"TOE JAM!!! Welcome back to Boys Writers Club gentlemen. Today we are going to start out our time together how we usually do: by taking a look at an image and discussing our thoughts about what we see. In a moment I am going to put the image on the screen and before you say anything, I want you to take a few minutes to look at the image and think about the things you see. Once we have all had a chance to look at it, you can raise your hand and I will call on you one by one to ask you to tell us what you see going on in the image. When someone is talking, we are going to be respectful and listen to what they have to say about their observations. We are not going to talk while someone else is talking, we are going to wait patiently until it is our turn to speak. When it is your turn, you may explain if you agree or disagree with something that was said. Please keep your seats and use your words to describe what you see. I will point out the details of what you are talking about from the front so that the class can follow along. Are there any questions? Okay, here is our image for today... "
* In response to: Eye of the Beholder: Research, Theory and Practice
by Abigail Housen
I enjoyed reading the account of Housen's research and development of the VTS questions and reasonings behind them. After having the opportunity to look at the reasoning behind the structure of the exercise, and having a chance to implement it in a classroom, I am once again sold on the quality and validity of the exercise and its role in a 21st century Art classroom. I feel that the exercise and the questions that it is based on truly facilitate the opportunity for students of all stages of development, backgrounds/cultures, and levels of interest in art to contribute and be taken along for the ride with the class as they develop ideas and understandings of the artwork presented together. It is such a simple exercise but achieves so many of the challenging goals we have as we set out to educate students about art.
"All students can respond to them, but, more importantly, we find in school and after school that all do. In other words, these questions get all students talking, even those who are usually silent. We repeatedly encounter teachers who are amazed that several students who never before spoke up in class had a lot to say, and other students listened to them." (Housen, p.15)
Beyond getting students involved that are typically not as engaged or eager to participate, the exercise seems to reinforce for the entire group the idea that it is okay to share your thoughts at the risk of sounding silly. I remember being scared to share ideas in school. As a matter of fact, I still am!! Now that I think about it, the only time that I feel uninhibited to share thoughts on the fly in our graduate program is when we are engaged in VTS. I think that this speaks volumes about the design of the exercise. When a student is told that a discussion on the meaning of art is open-ended and that their is no wrong answer, they are given free reign to be themselves and their own thoughts have a place to be celebrated wether they are in-line with someone else's or not.
"By looking again, reconstructing, and developing new hypotheses, the student learns that the aesthetic experience is open-ended, subject to multiple interpretations. He experiences that it is alright to make mistakes, that the more you look the more you see, that it is alright to change your mind, and that it is enjoyable to engage in this kind of problem- solving. All of this, of course, is good inquiry behavior." (Housen, p. 17)
VTS in action at Boys Writer's Club
As I mentioned in previous post, our Big Idea that we are dealing with at BWC this semester is Bodacious Beasts. The class that I am working with is made up of about twenty 1st through 4th grade boys who have displayed difficulty in their development as writers. The purpose of the program is to help the boys develop writing skills in relation to creating artwork. We have chosen several topics that are designed to get these young boys excited and facilitate them opening up their imagination to create and write. The perfect place for me to develop as an art teacher!!!
After watching my initial VTS session of the semester on video I noticed several things about my facilitation of the VTS exercise:
1. I think that I do a good job of engaging the students to respond to my questions by my positioning in relation to them. They are all sitting on the floor in front of a large Smart-board. Instead of standing up and towering over them, I have gotten in the habit of knelling down at their level to a point where I am even with the image and able to point out their observations and close to where they are creating a less intimidating presence giving them a more comfortable environment in which to share.
2. I think that I have a good ability to remember what the boys say and summarize for the class the points that they have made. I think that I certainly need to work on my ability and habit of getting to the second question asking the boys to explain their comments.
3. I also feel like I need to develop my ability to manage the discussion in terms of helping students end their comments when they start to ramble or soak up the attention. If one student dominates the discussion, that leaves little opportunity for the others.
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