PF Middle School Observation February 14
PF Middle School
Today in the middle school art classroom, the class was learning about two point perspective. They learned this through a cliche two point perspective street drawing. The teacher explains to the class how it is a step-by-step process. She shows the class examples of student's work from the past. Then she shows several different YouTube tutorials of her performing the different steps. She made the video's herself but she is not showing them in person. The video is nice quality, but she explains how she wants the class to follow her step-by-step and there is little room for exploration, mistake, or creativity. Many students that I observed were struggling to visualize how the buildings should look once they change the heights of the buildings to be taller or shorter. The students were doing a lot of erasing and tracing with their rulers. The students at the table I sat down at were joking to each other about adding more to their papers and said "or is that the next step or something" meaning they did not feel like they were able to add on with out being directed to the next step. In waiting to be told the next steps the children had time to kill and used it to talk about non-art related subjects.
I was extremely disappointed how the teacher introduced two point perspective to the class. I asked the teacher if this was a practice version for the students to later make a more personal and unique version of a two point perspective project, but she said this was the base for their final piece. The project had to follow a perfected step-by-step process that the teacher also only showed over video instead of in person. The students were clearly confused at several parts and most likely very bored at just following directions. I wonder if this is how a majority of her projects are formatted or if two point perspective is something she struggles to teach in another way. How would I personally choose to teach two point perspective? Maybe I would make it a multifacited project that also incorporated photography. I would have my students go out into their towns, neighborhoods, or anywhere and take a photo of a street corner that they like or find aesthetically pleasing. They have to angle and compose the photo to show two point perspective. Then they learn how to edit photos on photoshop or adobe. They can then create a painting or a drawing with their choose of materials that is inspired by the photo they took.
Today in the middle school art classroom, the class was learning about two point perspective. They learned this through a cliche two point perspective street drawing. The teacher explains to the class how it is a step-by-step process. She shows the class examples of student's work from the past. Then she shows several different YouTube tutorials of her performing the different steps. She made the video's herself but she is not showing them in person. The video is nice quality, but she explains how she wants the class to follow her step-by-step and there is little room for exploration, mistake, or creativity. Many students that I observed were struggling to visualize how the buildings should look once they change the heights of the buildings to be taller or shorter. The students were doing a lot of erasing and tracing with their rulers. The students at the table I sat down at were joking to each other about adding more to their papers and said "or is that the next step or something" meaning they did not feel like they were able to add on with out being directed to the next step. In waiting to be told the next steps the children had time to kill and used it to talk about non-art related subjects.
I was extremely disappointed how the teacher introduced two point perspective to the class. I asked the teacher if this was a practice version for the students to later make a more personal and unique version of a two point perspective project, but she said this was the base for their final piece. The project had to follow a perfected step-by-step process that the teacher also only showed over video instead of in person. The students were clearly confused at several parts and most likely very bored at just following directions. I wonder if this is how a majority of her projects are formatted or if two point perspective is something she struggles to teach in another way. How would I personally choose to teach two point perspective? Maybe I would make it a multifacited project that also incorporated photography. I would have my students go out into their towns, neighborhoods, or anywhere and take a photo of a street corner that they like or find aesthetically pleasing. They have to angle and compose the photo to show two point perspective. Then they learn how to edit photos on photoshop or adobe. They can then create a painting or a drawing with their choose of materials that is inspired by the photo they took.
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