As many of you know, art journaling was a catalyst to me considering myself an artist. As a way to share what I love and to learn more about the dynamics of our son's school, I decided to teach Art Journaling at Grant middle school for a quarter! It's been a great experience. I was assigned 17 kids, grades 6th through 8th. More importantly, 15 out of the 17 kids are every chatty girls! Keep in mind, I know boys and am pretty clueless about girls. I almost didn't take the job when I had to go over classroom lockdown procedures. Man, the times we live in these days...I decided to commit because I feel like art journaling has been such a therapeutic gift, that I want to share it.
I would say that most of the kids that signed up for my class had an artistic inclination. It was the kids that had no idea what they were getting into that I really wanted to reach. They were the ones that didn't think they were creative. I have found with art, there are other ways to solve a problem. You have to dig down deep, look around you and find other options. They may not work, but the process of trying is part of figuring it out. I think a lot of things (i.e. answers) are just given to kids without them having to go through the problem solving process. People want immediate answers. Art is not like math where there are definitive answers-there are different approaches to get from point A to point B and its the journey that to there that makes it worthwhile.
My intentions were to teach the kids different art techniques, give them a prompt and let them have at it. Half the kids listened and tried what was asked of them. The other half just liked learning an art technique and going with it from there. Keeping in mind that I was teaching an enrichment class with no grading involved and it was the last class of a very long day(7:30am to 4:00), I made the class pretty organic. I think the kids appreciated the less strict structure and a chance just to let loose creatively.
I'm really happy with how the class went. Here are some photos of my class I snapped:
Kids learned how to collaged about their favorite season.
Showed my students how to draw their own mandalas.
Zentangling was a huge hit! It taught the kids the unlimited possibilities of a line.
My students working on a group art journaling project. I'm happy to say the kids started as individual 6th, 7th and 8th graders and at the end became an art journaling group.
I learned some things while teaching. #1 As kids get older, they begin to doubt themselves. As mentors, we can remind them to honor what they feel inside and to believe in themselves. #2 There are different ways to solve a problem and that is a great lesson for kids to learn. #3 Middle school girls are extremely chatty and will tell you whatever you want to know about what going on in preteen lives. 😉I was honored to teach art journaling to Gierma's middle school. So much so, I will be teaching art journaling next quarter at Third Way Center residential treatment facility where Steve, my husband teaches!!
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