Survival
Guide, Part 5:
Repeat
Yourself, Repeat Yourself
Less
is more. The trick here is to approach your central goals
from a whole bunch of different directions and activities.
When
you're developing vocabulary, have the kids look at examples in slides,
draw them, cut them out of magazines for a Bingo game and hunt for
them on a neighborhood walk.
If you're
talking about building materials, have the kids handle samples, describe
them, find them throughout the school and learn where they come from
and how they're transformed. And so on.
In general,
they've never heard or talked about these things before, so you need
to repeat and reinforce a coherent body of information rather than
jump all over the place with new concepts.
Remember,
too, that there are six whole days of other school subjects, basketball,
arguments with friends, visits to relatives and zillions of other
experiences between your visits. The same goes for you. You'll need
ways to link your sessions so that you can keep track of what's going
on!
Use
the classroom... Label the elements.
Label
the materials...
• Show
them ways to estimate the dimensions using paces, or lying on the
floor as human rulers.
• Talk
about the mix of natural and artificial light.
• Look
out the window and look for building types, interesting parts of the
skyline, energy systems and patterns.
• Show
them how their view is represented on a map of the city.
• Help
them figure out just how far they can see.
• Have
them trace images right onto the window with erasable markers, or
onto acetate sheets.
...
and the school.
• Take
them into some of the specialized rooms to talk about their functions
and how they are expressed through design, materials, size, lighting
and acoustics. Again, get the students to figure it out and have them
make notes or drawings or rubbings of what they find. (They're analyzing
now.)
• Show
them how to trace the utility systems all the way into the basement
until you get to the furnace and water heater, pointing out ducts,
pipes, wires and fuse boxes along the way until they can do it by
themselves. (You might mention off-handedly that they will be instantly
electrocuted or horribly burned if they touch any of these things.)
Studies of energy systems can occupy the whole eight weeks!
• Go
outside and study the exterior of the building for geometric shapes,
patterns, ornament, materials, handicap access, landscape... you know.
It's all right there.
Get
them out of the classroom and the school.
Whatever
topic it is you're dealing with will surely exist in some way in the
school's neighborhood. Get 'em out there, but have them ready before
you step out the door, because once you're outside, all hell breaks
loose. They
straggle. They can't hear you. They start shoving each other. They
can't get their jackets zipped, etc.
Don't
go out with the vague idea that you're going to discuss things on
the way.
Break into two or three groups as your team allows.
Don't walk too fast. Don't try to do too much.
• Arm them with clipboards and check-off sheets.
• Make the trip a treasure hunt or a bingo game; they go
nuts when they find things.
• Take
rubbings.
• Roll
up paper into spyglasses to zero in on details.
• If
there's a park or campus where they can all sit, let them try "on-site"
drawings, and have some way for them to elaborate on their pictures
when they get back inside by adding color or ornamentation or landscape
elements. Otherwise, they'll forget that they did them.
Get
them to draw, but jazz it up
Some
kids will happily draw pictures all day, but many are shockingly inhibited,
especially after about the third grade.
Many
children are so naive about architectural possibilites that they "just
can't think of anything" -- and they really can't. Many children are
so inexperienced with art materials (this will break your heart) that
they balk when given opportunities to draw and color, and seem to
have no imagination at all.
These
students are finished with their drawings in about 45 seconds, having
put on their papers a box with a triangle on the top and a chimney
sticking out to the side and two symmetrically placed windows with
curtains and flower boxes -- a house that no one in the universe has
ever seen.
Now
is the time you're glad that your students have loads of images to
pick from, right up there
on the poster or right here in these magazines and drawings. Tell
them that it's perfectly all right to copy. They think, because they've
been told it, that "copying is bad." You probably think the same thing.
But in this case, it's "borrowing ideas" and all artists do it.
If they
want you to draw some part of the picture for them, go ahead, but
on another piece of paper that they can then transfer. Talk them through
these crises: "Well, you'll need a door, right? How about a real fancy
one, or a real big one like in this photograph?" You can't overcome
all of the obstacles that may be inhibiting some of the students,
but by giving them choices, you can pull many of them into a realm
that they can handle.
If
drawing just bombs out, drop it and switch to collage the
next week. Just plain drawing, actually, can get boring -- the ultimate
sin.
You can
breathe life into drawing projects in lots of ways, using trace paper,
cut-outs, applique and plastic overlays. You can string their pictures
together into a long streetscape, and have them add detail and color
in this new and more unusual format (plus then the other kids will
get mad at them if they don't help). You
can have them do shared drawings, or draw an image dictated to them
and so on.
It's
actually easier for many of them to draw when they have specific parameters
that save them from the hostile glare of the blank paper. (You've
maybe felt that panic yourself once or twice? Share that with them,
that even professional-type adults have trouble with this stuff because
it really is hard and complicated, isn't it?)
Get
them to build things, and leave your expectations behind
If you
think you've been amazed so far by what the kids come up with, wait
until they get into the third dimension. They'll try anything, using
whatever you give them in completely inappropriate ways that will
charm you silly.
Unhappily,
however, as in the case with drawing skills, you must be prepared
for students who are inexperienced with craft supplies or who go blank
for ideas unless they can choose from _____________________________________
(Complete the sentence. If you don't know by now, copy off your partner.)
Along
with the many visual images you've plastered all over the class by
now (yes, that is the correct answer), give them lots of junk to use
and pretend it's a lesson in recycling: corks, bottle caps, toilet
paper tubes, sandpaper, whatever.
Be
advised, however, of some hard truths:
• Latex glue takes forever to dry. And
you are the one who ends up standing there holding the pieces together
for 15 minutes, unable to move. So: go into building sessions equipped
with bobby pins and your own personal dispenser of scotch tape which
no one else is allowed to borrow so that you can race from desk to
desk clamping pieces together and taping them for temporary support.
• Beware of the tape monster.
Students of all ages are extremely naive about structural properties
-- not only those of concrete and steel but also those of cardboard
and pipe cleaners. Their solution to supporting a shoebox with stilts
cut (unevenly) from paper straws is to get hold of the only roll of
masking tape in the whole school and wind all of it around and around
everything until it only falls over a little bit. (This is why you
don't let them get near the tape in your pocket.)
It pays to give them some sort of guidance about
support and balance before they get their hands on anything, because
once they get going, they won't listen to reason. Basically, they
need to be told that big heavy stuff needs to go at the bottom and
little tiny things that crush easily should probably be somewhere
further up. (It may hit you that you can start your eight weeks right
here and spend the rest of the time expanding on structure and materials.)
• It's
really hard to get a piece of cardboard to stand up all by itself.
But the kids will kill themselves trying to get their first wall up
this way, and will start looking around for the tape. Don't let them
get stymied by falling into this trap. Show them beforehand how to
avoid it: Show them how to tape two pieces together or score a piece
and fold it so that the angle will hold up the walls. Or, let them
use shoeboxes, or let them make each wall flat to be raised later.
(Hey, a way to explain what an elevation is!)
This, again, is a perfect introduction into structural
concepts, and it can be used as the first problem if that's the direction
you want to take.
•
The kids are NOT to use matte knives.
Some older students, maybe, with the teacher's permission and under
close adult scrutiny. Better to assume that if you invite them to
score cardboard or make openings that you're going to do the cutting
based on their marks. Here's where teamwork counts; one of you will
likely be completely tied up for a while cutting windows and skylights
and whatnot. There's no way around this; school scissors are usually
so crummy that they can barely cut paper.
• Reserve
sparkly things for the end. Kids are like magpies. They
go for the glitter. Anything that shines or glistens will be used
up immediately and nothing else will do after that.
A
very important note: Although many of our eight week sessions culminate
or center around a construction project, there is no "must" about
it.
Your
final presentation at the wrap-up meeting can be a play, a dance,
the record of an oral history developed around neighborhood residents,
a series of two-dimensional projects, or photographs of the kids planting
perennials around the school.
Think
of your presentation at the wrap-up as a summary of the process you
went through.
Help
them make their stuff look nice.
Kids
are embarrassed by ratty-looking products, and they may expose their
levels of self-esteem by the way they treat their own work. Do whatever
you can to help them keep tidy without interfering.
We know
it's a fine line, and maybe not always possible, but let them erase
their mistakes or cut off the part they don't like. Complain to them
about crumpled-up drawings or paper ripped out of spiral notebooks
with ragged edges. Treat their work with respect and insist that they
do, too.
Praise
their efforts all the time.
Praise their efforts all the time.
Praise their efforts all the time.
Praise your own efforts all the time.
As you
can no doubt tell by now, there's no way to predict exactly what's
going to happen for you over the next two months.
You'll
probably have some bumpy times, and you'll probably start to have
weird waking dreams as memories of your own education begin to erupt,
and you'll probably wish that you'd had somebody like you coming into
your classroom when you were a kid.
You'll
maybe have the experience that many of our people have described:
That by opening yourself up about your work to children and young
adults, you find that your ideas crystallize, and your work takes
on a whole new dimension of meaning, since, in a sort of dizzying
way, these kids really are your clients, aren't they? They're the
very creatures you ultimately design for: people.
And because
they're young and unpolished, they'll ask you blunt questions and
tell you when they can't make any sense out of your answer. So, tell
them when you don't know; tell them when there aren't yes-or-no answers;
and encourage them that there is plenty of room in all kinds of trades,
professions and avocations where they can take their rightful places
in this vast discourse.
And when
it all gets to be too much, just relax and enjoy yourself, and bask
in the knowledge that many, many people are extremely grateful to
you for helping with this amazing venture.
This
essay was prepared by Marcy Abhau, AIE Education Specialist.
