Teaching Video: Proportion People Project

"I've never seen them focus that intensely.  They asked if they could do it again the next day."   --Ann Ashley, the students' classroom teacher

Here is a video of me teaching an art lesson this last week at Kula Elementary School in Maui, Hawaii (my old elementary school!)
These 5th graders learned a new way to draw people, one that allows the students to draw people in just about any position they can imagine.  They made use of anatomy, proportion, and measuring using units.  I have taught versions of this lesson to students as young as 2nd graders.  Guided by the questions of these older students, we expanded off the basic lesson to include concepts such as foreshortening and complex poses.

Here are the time marks for interesting moments in the lesson:

00.00   Introduction, student example
2:18     Look at Da Vinci's sketches and talk about anatomy
4:20    What is Proportion?
6:04    What can we use to measure our body? (Students try several ideas.)
8:08    How many heads tall is your body?  (Students measure with partners, we record answers, guesstimate a class average.)
10:14    Drawing demonstration using proportion and simple anatomy.
16.24    Students think about the body position they will draw, stand up and pose.
18:27    One-on-one, answering advanced questions that lead to learning about foreshortening.
20:25    Midway conversation: What can we look for in a gallery walk?
23.54    After the gallery walk: What interesting choices did you see?  Which of your challenges did you find solutions for by looking at classmates work?

At the end of the movie the students return to work and put their ideas from the gallery walk to use. They continued to draw for another 20 minutes. Students fine-tuned body positions, added backgrounds, and shading.  In the last 5 minutes we looked at the completed artwork at a circular table, allowing students to gather around and share about their work.  

What I love about this project:

Between 3rd and 5th grade students begin to look for a way to accurately draw what they see in their mind.  This lesson gives a set of steps that all the students seem to find accessible and useful for drawing people doing things.  (Note: I always state that this is one way to draw people, not the only way.  I want them to feel good about their personal drawing styles, even if I'm asking them to follow certain steps for this project.)

My experience has been that students are excited to use these techniques to express their own experiences, create fictional characters such as superheroes, and to illustrate concepts.  Teachers report back that students continue to use this process without prompting in classwork drawings, as well as to draw in their own free time.  It becomes a tool that enables their creative and academic expression.

This student chose to illustrate a scene from a favorite Animorphs book and include dialog in the drawing.  

A martial artist performing in front of a crowd

A weightlifter in a gym

Tether ball

Playing baseball in the rain

The student attempted a challenging sideways pose.

Playing soccer, with a fantastic background

To See...

I want my students to learn to see.  

When you learn to draw you help your brain understand that the clip-art image in your head is not the same as the object in front of you.  To observe an object and render it accurately on paper shows careful attention, close observation, and the questioning of prior assumptions.  You put in the time, and in return, you better understand a tiny piece of the world.  

If you put a still-life in the middle of a room and sit all the students around it, no two drawings will be the same.  We all see the world differently, at its very simplest in that no two people can stand in the same place at the same time. Every point of view is true and valuable.  To express your perspective beautifully and clearly is to overcome fear and contribute a piece of yourself to the world.  

Furthermore, sharing yourself is to make yourself vulnerable.  A culture of trust and respect is needed.  When you are open, when you trust, you are also more open to other perspectives.  Art (in its largest, encompassing definition) allows us to stand where others have stood.  Our world grows.

I speak of this in terms of drawing, but this is true in reading a story and sharing your analysis, solving an engineering challenge, writing an essay, discussing history, or discovering alternate ways to solve a math problem.  We need the skills and practice to clearly see and to express our vision.  Furthermore, we need the support and right environment to not only confidently share our visions, but to learn to deeply appreciate the viewpoints of others.

Deeper Learning: Art and Comfort Zones

During one session on growth vs. fixed mindsets and on how the simple act of having students feel like they belong can greatly improve their academic trajectory, Rob Berger surprised everyone with an activity that put many outside of their comfort zone.  

We were all going to do an art project.  

He asked, "How do you all feel about that?"  

Many people began to murmur and squirm.  

I, in contrast, pulled out the watercolor pallet and pens I keep in my purse.  

He then told us that we were all going to make thank you cards for volunteers that helped make the conference happen.  People felt somewhat better.     

I turned my seat around at my desk and drew the room full of teachers.  These were teachers here to stretch their own minds, who at the moment were stepping outside of their comfort zones in order to express their thankfulness.  I, in contrast, was completely in my comfort zone.  I have been practicing drawing people in crowded, quick circumstances for the past year in Taiwan.

As I drew them, I thought how I needed to find some other way of stepping out.  And as so often happens, we clearly know the name of the thing that makes us feel the most uncomfortable.  For me: math (and not geometry and visually accessible math, but the type you need to comprehend through abstract equations.) 

The next morning, the last day of the conference, I found the session called Achieving Deeper Learning Through Problem-based Tasks in Math, taught by Jeff Heyck-Williams from Two Rivers Public Charter School. 

Math, like art, is a realm that we often have strong associations with from our childhood.  Based on a few early experiences, perhaps a certain teacher, we often have a fixed mindset.  In other words, we think we are either good at it, or we aren't.  I've long known I'm an art person, not a math person--but that is my own mental construction.  

Jeff led us through a way of learning that was intrinsically tied to a word problem.  

"If a hen and a half laid an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long will it take 24 hens to lay 24 eggs?"

We were given the problem before we were given the skills to solve it.  Instead, we were given tools to help us understand the problem.  And though he taught us about ratios and rates along the way, he mostly left us open to puzzle out the problem in our small groups, to present, and argue our answer.  I found it exciting, edge-of-my-seat learning.  (And this despite the fact that I felt I couldn't cram any more in my brain that morning.)  

As educators, we need our own experiences of turning from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.  I was able to feel that I belonged in that room alongside the math teachers, and that the challenge of engaging my own mind--and the mind of students-- in mathematical thought, was something I could grow through.  Even more-so, I can call upon this experience of practicing a growth mindset for my own teaching, regardless of the subject.  

A Note from Deeper Learning 2014

One of the fountains of wisdom at Deeper Learning 2014 at High Tech High was Ron Berger.
He had this to say about Common Core Standards:
Regardless of what you think of the Common Core...

"for the first time every school in America is asking, Are we teaching the right stuff, and are we teaching it the right way?"

He went on to say that rather than let the corporations answer this question, it should be the individuals at this conference, the 500+ teachers and innovative educators in this room.

It is GOOD that people are asking tough questions.  It is integral that we come up with many answers.

Diving Deep with Ducks: High Tech High March 2014

One of my first stops back in the US was the Deeper Learning conference at High Tech High in San Diego, California.  High Tech High is a leader in project-based learning, and the conference brought together over 500 teachers and education professionals brimming with ideas and questions for innovating in education.  This made for fascinating sessions which instigated even deeper conversations during breaks and meals.  I filled my brain for three days.  

I attended a Deep Dive called Thinking BIG With Kids Who Are Small: A Deep Dive into Engineering and Literacy for All Ages facilitated by Stacey Lopaz of New Tech Network.  We read Make Way For Ducklings and worked in groups to identify problems the ducks faced and engineer solutions to a problem.  

Here are some of the fellow attendees, as well as some of the fantastic contraptions they invented.  These were quick prototypes made using classroom materials, and anything else we could find.  

One of the best elements of the session was that Stacey, until recently, a High Tech High teacher, had several of her former students in attendance.  

These students showcased their confidence in talking in front of a group and their skill in asking challenging questions.  I was introduced to the critique process most thoroughly in college, but these 5th graders had no problem asking useful and respectful questions to help us think deeply about how we could best accomplish our goals.








We covered so much in our 3 hours, but it wasn't until the next morning that I had my biggest discovery.

There, in a puddle in the middle of the road, were Mr and Mrs Mallard, straight from the pages of the picture book  My mind pounded: ducks need water, and the water is in the road!  Where is a better home for them?  How will they cross the street?  How do we help them get to a better home?  Not only were the story's characters real to me, but their problems as well.  A visit to a small, beleaguered urban wetland could be fascinating to students within this context.  There would be all the more challenges for these young engineers to try to solve--and all the more context and connection to bring back to the story.  
Whether I'm teaching art or another subject, I believe that making connections across disciplines and subjects gives context to our learning.  We combined reading, comprehension, engineering, making skills, teamwork, problem solving, ecology and zoology.  It was all held together with a glue of empathy: How do we help these ducks?