A Celebration of the Arts at Winchester

Fine Arts Night was a celebration of the artistic and musical talents of our Winchester students, a true win-win for us all. As our students entered with their parents and families, they beamed with pride as they led their families to locate their artwork. I told each student that it was like a treasure hunt, and you had to walk through the entire exhibit to find your work. At least two works of art (some students had three) were displayed for each Winchester student which totaled to approx. 700 pieces of art displayed. That's a lot of tape! (and thanks again to all the staff members who helped to hang much of the artwork - I love you guys!) As you know the tape did not hold up this year, and during the show I had tape rolls under the display table so I could add more tape to keep the artwork on the walls! Even if you could not attend the event, the halls were filled with colorful artistic expressions for all of us to enjoy. The students really benefit from seeing all their work on the walls of the school. They take pride in their accomplishments and enjoy the beauty and energy of all the colors, shapes and textures that surround them. Believe me when I tell you that they are diligent in their search to find all their artwork, and are quick to let me know if anything is misspelled, falling down or not positioned correctly. We as a staff are also the winners by being able to enjoy original artwork made by our own students hands. I never tire of viewing all their work, remembering the process and sometimes stuggle that they go through to get things just right. This creative, problem solving process is what art is all about, and what I believe our students will take with them as they go through school and on to their careers. Even if our students never paint or draw again as adults, having a creative mind and having the ability to think "outside the box" is what art class is meant to instill in our students. Being able to problem solve with a creative mind is a skill that will be necessary for our students to succeed in the 21st century.

Making Students Responsible in the Art Room

I don't think any classroom in the school gets as dirty and unorganized as mine does in one day. I guess I'd describe myself as neat and somewhat anal about the way our art supplies should be kept organized. You would never know that fact by looking at my art room. It's impossible to keep it clean and orderly without extra help. I knew a long time ago that I needed my students to take part in that effort everyday. The 7 Habits have helped me a great deal with clean-up time. Near the end of class I ask my students to synergize and work to clean-up the art room. I will say that the 6th grade class is still a bit sluggish in this effort. Some like to sit and watch while others do most of the clean-up. These students don't sit for long as I make sure everyone is part of the clean-up experience. On the opposite end of the spectrum are my kindergarteners, clean-up is their favorite time. They like nothing better than to synergize and wash 'n dry my tables. In fact, I had to delegate wash and dry jobs to specific students because everyone in the room was scrubbing one day with wet paper towels. Can you imagine 29 kindergarten students washing my tables at once? It's a beautiful thing. Synergizing is working well in the art room and getting better all the time. I'm proud to say that I really see the 7 Habits working as my art students synergize to help clean-up the art room.

Synergizing for Leadership Day

Our first annual Winchester Leadership Day is soon approaching and you can feel the buzz of the entire staff as we synergize to arrange every last detail. There have been logos, banners and bookmarks to design, placemats for students to decorate, songs for children to learn and sing, hallways to adorn with Leadership themed work and presentations to be made perfect. There is food to prepare, schedules to make, invitations to send out, packages to be organized and so much more not even mentioned here. Walk into the staff room at any time and the conversation is a buzz with Leadership Day talk and preparation.

I cannot imagine what it takes to organize such an event and remember every last detail so the day will be as perfect as it can be. It obviously takes much more than one person, but one person is really responsible for bringing the "The Leader in Me" to Winchester. We owe such vision, patience, dedication and love to our principal Kathy Brachmann, who was inspired by reading "The Leader in Me", saw all of us and our students in it, and led the way for her Leadership vision to become reality. I am proud to be a member of the Winchester staff whose dedication and passion for our students is second to none. I will be beaming with pride on that day as we watch our students confidently lead the way toward Winchester Elementary's future.

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.