How Many Clicks Did You Make Today?
Community Arts Network or CAN is "building a bridge to the future."
The Community Arts Network (CAN) supports the belief that the arts are an integral part of a healthy culture, providing both intellectual nourishment and social benefit, and that community-based arts provide significant value both to communities and artists.
CAPE'S MISSION
CAPE advances the arts as a vital strategy for improving teaching and learning by increasing students’ capacity for academic success, critical thinking, and creativity.
After reviewing this weeks blogs for cyberpedagogy class, I got to thinking about how to combine these two missions as I move forward into the field of arts education. After all, who wouldn't want an art classroom that could provide "intellectual nourishment and social benefit through increasing students' capacity for academic success, critical thinking, and creativity"?
As a first year teacher I'm afraid it will be no easy task to develop a rich classroom based off of this framework. While I sit in front of my computer I am challenging myself to come up with five vague steps at working towards this ideal. Hmmmmm...
(One must note, these perhaps are trite and obvious and not too profound, but hey it's something worth working towards, I think, regardless)
1. Trust --- okay, what does that mean? How can I let students know they can trust me as their teacher and trust the art classroom for new ideas as a safe place starting day one?
2. Which brings us to another step... Safe Place --- the art classroom should be a place where ideas can be explored without shame and support should be given thoughtfully.
3. Innovation --- here comes that intellectual nourishment. I hope to encourage students to ask questions and push boundaries (hmmmm.... how might that be problematic as the authority???). Either way, I want to teach to think.
4. Collaboration --- what would be social about isolation? Let's work together!!!Let's build a community arts classroom!
5. Finally, (my fav)... Dialogue --- setting the classroom up to be a place to have a whole bunch of transference happening. It's good to learn from other people; it widens our self awareness within a social context. Also, it gives students a feeling of empowerment when they feel their teaching a new idea to their peers.
Alright guys... start adding on.
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ooh i love this idea! i was going to add something about power, but i actually think that fits a little in to each of the steps you have already (like, relinquishing power to students to let them ask those questions/push boundaries, etc., but also to direct where and what they want to learn so that they're recognizing and working with what they really care about).
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