My friend Meemie Kemper shared a way of teaching art in a most intrinsic method which she had learned in a week long workshop this past summer. TAB has the following beliefs:
1. The child is the artist.
2. The art room is the child’s studio.
3. What do artists do?
There are 8 studio habits of mind that were able to contribute to habits of mind – observe, persist, engage, …
Five minutes are used for the teacher to give an introduction and then studio time occurs – kids create, come up with an idea, explore, revise, edit, reflect, clean-up.
The teacher uses “Art Traps” which are challenging questions for the child to keep tapping into their creative mind such as “I wonder what would happen …” or “Did you think of …” or “Where will you go next?”
The teacher gives the Artists the following 4 Reflection questions:
1. Tell me about your art.
2. How did you make this?
3. What would you like people to notice?
4. Where did this idea come from?
There’s a video on YouTube by Shantell Martin called, “What do artists do?” Martin says she asked herself, “What could I do in my lifetime that would be uniquely me?”
