A Post Apocalyptic Post

Well hey, people!  Looks like we survived the apocalypse!  

Now as I've got a good deal of ideas on how to generate lesson plans around fear and collective fear I feel that the death and destruction of everything we hold dear needs to be addressed in some way.

In truth I was disappointed that the reaction to the "End of the World" wasn't a little more than it was the other day.  Actually I'm proud of the collective population being reasonable for an unreasonable moment but for the sake of comedy I wanted to see some kind of exaggerated reaction to this once in a lifetime event.  Just think about that, we had the "threat" of world destruction, the end of it all, looming over us just a few days ago and then nothing and everyone went back to it all as if nothing happened (well nothing did happen so I think that helped).  I'm not sure where I'm going with this right now.  Oh, ideas for lesson plans about the end of the world!

So the Mayan Calendar created a big hub bub so why not make your own doomsday clock!  Students can generate their own inventive and personal apocalypse and then generate the artifact that lead to the social belief in their respective ends of the world.  Opens up for some interesting 3 dimensional work.

Image of Mayan Calendar, provided by Voxxi.com

Let the Music Paint a Picture

So last night I went to a concert at the Pyramid Scheme and saw The Protomen.  After an evening of amazing times I woke up and thought about how their particular brand of music (rock opera) tells a story and can paint a very vivid picture in the imagination of the listeners.  Now that thought got me thinking on how music could be a key component in an art making lesson.

It starts with showing off a selection of work for the students and then having them choose one and pick an appropriate song that fits with the work.  The student will explain why, because that's important, and then we'll move on to the main part.

The student will choose a song that they enjoy, aiming for a song that holds a narrative, and generate a piece of art that illustrates that song.  Now I think the visual component of the piece can be opened up into photo collage, painting, and illustration.  I think a 3 dimensional work would be awesome to see but I want to focus on having some limitations with something as open as depictions of songs.

So I'm going to think about how to make that into a full fledged lesson plan and how to incorporate FEAR into that.  I'm going to leave you with a song The Protomen performed last night and I rocked out to.

  

 

"Light Up the Night" by The Protomen

Scary Stories to Tell in Class

Lesson idea, creating scary stories to go along with personal fears to have the class share those fears.  Then generate illustrations to go along with those stories that help in amplifying that fear.  Much akin to Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark written by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell

Illustration by Stephen Gammell

SEE!  LOOK AT THAT!  THAT'S HORRIFYING!

 

I Can't Stand to Fly, I'm Not That Naive

I'm More Than a Bird, I'm More Than a Plane

Above is a link (if you are a fellow user of Netflix) to the film Waiting For "Superman" which is a film about the public and charter schooling systems in the United States.  Director and documentarian Davis Guggenheim portrays a frightening picture of the United States public school systems and their currently failing conditions through interviews with students, teachers, and parents.  The movie is in few ways uplifting and in many ways bleak, getting the point across that the current system is not working and needs a drastic change.  This change comes in the form of charter school systems and the fully encompassing academic life they offer.

Personally there is something oddly bias to me about Guggenheim's treatment of the charter schools he displays in the movie.   Yes the practices they have are impressive and have shown the results that are needed, but after watching I felt that he told me that the charter schools were the only way to save our nations public schooling systems.  I'm not sure if others felt that way, but I did.  Here's a trailer (to get you interested if you don't have Netflix).

Waiting for "Superman" trailer, Youtube.com

It's a Funny Thing

Humor is a very human construct.  Something that can change our attitudes so quickly from negative to positive.  Something that can make us forget, even for an instant, about the unfortunate things in life.  Humor is an incredibly positive thing to me.  I've always attempted to place humor in my work, even if only a bit.  Something to crack a smile in the viewer, to get a laugh out of the audience.  I find that it helps in the understanding of artwork when a positive set of emotions is evoked.  I'm not trying to say that artwork made to evoke negative emotions is bad, I just personally enjoy the positive set more.  So with that in mind I do believe it would be best to, as I do with my art, use humor in the classroom.

Now here's what I find funny.  If you type "humor in the classroom" into a search engine you are given approximately 12,000,000 results.  Each of these results is an article or paper or instance of humor in the classroom.  So there is no shortage of precedent on the positive impact when you crack a joke in your lectures.  Though really the important part is what the best way would be to include humor in the classroom.  I'm thinking a mix of not being so serious and adding humor as a main topic in my lesson plans.  I've got time to really work the kinks out, so no real pressure on that.  I think I'm a humorous kind of guy, though it could be that people are laughing at me and not with me.  Yay, just made myself really self-conscious.

I leave you with some comedy. 

"Humor" search first image through google images as of 12/2/12