SAIIER 2014:Art and Integral Education

A Program to Encourage Critical Thinking in Children		Auroville Teacher Training with Partho
Art and Integral Education

Aim of project

All students in Entity::Transition School participate in arts and crafts and music classes. Art education is an essential part of our Integral Education, and in the classes they learn skills, techniques and methods. Additionally, art education can have a broad range of benefits for children: the opportunity to nurture creativity, a sense of beauty and imagination as well as the development of thinking and problem solving skills. The children are guided to discover and progress individually and at the same time learn to appreciate the work of others.

In Transition School various forms of art are integrated throughout the program through work in class projects. The arts provide students many opportunities for demonstrating learning and competency. Students have the chance to express themselves and their thoughts and ideas through power point presentations, posters, drawings, poetry and other forms of creative activities. When they prepare a theater performance, they also work on the props. Additionally, in all school community events (party, graduation dinner, open houses…) they work together to make the scenery and the decorations. Children explore a variety of thinking processes, art forms, materials and techniques, through a wide range of activities.

Activities

Art in the Math and Geography Classes

Building three-dimensional geometric shapes is a great way for students to learn to measure accurately and use the tools in their geometry boxes. Additionally, students learned to calculate angles. We started by building a tetrahedron, then a cube, an octahedron, and finally, a dodecahedron. The children learned how to use a protractor, ruler and a pair of compasses. The shapes make beautiful hanging decorations in the classroom. Each student created their own colorful designs on the faces of the different shapes.

As part of our Geography Program, the Phoenix Firebirds (grade 6) made their own paper mache globes. Initially they worked on reproducing the world map to scale, and when they were ready they drew it on their globes, which they had covered with a white base coat. They then painted the oceans and the continents. Through this project, the children worked on their math skills, developing their sense of space and proportions and the capacity to reproduce in 2 Dimensions and 3 Dimensions. They also worked on Geography, learning about the world and locating its oceans, its continents and various natural landscapes. They developed their manual and visual arts and crafts skills through learning to make paper mache, drawing and painting.

Art can open new doors for the understanding of different cultures

This year in 6th grade, we explored a new project looking at a different culture with different ways of relating to fellow humans, animals, nature, and spirituality: Native Americans. Two artistic projects helped to go deeper in the understanding of that diverse and spiritual people.

We made “dream-catchers” that are believed to let the good dreams pass on to you and catch the bad dreams in their web. We had been collecting feathers for a whole term before starting this project. It required manual skills, mathematics, an aesthetic sense, precision, concentration, use of natural elements, and developed interconnectedness. One child made a 3D spider with thread and beads to decorate his web. Another brought beautiful beads from home to share with the class to decorate their dream-catchers. One child even brought a couple of dog's teeth to hang on his web.

Another artistic activity was to draw one's spirit animal. The whole class did a guided meditation to help them connect to an animal that had qualities that would help them in their everyday life. They had to draw their animal in a circle and only use black and white. The children enjoyed this activity and took a lot of time to make their spirit animal cards beautiful. It involved coloring and cutting, concentration, silence, and creativity. They loved working with feathers. The boys started transforming their pens into “feather pens”. The children inspired one another and helped one another.

Each activity was linked to a writing project, describing and assessing their work and progress, and the kids did a lot of research on different tribes and their rituals. They typed them on the computer and made printouts. The children learned poems and songs on the theme, and presented their work to their parents during the end of term open house. All the girls of the class wore feather earrings and made fringes on their t-shirts for that occasion.

In the same light, the grade 8 students studied the history and geography of Europe during the Renaissance period and later in the year the history and geography of India. Included in this was the study of art and artists, poetry and architecture. They ended the project by doing research on different subject areas (areas that they chose to study), designing posters and presenting their work to their parents.

Poetry, Photography and Music

On Monday mornings the whole school meets to start the week with a sharing and a concentration. At this time children often recite poems that they have learned. This is appreciated by all of the students and the teachers. Additionally, several groups recited poems for their parents. The grade 8 students had a poetry and music recital. The students chose poems written by classical poets to recite. These students had some fundamental photography classes and then took pictures at the Matrimandir Garden. They each chose a picture to express in the form of a haiku and presented a power point presentation to their parents. On the same day they presented music and songs that they had written.

Here is a report from the music teacher:

This year was the third time in the last ten years that we had carried out a major project on song writing in Transition School. Experience had taught us that without proper structure and planning, enthusiasm does not always lead to success. It needs careful preparation, or songs will be made that are either difficult to sing or impossible to add music to.

In order to avoid these pitfalls, students were given several preparatory projects. The first was to take a song of their own choice and to rewrite the lyrics, keeping a similar feeling to the song. The notion behind this was to familiarize students with the idea that lyrics have structure and meaning to them. Good songs make artistic sense on their own without music. They are like poetry, and have certain ways in which they are set, in order to make them both understandable and beautiful. Reworking existing songs was a quick and easy way to get students writing structured songs.

The second project was rhythmically based. Often if you allow students to freely write songs, they will compose lyrics with little or no rhythmic structure, which later on makes it very hard to add music to them. To avoid this, we asked students to take famous poems and tongue twisters and recite them using rhythmic patterns that they had chosen. Students who were good at this took these even further and added melodies to the poems.

The final stage of the project was to freely compose a song. Genre, language, style, and theme were left entirely up to them. They broke into groups, and were asked to make action plans based upon the previous work. They were also asked to choose the members of their groups based on what people could offer to the project, and not entirely based on friendship. We wanted to have balanced groups that included good singers, composers and instrumentalists.

The outcome was successful. The project was met with considerable enthusiasm, and songs were composed of a high standard. In some cases groups also integrated students that played other instruments such as piano, guitar and percussion, making it a very rounded project. Most of the songs were performed to teachers and guests outside class, and it is planned next year to do a further presentation for the public.

Report from the Arts and Crafts team

Through an exposure to art, all forms of art, children get a chance to stimulate their imaginations, learn to express themselves and also work on their cognitive and problem-solving skills. These problem-solving skills enable them to think creatively in other situations, which can boost their academic results. The enjoyable nature of art projects engages most students. Because they enjoy the artwork, they are better able to concentrate on the task, sticking with it from beginning to end. Finishing the project gives the kids a sense of accomplishment and self confidence.

1st - 4th grades

Art out of the art classroom: Several art installation projects were proposed to the 3rd and 4th graders in order to understand “art in public”. Children were enthusiastic about the projects and they went through intense group work and discussions. As an outcome, murals on several school buildings, mobiles in the school garden and a school sign board were designed and created.

Learning for oneself through craft: During the last 3 months, a large proportion of the Arts and Crafts time of the 1st - 4th graders was dedicated to basic stitching and embroidery work. They started off from a very basic skill level but they quickly improved. Their fine-motor skills, self-control and concentration also improved through this work. Eventually most of them happily managed to finish a doll or a cushion with beautiful embroidery.

5th grade

Leaf Project: The kids explored and picked different leaves they liked. They then selected different colors of paint. They painted the leaves in solid colors or patterns, and used the leaves as stamps which they pressed on paper.

What animal are you?: All young children are fascinated by animals. In this project, we read the kids different books about animals and showed them pictures. Then we start asking them what animal they think they are? What animal do they feel like?

The kids drew fun animals in different colors and shapes with funny ears and spots. After creating these animals they turned them into large clay pieces upon which they drew or painted the animal.

Portrait and self portrait in art history: The students drew portraits of each other using black and white and shading. Then they made a self portrait on a big paper, split the image in four parts and colored each part with different techniques: collage, pencil shading, watercolor and acrylic paint. They created an installation for the annual art exhibition in Kala Kendra based on different expressions of eyes. The students really enjoyed this project and experimented with many different materials and techniques.

6th grade

Still life and black and white images: One project we worked on was having the kids choose a photocopy or photograph of an image of their choice, then draw an outline to simplify and separate the main areas of dark and light. They then traced and transferred the outline drawing onto a fresh sheet of paper and shaded in the dark areas of the drawing to re-establish the basic tones of the original portrait. After that, they filled in the new image with different tones, colors, patterns and textures. Here they learned about texture and shading. From this they went into color theory and pop art.

Pop art: We showed the students pictures, videos, books, slide shows and other images. Then we moved into making one object from their still life drawings into basic pop art using paints, colored pencils, paper and markers.

Finally, they did a project on making silhouettes, using different techniques that they learned during the year.

7th and 8th grades

This is the second year that the school expanded the program to include 7th and 8th grade students who, for the past years, have been attending the Pyramids art program. Our goal for arts and crafts for the older children was to explore art of all different types and work on different methods and skills.

Art history topics: With the 7th and 8th grade students, we started many classes by looking at books, photos, slideshows and movies for 20-30 minutes. We focused on contemporary art movements (pop art, murals, some paintings by Mexican artist Diego Rivera and expressionism). The students worked in small groups. They had four different main projects with different teachers. The classes were divided into Free Work Stations plus Nele’s studio in Kalabumi.