixth grade students love to come to the art room at the end of the day to work on projects, help clean up or sometimes just play with art materials. Friday in particular is clean-up day, and for some odd reason many students want to come down to my room and CLEAN! I'm sure their parents would be surprised to know this, even the students that tell me they don't clean their rooms will clean my art room. On one particular Friday, four girls wanted to splatter paint like Jackson Pollack. Now this style of painting can get very messy, so I told them they could as long as they prepared the tables for painting, and cleaned up the entire mess when they were finished. They agreed and started to prep the room. When they finally finished painting, I looked at my room and it was a disaster! I wondered if they would clean it all up in the manner I was expecting. To my surprise they began the task of putting the papers in the drying rack, collecting the newspaper and putting it in the recycle bin, and finally washing the tables, cleaning the brushes and putting all the paint away in the cabinets. One girl joked "hey, we're synergizing" and I replied "yes, you are and it's awesome!" I laughed to myself and was really excited that this student used the language that we've been teaching them since September. It's only a matter of time that our students fully adopt the 7 Habits, and use the language in their every day conversations.

Sharpening the Saw Sculpture

My second grade art students are working on Hip-hop Haring figures based on the artist Keith Haring. The figures are simplified bodies that are in a dancing motion. The students started the lesson by dancing to get the motions just right. They drew and cut out a large, dancing paper figure, traced it, and cut out a second. The two figures are joined together by staples, adding a little bit of stuffing inside to make it look like a flat pillow. We glued a rulter at the base so the figures looks like a giant dancing lollipop. The students are now busy painting these figures with colorful patterns and shapes. We hope to make these figures into a "Sharpening the Saw" sculpture to display in the school building for Leadership Day. I'm thinking of creating a wire tower that the figures can be placed into using the stick to hold it in place. That idea is in the planning stage... stay tuned.

Paint with the End in Mind

Sometimes its hard for students to picture what an art project will look like in the end. Mrs. Vanderwerf's students are busy making paintings based on emotions. These paintings plus a cover design will eventually be made into a hand made-book that the students will bind themselves.

We began the project by looking at color field paintings by Mark Rothko which are very large paintings of subtle color washes. From afar they look like paintings of just one or two colors. They are meant to be looked at long enough so you can feel the colors wash over you, eventually getting an overwhelming sensation of a mood change just by starring at the colors.

My students are choosing colors for each emotion painting based on how a color makes them feel. They use their color choices to paint a small painting of emotions such as: happy, sad, mad, frustrated, proud, nervous, embarrassed, scared, loved and lonely. When all ten paintings are complete we will begin to put our feelings books together.

The boys in Mrs. Vanderwerf's class are so busy painting and experimenting with painting techniques, that they don't even think about what we're going to do with the pages in the end. I have to keep reminding them that we have to paint with the end in mind so we will have all our pages ready when we begin to bind our hand-made books.

7 Habits Survey Results

I'd like to be part of the discussion of the 7 Habits survey results, so I thought I would post my response to Kathy's questions here.
What stands out? After reading all the results I think what stands out is that we have been able to establish the framework and culture of the 7 Habits program at Winchester. I notice students using the language, and some of them really participating in the habits, but I think most of the students need the habits to become part of the fabric of their existence, they need to believe in the 7 Habits. In my opinion that hasn't happened yet, but it will come with time and more persistence on our parts.
Nothing really surprised me about the survey but I do have a concern. My concern is how do you overcome the anti-leadership culture that some students live with at home? In the survey most agree that kids come to school ready to learn, yet most would agree that last year's kids are not likely to be future leaders in the next year or beyond. Granted this program was not in place for those kids, but we do struggle with opposing lifestyles in some of our population. Its hard for a student to have one set of rules at home and one set of rules at school. Which one wins out? For most, I think its the rules at home. Now that we've established the 7 Habits here at Winchester I hope we see results that can break this anti-leadership cycle.
Where do we focus and how do we get better? I feel its just a matter of time and more repetition of the 7 Habits, telling the kids the right thing and leading by example. Maybe we could have assemblies for the kids in a "motivational speaker style", where we get them all really motivated and excited with cheering and celebrating. Maybe in this assembly kids could be recognized for their leadership qualitites above and beyond the norm. I just think we need to keep driving it home, with persistence and hard work we will get our students to change the way they think of themselves. Make them truly believe they are LEADERS... and not just talk the talk.

Mona Leader

The Mona Lisa by Leonardo DaVinci is probably the most famous portrait in the world. I want our Winchester students to know and easily recognize her, but also have a little fun with her at the same time.
Many parodies have been created based on the Mona Lisa, where artists use her image but change the face or outfit to create a themed Mona of some kind. There's Marge Mona from the Simpsons, Pantene Mona to advertise shampoo, Miss Piggy Mona and even Mona Mr. Bean! The parody list goes on and on and there are even several web sites dedicated to Mona Lisa parodies and artworks.
I thought our 5th and 6th grade students would enjoy creating their own Mona Lisa parodies as an extra class activity when project work is completed early. I have printed copies of the Mona Lisa in silouette for students to trace on a blank sheet of paper. After they trace her silouette they use their imaginations to create a parody Mona Lisa of their own creation. So far I've seen Hippie Mona, Barbie Mona and Rapper Mona to name just a few. The students keep asking and asking to make more Monas and soon you will see a display of their Monas which will be titled "Mona Leader".
The Mona Lisa surely is the leader of the pack when it comes to famous portraits, and our 5th and 6th grade students are busy synergizing to create this upcoming "Mona Leader" display. I hope you'll enjoy viewing our Winchester students amusing imaginations!

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!