Residency / Whittier International School, Jane Swatosh, 4th Graders, 5 hours 10 minutes
This was my first week with Jane’s class at Whittier. We started the day with introductions and a couple good morning games before a math workshop. One surprising aspect was that there are new ways of doing math, which I quickly learned so I could bounce around groups to help them work through the process. (Doing subtraction by adding? Brand new to me!) It was really interesting seeing different ways kids grapple challenging information, seen clearly between learning math and learning printmaking at Highpoint; at Highpoint each will charge forward with however they think something works, while in math they tend to resort to copying the classmates who are more confident in their work.
After lunch and recess I took individual students out to a quiet hallway space to look over drafts of their research papers to help with capitalization, punctuation and drafting full sentences. After going through one by one, I took a small group out to practice reading out loud. One thing I need to build my confidence in is discipline, especially when we’re out in the hallway away from their teacher. Jane has encouraged me to tell kids to leave when they’re acting out or not participating, but I think time will help me gauge what this looks like. I think familiarity with the class and the school’s structure will help as well, as a couple of students were in and out of buddy rooms throughout the day for causing disruptions in class.
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, High school, 10 hours
3 hours / Wednesday, Prep for upcoming classes and classroom cleaning
4 hours / On Thursday I led a stencil mono print demo for a group of about 17 high school juniors and seniors from Chaska HS. They were a mix of art classes, and had been researching mola printing, a type of indigenous pattern making. The demo for my part was the same, as they came with stencils prepared. For this demo it was important for them to know about the application of ink onto stencils and the importance of the ink being thin, as well as how to use the brayer with delicate stencils. In my demo I showed gradient backgrounds, using blank stencils for negative space, working reductively with the ink and how to make ghost prints.
The work these students came with was beautiful, and it was clear they had had a lot of time to plan their images. Over the course of the class it became apparent that their final images would be judged by the teachers for their research into the mola technique. One thing that made me uncomfortable, however, was that the winners of this were to receive monetary rewards that they were supposed to use in getting materials for their next project. The tone of the work felt then that they were making their prints not to explore the process or to express ideas, but to win against their peers. These students were also vocally harsh towards themselves in response to how their work came off the press, more often than not unhappy with how the work looked.
In the past there have been other classes that have used their time in our classroom to make work for competitions, and it’s almost always the teacher initiating this competitive aspect, rather than students wishing to submit work they’re proud of for internal reasons. It's these same classes that result in students making “good” or “bad” judgements about their work, which feels counterintuitive for how I’ve been experiencing these classes. I think there are alternative ways to encourage and motivate students to make compelling, meaningful work without monetary or competitive incentives. I’m left wondering what my place as a visiting artist or in the case of Highpoint where the structure is already in place, means for working in these kinds of environments where I disagree with the teacher’s methodology, especially when my place is in the process, not so much the practice of it.
3 Hours / This Friday Stanzi taught a stencil mono print class to a group of 5th graders from Benjamin E. Mays and I assisted.