Matty

I originally planned on blogging during my five weeks in India. Mostly so my mom has something she can go to to read about my day and let her know that I’m still alive.  Also, to write down my thoughts and keep track of awesome occurrences so I don’t forget them.   Now I’m thinking I will start earlier then my trip because I have a few exciting things going on and it would be nice to record them. 

This weekend I started working with a 13 year old boy named Matty who is diagnosed with severe autism. I found this job through the New Paltz off campus work bulletin board. I am interested in getting my masters in special education and thought it would be great experience. Yesterday I trained with Matty and his mom for 3 hours. She showed me around their house, we walked to the halfway point on Walkway Over the Hudson, and showed me some parks and trails I can bring Matty to. Matty is nonverbal. He knows a few  signs of american sign language like “more” and “please”. I was nervous about the language barrier but thought I can try to understand what he’s trying to express through body language.

Today I picked Matty up at his house at 10am. I was a little nervous, but more excited. I brought him back to New Paltz (about a 20min drive) and we walked on the rail trail for an hour. I talked to Matty as if he understood everything I was saying. I wonder how much he actually understood. I think autism is a fascinating disorder. While we were walking I talked to him about how I am really bad at the guitar. I told him I want to learn how to play the drums because I think it’s great and a fun to play instrument. After I said this he grabbed my arm and started tapping on it. I’m still not sure if this was a coincidence or if he was emulating playing the drums on my arm. 

There was another moment when I thought he could understand what I was saying. I told him that I want to be an art teacher one day and asked him if he enjoyed making art. I talked about how much I love art and told him that one day in the near future I would bring over all of my supplies and we can play with paint, charcoal, pastels and markers. I told him I would lay out paper and let him do whatever he wants with the supplies. He started jumping up and down, clapping, and making a happy screaming noise. He either completely understood what I was saying, or the excitement in my voice got him excited. I hope he understood me. Either way, I can’t wait to make art with Matty. 

Unconventional Art Projects

I recently saw jewelry that involved plants. I think students in middle school or high school would be interested in incorporating nature and jewelry as an art project.

http://www.hafsteinnjuliusson.com/growing-jewelry/

Blind artists paints with imagination

Incredible.

Drawing inspiration from students

Students come to teachers for inspiration (especially in the Art room), but it's amazing how much teachers learn from their students. Last semester I was in an Art for the Exceptional Child class. We spent a semester working with students with disabilities. The boy I worked with had a passion for drawing and each week would come to the class room with about ten new drawing in his sketch book. One sketch that I found particularly interesting was a page filled with circles all connected with lines. I had not thought twice about what the meaning behind the drawing was. Later in the class, he explained to me that the circles were symbolic for events. The lines connected all of the events to form a uniformity resulting in "life". I found his thoughts on interconnectedness of life and events very interesting and also very true. Now that I'm in the spring semester I am taking a basic painting class. My professor advised I elaborate the background of my self portrait with some designs. I immediately started drawing circles with connecting lines. A few minutes into painting and I realized that I drew my inspiration from Corey's sketchbook drawings. I find it fascinating how connected we all really are.

vote YES May 15th

This is a post that should really hit home for anyone in the Art Edu. department.

Discovering New Artists

I'm excited about the artists I discovered from making my lesson plans this semester. My two favorite artists from past couple months are a British couple named Sue Webster and Tim Nobile. They create shadow art from a variety of garbage they collect. I love the idea of using recycled resources as art materials so their art work was right up my alley.

http://www.timnobleandsuewebster.com/

My last day of student teaching was a lot harder than I expected. When I assigned the Recycling and Plastic Awareness Project I was nervous that not all of the students would be able to find something to create. However, I was pleased with the results I saw. Some of the kids had great ideas for alternate uses of recycling various materials; for instance, one of the students realized a used McDonalds beverage container could be utilized to hold markers or pencils. Below is an image of this repurposed object.