Week 8:VTS-to-Date

I just did two VTS discussions with my kids for the reason that they began their school after Labor Day. Actually, I did four, because I did that with two groups in different ages and both of them did two. It is interesting to compare the differences between the two groups at different levels, and also comparing their growth from beginning to now. I think the summative reflection can be well presented from the comparison.

At the beginning, Group 1(the class I have in a Chinese Language School where most kids are around 5-6) seemed not so interested in reading the image, some of them were using their color pencils painting on their papers, maybe because they thought it is a art class, and what they should do is finish a piece of picture. They didn’t care about what I said to read the image on the screen and find what’s going on in this picture. And some of them were just staring at the image, but do not want to talk about it (maybe they were just afraid to make some mistakes). After encouragement, one kid said something then I praised her, then more and more kids began to talk. Although most of them can just describe what they can see in this picture, and cannot explain too much, I think it is still a good start. In the second lesson, more kids participated in our discussion, they showed more interest in the image, maybe because they think it is a good chance to let others hear their voice, and during the discussion, they became more confident, and even compete with each other. I mean sometimes one offered one opinion, another kid would give an opposite opinion and try to prove only he is right. I think it is a good phenomenon, because in this way, they can think more deeply, and know when we meet a same thing, people will have different ideas from different perspective and how to do critical thinking. And I think they will know better about art, art is not only about the skills, what we do in art class is not only drawing or painting or practice some other skills (as many kids in the first lesson just want to painting), what more important in art is about thought, the big ideas.

Group 2 is two kids in almost 8-years-old, actually they are twins. I know this group is too small, even cannot be called a group, but I still want them to do VTS, because I think they are really talented little artists and should have the chance to meet VTS. These two kids always surprise me. They showed great interest when the first time they do VTS, they wrote a lot and have a great discussion. Although there are only two kids, they find even more details than the Group1 (maybe because they are older and with more passion). They are twins, but they have different perspective, and also sharing the different information. In the second lesson, they can connect the different information and build a new one through it. As twins, I think they can identify themselves better by this way, they look almost the same, but they are two different persons, they have different ideas and personalities. I think they will understand themselves better and even look at the world in a different way. Because it is an art class, I also teach them how to make art, I try to make a good relationship between VTS and art-making. I  think I raise a high requirement, but the result come out amazing. After doing VTS, I ask them to create a painting, that present the same idea in the VTS image and make details to let others know who are they, what is the time, when it happened, what they are doing. They did an impressive job and I am really proud of them. I think VTS really help a lot when they making details in a picture, they think things in a different way and I guess when they do writing, the same thing will happen. I think after I learned VTS, I learn more about art myself, and I find the influence of art education is more powerful than I thought before.

I think it is still a long way for me to know VTS better, and I encounter some challenges during teaching. For example, some of my students in Group 1 still don’t want to talk and some just speak a little. And some little kids will point one thing and say they can see another thing. I try to lead them to a right way by paraphrasing, but it is still hard. And my language is still a problem, since some of my students cannot speak Chinese, I should use both languages. When I’m using English to paraphrase, I cannot do it so well as my intention. But I think I can do it better through continuous practice.