Greetings!
I started writing this entry last week but quickly got side swept by the level of activity that went on over spring break! I'll show the entry I had originally started writing before the week on nonstop art and what my reflections are after the event.
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It is the start of our huge Spring Break Art Extravaganza as I'm sure many others of you are currently experiencing. The last few weeks have been focused on the production of prototypes for the activities going on this week and the preparation of related materials. My most enjoyable moments during this period has been the incredibly dull jobs: organizing all the colored pencils and rubber banding like shades together, organizing all the brushes and rubber banding like brush types together, sharpening all the pencils and rubber banding like lead types together... I'm sure you can see where this has gone. Our favorite thing has been cutting up small paper scraps for a collage project - we ended up cutting somewhere near 5000 shapes and this week we get to see if we run out in the next day or if we have them left over for a week.
I haven't been very involved in programming as the majority of my assigned dates are later this month and into April. However, I did get to drop in on the free teacher workshop at the start of this month. It was a collaborative program between the Kimbell and the Onstead Institute here at UNT! I was thrilled to learn that James Thurman was leading the workshop as I took a digital fabrication course with him over the summer and I was able to see his wife and my previous metals professor Umut Demirgüç Thurman. The workshop focused on metal stamping in relation to Mayan glyphs and the (not so) modern emoticons (example: (O_O) ).
Although we only had half the teachers who had signed up for the workshop show up, the ones that were there fell in love with the activity. Everyone got their very own personal stamping set to take with them and multiple pendants to make various designs into. While many made silly faces, some drifted into mandala and snowflake designs while others discussed the viability of these pendants for "Project Semicolon", an suicide prevention initiative, as the semicolon ( ; ) is used to denote where a sentence could have ended but didn't. The subject area may be tender for some, but I thought it was incredibly heartwarming to see teachers thinking about how to reach their students with these activities and make sure that they were being supportive.
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Spring break was a back and forth whirlwind for me. The first day, I was in charge of facilitating our skyline collages, making sure materials were being replenished, and giving instruction to children and their adults to have a successful activity. Thankfully this wasn't too difficult given all the shapes were cut out already and children just had to glue them together, but it was a little bit surprising that it wasn't really able to flow without some form of verbal instruction. We did have directions printed out at the tables but I think the text was too small for kids to read and the pictures did not show any details of the process due to the small sizing. Things to know for next time.
The rest of the week, I was primarily in the education studios facilitating the three rotating art activities in there with docent assistance. I was totally in my element with 30+ kids in a room at a time since I've done student teaching before! I quickly learned that docents are a blessing and a curse... While I loved having the extra hands to pass out materials, give directions, and swap out for the next activity, I found myself frustrated that half of them would bunch up and chitchat instead of helping children, their insistence to clean up 10+ minutes before the activity ended when we had a 30 minute break to change things over, and their refusal to listen to me as an educator... I think part of that issue is that some people lack respect for me since I look so young (one woman refused to believe that I had taught before). Guess it'll take me another 20 years before the docents listen to me at this rate.
Are there any softer ways to wrangle docents or is this just something to expect going forward?
I used to love doing those mundane tasks as well! The cutting of paper, the organizing of colored pencils, it kind of puts you in a hypnotic state. I liked having those "autopilot" activities interspersed with the more mind-bending work.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I would teach for large events, like family days, I loved finding that rhythm of language where you refine your directions to the point of perfection. It takes a lot of practice but I enjoyed getting to that point where it was the minimal amount of words but the right amount of direction so that everyone knew what to do/expect.
Docents! A blessing and a curse, indeed! My method is always to smother them with kindness. As my mother always said to me, "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." And, I really do think that is true. If you can win them over, I think you'll find that they can be great allies :)