Drawing on experience
Anshika Bedi
When I was asked to write an article about art and the methods of teaching, learning and how these methods have evolved, it took me on a nostalgic journey. Along with nostalgia, paradox was an uninvited tag-along though. Shall I question the ideologies of my favourite teachers and the methods they adopted? Shall I debunk all those theories I learnt and open my mind to new ways of thinking? Would that be defying the artist in me and my peers? I don’t want to contradict my statements as I am a teacher myself now but undoubtedly the methods and the rudimentary ways of teaching art have evolved. From the formal classroom, where students are actively engaged in top loading and mugging up, to students collaborating and doing hands on work, it has been an effective change!
We all try to impart knowledge about primary and secondary colours and how warm and cool colours are linked with our feelings and emotions. If I were to teach like I was taught I would have made a chart of warm and cool colours and asked my students to file this and remember it every time they saw an illustration. However, I have adopted different ways to tell my students how we can convey our emotions through colours, how different art forms evoke our emotional state, how meditation and art are related, and how to use art as a medium of calming and building focus for a seven year old. We started this unique inquiry into feelings and emotions by playing live music in the background. Students were given paints and sheets of paper on which to express their feelings and emotions. The whole idea of having a live band play while they were drawing and painting thrilled the students. Even though they were initially hesitant and not sure how to colour their emotions, after a lot of questions and prodding the students were overjoyed that they could draw and paint. Students were allowed to work in groups. It was mesmerizing to see how the children brainstormed for new ideas and set about making their own unique creations. Once they finished drawing, a few select colours were given to the students with clear instructions not to mix the colours and not to ask for colours they were not given. The results were outstanding. I was not looking so much at their drawing, the idea was to introduce them to warm and cool colours. I felt my mission was accomplished when the students made their own connections and observed that the artworks looked different from each other. Some had given the cool look because of the cool shades, few students also linked them with cool breeze, freeze, ice, water. Whereas, the other group came up with words like warm, summer sun, hot, fire.
The art works were displayed on the wall for a whole year and the concept of warm and cool colours remained fresh in their memory. Evidence shows that arts education provides students with the skills to think creatively, to innovate, and to become tenacious learners ready to solve complex problems – all skills that employers are increasingly looking for in the 21st century. Students who get quality arts education are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement, have lower rates of behavioural problems, and higher attendance rates.
Another experience I’d like to share with you is a teaching-learning moment with class three students. The class started with a discussion of their trip to Purana Quilla in Delhi. I was a little disappointed to see their reactions. The children hadn’t particularly enjoyed the trip because of the heat and dirt. I tried my best to get them to talk about the aesthetically designed building and carved walls but I failed in keeping their interest. I wished they would somehow perceive the art through my eyes, but some of the students admitted that they didn’t even bother to look up the ceilings. It seemed as though my effort to provoke a curiosity in them about the art and artisans, the whole purpose of the class, was going in vain. What was I supposed to do? Give up, either blaming the weather for the fact that the trip hadn’t gone as per plan or that the children were too young to comprehend all this? This internal discussion constantly mocked me. I realized I had to first teach them to respect art and artists’ efforts – which had somewhere got lost.
For their next class, when they entered the room I was as thrilled as a kid on Christmas Eve. To start my new activity, we began with a swift discussion on different forms of art and who has seen what. Students waited to receive their sheets to draw but when I told them that this time the sheets were pasted under their tables and that would be their canvas, I can’t forget the joyous bewilderment on their faces. There was a bit of anxiety and curiosity among the learners to explore this different perspective. All my class three students rolled under their tables to draw and sketch. I didn’t bother about the outcome at all and I learned a valuable lesson. We all ended up creating the best imaginative work, with prior knowledge of sketching. Till date they haven’t forgotten the enriching experience, and that is my reward. What they do with this learning in their later years is individualistic but I’m glad the foundation was insightful in a fun manner they could relate to. Also they understood the pain and efforts of the methods and being agile to working conditions making them appreciate it from a new perspective. They imbibed the methods which went in making historical monuments, and the wonderful patterns which took years for completion. The respect for art and giving respect to every thought was achieved.
What I saw in these classrooms are students who enthusiastically participate in the learning process and have fun. It’s not revelatory to say that arts can engage kids. But that engagement can also be leveraged to boost academic growth and improve discipline seems like a secret that really needs to be revealed. When you see how the kids embrace these lessons, hear them tell how art helps them remember concepts better, and learn about the improvements teachers have noted in students’ understanding and retention, it makes you wonder why more schools aren’t integrating the arts in every class.
The author is a specialist educator in visual arts in Pathways school, Noida. She has been teaching for nearly a decade now and has experience teaching in both urban and rural settings. She can be reached at anshika.bedi@pathways.in.