VCET Leadership in the Arts

Creative Thinking Forum: Leadership in the Arts

I would like to begin this Creative Thinking Forum with a quote from Ariel Sacks, an 8th Grade Teacher Leader (Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Helping Teachers Develop as Leaders, by Marilyn H. Katzenmeyer and Gayle V. Moller (2009) Understanding Teacher Leadership, Chapter 1, p.1). Ms. Sacks succinctly conveys the concept of teacher leadership and provides a logical lunching pad into the Arts:
     Being a teacher leader means sharing and representing relevant and key ideas of our work as              teachers in contexts beyond our individual classrooms so as to improve the education of our                students and our ability to provide it for them.

Many times teachers, myself included, become caught up in the micro-life of their classroom. Students' specific challenges become the motivator for instructional development. Teachers' researching expertise is used to solve classroom issues and not documented and shared for broader application.. This year my passion to support students led me to learn about Whole Brain Teaching, and to successfully apply the concepts to the students in my classroom, however, I only shared the dynamics of the concept with a few people. I would submit, that solving classroom challenges only represent a small percentage of the potential success for the application of the information they provide. "Sharing and representing relevant and key ideas of our work in contexts beyond our individual classroom (Sacks, 2013)" is another vital aspect! Continued reading and reflection on this year, made me aware of pathways I would like to pursue in the coming year.The first, is the expanded use of student art as a platform for discussion, in and outside of the class, and second, is the Personal Learning Environment (PLE), a documentational tool for sharing ideas, not only among students and their families, but also within my teacher team.

Expanded Use of Student Art
An important feature of Kindergarten is the opportunity to explore art for learning. In our school we have an hour of art each week, as well as, one to three art projects to develop students' fine motor skill and auditory ability. This artwork takes whole group form, with 1 or 2 color choices to create a sense of individuality. My proposal would be to expand the use of art in the classroom to include, "studio-style" opportunities. For instance, in the fall we study squirrels. A studio experience would be to ask students to represent a squirrel through 3-dimension (ex. clay), painting, or collage. It would be fun to have students use cut up pictures of squirrels to create the distinctive shape of a squirrel! The result of their work could extend beyond the classroom and be used as a library exhibit and/or a backdrop for books on squirrels. Another idea, that I have seen and loved, but never tried is giving students the opportunity to explore color by asking them to create a collage featuring shades of only one color (ex., red - where all pictures selected have red as the dominate color). Students could work individually or in collaboration to create an artistic anchor chart to be mounted and displayed all year! Doing this would give students ownership of their classroom environment and document their ability to understand and spell color words PLUS they would develop collaboration skills as a team! A beginning of the year request for used magazines could become a very significant resource for inspirational artwork during the course of the year! These ideas and their effectiveness could be shared with my teacher team so they could do the project, as well. I envision having a Kindergarten Squirrel Show in the lobby of our school - the possibilities are endless, exciting and all provide opportunities for Leadership in the Arts!

Personal Learning Environments (PLE)
One area of my practice that I want to develop this year is providing my students with a Personal Learning environment (PLE). I love having my "blogspot" to practice, expand and share my thinking. Special thanks go to the George Mason's Virginia Center for Excellence in Teaching (VCET) team for helping to create this forum! I realized that I have lots of ideas to share and so do my students! As a Leader in the Arts, my job is to create a forum where their voices can be heard. When I first made the connection between research and reality, I laughed, thinking, "Connie, your students are 5 years old!" however, I could not dismiss the idea! Most kinders are more than willing to share their thoughts - I realized I just had to find a venue! In my school, each class is blessed to have a Smartboard, which is an interactive, electronic devise much like a large TV screen. At the beginning of the year, I could write student insights on projects on the Smartboard for them - toward the end of the year students could have the opportunity to write their own ideas on our Big Screen Blog! Excited for the possibilities of this student contribution, I realized this type of student forum could be evaluative and help teachers develop  and enhance class projects. Student thoughts could be shared with parents in our weekly "Window on Our World" e-letter and, most exciting of all -PLE's could be used to help students develop and measure their critical thinking and articulation skills! WOW!!!! It makes me excited to think of the ways these ideas could be incorporated into my students' on-line portfolios, in addition PLE's would give students a sense of ownership of their learning environment, help me plan more effective instruction, and develop and enrich teacher/student dialogues!

Conclusion
Teacher Leadership is a mind-set. It starts with the awareness that options are endless for those willing to reach out and connect with others. This week's VCET Program has helped me realize this valuable truth. I would like to end my blog with this thought from Awakening the Sleeping Giant (p.21)....
     The giant resource of teacher leadership must be unleashed in the support of improved student             learning. When teachers recognize that they can be leaders and accept a leading role                           from among the array of roles available to them, positive results in school will follow.The                  importance of teachers in complex, ongoing, educational change efforts cannot be overstated. 

Here's to 2014-2015 - our year for making a difference!