My arts experience

Hi, I'm Kirsten and I have very mixed experiences when it comes to Arts education.  A lot of my school experiences with the Arts were quite negative especially in drama and music.  I often felt very anxious in drama class because I was a very shy and quiet person.  I also felt anxious in music class but that was because I had a very negative (and grumpy!) music teacher in Grade 3 who told me I should never sing in public again and used to yell at anyone who did not know their scales.  

Outside of school my Arts experiences were always very positive.  I remember doing lots of drawing and craft activities with my Grandmother when I was younger.  When I was very young I loved to dance and sing and act in front of the family video camera.  I have always loved visual arts and one of the most positive experiences was when I was in Grade 10 art class and I learnt how to draw spontaneously with oil pastels.  I always spent hours doing detailed drawings and paintings so my art teacher challenged me to do a picture of a shell in 5 minutes on a HUGE piece of paper using continuous strokes.  This was extremely difficult but after a few tries I found it very liberating and it transformed my thinking about visual art.  Photography is another passion of mine and in college I had fun taking pictures and manipulating them digitally. 

I am really excited about this unit and learning new ways to integrate the Arts across the curriculum especially after seeing Arnold's work in the workshop this week.  Especially the use of photographs to teach children about different emotions.  It was good to see the emphasis on inquiry questions which is how I am trying to run my lessons to engage children who need extra support in their learning.  

I love integrating the Arts into my science lessons especially drama and I find it helps facilitate the understandings of kinesthetic learners.  I look forward to integrating the Arts authentically into my future lesson plans.

What were your Arts experiences?