To Whom It May Concern:
With your permission, I would like to present an artistic and academic challenge for the students. I would like to do this by heading up a school, online newspaper, developed by a combined effort of the heads of the different curricular departments, complete with the inclusion of digital photography interlaced with articles and puzzles created by the students.
As the head of the art department, I could look after the over-all layout/composition and photographic images. Our photographic skills will relate to the seven cognitive tools of thinking - perception, patterning, abstracting, embodied thinking, modeling, playing and synthesizing – and help the students involved become more creative in their approach to thinking as well as aware of what is happening around them. Participation in an online, school newspaper will help the students become logical thinkers and problem solvers, rather than those that memorize are recite information.
Perception – As leader of a photographic crew, I would teach the students to be more aware of the things that are happening around them. Observations will lead to opinions and those opinions will lead to written articles. An example of how one question may lead to many other questions: WHAT IS FOR LUNCH?
---What are school lunches really made of?
---Where do we get all the food?
---How long does it take to prepare lunch for the whole building?
---Can we take pictures that accurately depict the food that we eat?
---Will those pictures make the food appealing, leading to more students buying a lunch, rather than bringing one in?
---How loud does it really get in the lunchroom?
---Does the smell of lunch make students hungrier?
A simple inquiry about food could lead to many columns and different pictures can be taken to enhance those articles. Pictures of the food itself, students eating lunch, the floor (showing how messy the students get during lunch – this could lead to better awareness and a cleaner lunchroom), etc. Photographs of, and interviews with, the lunch servers would open social skills the students never new they had. Images showing lunchroom procedures would help younger students learn how things are done here in the building, speeding up the serving process. One observation can lead to one question and that question can lead to many different solutions to existing dilemmas, yet portrayed through a child’s viewpoint.
Patterning – As leader of a photographic crew, I would teach the students how to be aware of different patterns that surround them every day. There are patterns on the walls of the school. There are patterns in our classroom assignments. There are even patterns (procedures) of the things we do. By looking for these patterns, the photographer students will be more sensitive to their surroundings. To turn this toward digital photography, I would like to think that taking pictures of existing patterns could become pattern forming. I was in a restaurant the other day and on the wall were a series of artworks that fell in line with a college professor’s “take a picture of a letter, but it cannot BE the letter” assignment (Punya Mishra). There were artworks that said, “Love,” “Faith,” “Sailing,” and “Peace.” The artist even did “Michigan” and “State,” with the first letter being each school’s logo. The rest of the letters were of everyday items, or creatively cropped and manipulated photographs that generated the visual image of the letter. Was this a pattern? Yes. Was it intentional? Yes (http://lialm00.blogspot.com/2010/10/big-picture-9-october-2010.html).
Patterns can also be a bad thing, but showing those patterns may help in finding a solution to those negative things. Does one particular student stir up trouble on the playground every day? If so, this is a pattern and an open forum might be the solution in helping that child correct his behavior. Is crossing the road in front of the school a dangerous event every day? If so, this is a negative pattern and a Grass Root, Safety Patrol might be promoted and implemented to help children cross the street safely. Pictures of the “before and after” might even help gather parental volunteers to help support the safety efforts of the children.
Abstracting – Teaching students to see things differently, rather than in plain sight, helps them to think creatively. The students can use digital photography to demonstrate imagination. Our online newspaper could have a “What Am I” portion/competition, where an image is abstracted and guesses submitted. It might look something like this:
Original Image:
Abstract View:
Would you be able to tell what the image was without having the original? Being vague makes a student think, or develop ideas that are outside their normal patterns. This leads to deductive reasoning and thought development.
Embodied Thinking – They say “Practice Makes Perfect.” It takes many repetitions of a body function to develop muscle memory. The same can be said for positive thinking skills too. Just as a baseball player hones his skills, students need to polish their abilities for overall development. Physical Education teaches the students to train their bodies and pictorial stories can keep the children aware of the lessons being taught in Gym. News articles can generate interests in a Theater Club, where the students can put on plays, emulating other people (real, or imaginary) throughout time. This empathizing technique could lead to career interests by teaching the students what it is like to be somebody, or something else. An example of this might appear in the form of emulating an animal, like this:
I chose to be my dog for a day. He lives SUCH a pampered life!!!
He eats:
He eats:
He drinks:
He stares longingly at his momma:
He lays in the living room (these two terrorize him):
This is what a big, spoiled baby looks like:
Modeling – As an art teacher, I could have lessons that have the students making small models of existing things, using different mediums. We could take digital photographs of those models and use them to advertise upcoming school events. The Christmas Concert is just around the corner, why couldn’t we make up mock sets for the show and have a student body election, to see which stage set we should establish? If the students are making Dioramas in Social Studies, we could run an article about each box and describe what the students were learning.
Playing –As a kinesthetic learner myself, I fully believe in the power of playing to learn. All of the examples I have given include playing to some extent. Taking digital pictures is not exactly a structured lesson, where the students have to sit in rows and listen to what the teacher has to say. The students get to go out and find things that interest them, take some pictures of that interest and try to think of a unique way of portraying that interest to fellow students. What one-person finds interesting, another person may find boring. The digital photographs might also be of play itself. We have a basketball team that is starting to play other schools in the next few weeks. Articles can be developed about the team itself and interviews with the players can be held.
Synthesizing – If an online, school newspaper were developed, it would generate new ways of approaching the students involved. They would be forced to blend all the different areas of learning necessary to succeed without even knowing they were doing so. It would take coordination of the senses to observe the different things that happen during a normal school day. All the different sights, sounds and smells that present themselves could be potential stories. If the art class is going to do ceramic projects, a story about how the clay feels, or smells would be a great lead in to the “playing” form of learning; we do play with the clay after all.
An online, school newspaper is an antique process (news reporting) brought in to the 21st Century. An online newspaper is very cost efficient and the energy/time used to develop, or run the articles can all be justified through the different curriculums. It takes a good English Department to watch over the articles written by the students. Proof reading each and every word can be performed by the “Editor” and this post can rotate through the children for each “press.” All the different topics will lead into some form of English assignments and our school needs all the reading time that we can provide for our students. Even math equations can be made into puzzles, like Sudoku puzzles in the Sunday Press. There are also many opportunities to include artistic values in an online, school newspaper. Page layouts develop greater compositional awareness. Photography has always been seen as an art form, but even this can be brought into the 21st Century through digital manipulation. It takes artistic talent to “see” things that other people do not, but like when they do see it.
As you can see, there are many reasons for the development of an online, school newspaper. The benefits certainly outweigh the drawbacks. Curriculums would be bolstered. Talents would be polished. There would be no real cost to the project and the plug can be pulled at any time. As head of the Art Department, I would be happy to head up the overall progress of this venture and I already have the support of the other department heads, but we would need official approval in order to proceed. Please consider allowing our students to develop their creative thinking in an old/new exciting way. Thank you.
