teaching for artistic behavior

LINES

I have a little rant agains lines in general; in
our very large
primary school long lines are probably necessary for safety and order, but
sometimes so
much stress is placed on "you are the line leader" that some young students will
push and
shove to get to the front of any line: ugh! I have also noticed that some of my
students
spend more time waiting in the lunch lines each week than they do in my
classroom! But I
digress; it is a great idea to make the end of brief art classes valuable and
the lining up
process productive as well as orderly. So I often throw out questions: "who had
difficulty
today? Did you find a strategy for solving that problem? If not, does anyone
else have a
suggestion?" and so on...all the answering children are invited to begin the
line at the
door. The questions and answers continue until the teacher arrives and I always
like the
teacher to hear the children summing up their class. Other questions: "Who can
give me a
true fact about foam block printing?"or, "Who can give advice to future
printmakers?"
Some answers included "your drawing is reversed" , "the ink is very sticky!",
"roll the brayer
till you hear the crispy sound" or "put your paper on top and rub till your hand
gets hot!"
The children like to give advice; the students are rewarded for processing their
struggle,
and so on. We art teachers are good at making every minute count, aren't we!

"Art is a response to a call...whose nature is such that the only
place to turn
for its exploration is inward." ( Peter London: DRAWING FROM WITHIN, Shambalah,1989)