Teach Your Children Well

I realize I possess a multicolored tool bag filled with an array of objects and experiences. The colors reflect the wide spectrum and are always filled with rays of sunshine. One of those is teaching technology to kindergarten through third-grade students. The term technology takes on many forms, definitions, and ideas. Nowadays when one says technology I believe we all imagine the internet or the world wide web, or even. . . the ubiquitous iPhone. 

The program I taught was an after-school enrichment program with the City of Decatur inside the City Schools of Decatur in Georgia. This is a pretty amazing area to work in, its schools are well funded, well supplied and were once really diverse. The schools have great parent involvement and incredibly dedicated teachers with a supportive administration. I had the pleasure of teaching technology after school from 2010 - 2014. During that time there was a wonderful amount of autonomy to design your program the way that fit your students. 

I taught everything from digital drawing, digital photography, digital video and editing. My students created videos on climate change and living "green" with a Green Screen and then dropped in the background of their choice from their online searches. Our equipment was mostly Apple. The students had access to MacBooks and iPads. I used and got them involved in the Promethean Board for instruction as well. I think my favorite part was introducing a lesson and then letting them go to create as they saw fit. Seeing their imaginations fly. . . that has to be the most colorful tool I have ever seen.

One of the first week's lessons includes a scavenger hunt of sorts. Students have to identity the objects with their corresponding letter and then match what its purpose is. 

First-grade students sharing their ideas about the uses and purposes for the equipment in front of them.

Each class lasted for an hour and a half. Originally designed to accommodate two groups rotating in and out of class, but eventually there were students who were committed to their projects and loved coming so they would stay the entire time. They were allowed to leave if they chose and to have breaks.

Do You Remember the Time When We Fell In Love?

There was this time when I received a class with 26 students and 20 of them were boys. An entire ball of energy would emit vibrations of happiness when their teacher would line them up at my classroom door! What does a visual arts teacher do with all of that elementary energy?

TAKE THEM OUTSIDE FOR RECESS! - Just kidding!!!

So I have to admit that I spent a lot of time studying child and adolescent psychology, abnormal psychology and social psychology in undergraduate school. Our professional development team at the school had done a fairly good job of keeping us instructors up to speed on behavior interventions and strategies such as differentiation and understanding learning styles including multiple intelligences.

I'd written my lesson unit and planned my curriculum for this class. I was going to take them on a journey complete with drawing and painting, introducing the Elements and Principles of design with two-dimensional media. Well... let's just say that that lasted a week before I knew I had to retool my plans or else! Because let's face facts -- they were a little naughty. There was no way I'd survive, nor would they on cut paper, watercolor, tempera, and pencil on paper! I had to think fast.

CERAMICS! That's it! "Playdough" they called it. And thus... my first lesson: this is NOT

playdough. It's not mud and it's not dirt. Soooo, the sciences you say? They didn't but... I did!
I used videos and books to explain that clay minerals found in soil - this was tough because it sounds like a contradiction to the idea of dirt. Ohhhh boyyyys. Using examples I was able to let them observe the difference between porcelain, earthenware, and stoneware as well as everyday Georgia dirt and garden soil. I let them touch it, feel it and even suggested they could taste it! To that suggestion, I received a resounding EEEEUUUUW and lots of laughs!

I taught them new words that I kept on the Word Wall like the names of the different clays, plasticity, glazes, chemistry, and structure. I used metaphors and analogies that they could understand, like a Poptart's glaze and why it can withstand a hot toaster, and Koolaid that changes the color and taste of water. They got a kick out of that, and I believe it helped them understand the complex concepts better. I very briefly covered the chemical make-up of each clay mineral, its particle size and how that determines the firing temperature I'd use in the big "oven" AKA kiln, but they were second graders who weren't 100% sure they believed me -- that it wasn't dirt.

It worked... it was my greatest Jedi Mind-trick to date. I introduced them to all kinds of handbuilding techniques primarily because they were really excited about the bodily-kinesthetic activity. I had them use stoneware, primarily because of its durability. All of that energy was harnessed and focused on creating three-dimensional vessels and it turned out to be wonderful lessons for all of us.