I had the most positive experiences today with my arts teaching. As a teacher in practice so far I only had the chance to teach older children with my mentor watching and criticizing my every move. Today I taught 6-7 year old children in a different school, so my mean mentor was not present.
It was a big change to my previous experiences (as my mentor gave negative and not too constructive critiques all the time -.-).
So today I taught children how to paint snowflakes with the magic of wax and watercolors. They really enjoyed my lesson and they were motivated and inspired during the whole time. I was so happy when they asked for paper to paint more then one picture
But the main reason I'm writing this journal is not only to share my little feelings of success. I found a really touching part in my lesson. Children are capable of anything if they get the right methods and opportunities to show their own little artistic thoughts. I asked them to think about how they use their watercolors. They were able to realize tips like the use of less or more water with the paint and things like the winter colors are not only blue, but are variable of many shades of blue, gray, purple and green. (I know these sound like the basics in painting, but unfortunately most teachers here don't really care or know about them -.-) They did a beautiful job today. At the end I asked them to choose a favorite from the works of their classmates based on the dissimilarity of the snowflakes' forms and the use of many cold colors. A girl and a boy was saying all the time that their work isn't right somehow, they didn't believe in themselves enough. And guess what?
A lot of the children chose the work of these two! They really did their best and that showed in their pictures. The two magnificent morals of today's lesson for me were that I'm not that bad at teaching art as my mentor said I am and that the youngest children can be capable of many great things if they get the right motivation and explanation along with opportunities.
Okay, enough of me
I'm really happy my little kids in the class were so enthusiastic and good today.