Language?Mathematics?Canadian elementary school teachers teach all homework as art lessons
A few years ago, there was a *** article circulating in the Chinese community in North America, which vividly depicted a real scene in an exaggerated tone: North American primary and secondary school teachers actually turned all subjects such as Chinese, mathematics and natural science into art classes. At the time, my youngest daughter was not in school, so I just laughed it off.
Now that my youngest daughter is halfway through the first grade, looking through her homework and the classwork she brings home from time to time, I have a deeper understanding of that article.
At the beginning of the new semester, the teacher handed out a small card to the children who had just entered the first grade, which said, "It's okay not to know, but it's okay not to try." This seems like a simple classroom rule that encourages children to actively participate. The card was made with great care, the teacher used a marker pen to write the font neatly, then used colored pens to add decorative patterns to it, and then cut the paper strips into irregular shapes with scissors according to the paragraph layout, and finally sealed them in a plastic seal.
I learned that primary school teachers in Canada do not divide their teaching by subject, and my youngest daughter's Chinese, mathematics, physical education, and art classes are all taught by the same teacher. So it didn't surprise me to see this card, I guess it's the teacher's clever integration of art teaching into daily classroom management.
Later, I saw a handmade giraffe and realized that my understanding of "fine art" was too narrow. The giraffe is made up of three parts, the head and body are two printed sheets – either provided by the teacher or cut out by the children themselves. The colors on it were painted by the students themselves, some realistically, and some of them may be their own imagination, such as this one of my daughter, the giraffe's face is fuchsia.
The most striking thing about this giraffe is its long neck, which is the third part of the hand-collaged piece. The neck is neatly written with newly learned words. The youngest daughter is enrolled in a French immersion program, and one of the main goals of the first grade is to enable students with basic proficiency in French for daily conversations and Xi other course content in French, so the Xi of French vocabulary is particularly important. In addition to learning Xi a series of vocabulary related to a specific topic each month, a series of words containing the same syllables are Xi each week through the "phonetic words". These words were written on the neck of the giraffe, and they were words with a certain syllable that were being learned Xi at the time.
If giraffe handicraft is just to spice up and make boring word learning Xi more interesting, then the classes and homework assignments I saw one after another really applied drawing to all aspects of linguistic Xi.
The first is listening, and being able to understand spoken expressions and understand their content is the goal of Grade 1 teaching. In order to quickly test whether the students really understand, the teacher reads a passage and the students present what they hear through drawing, which is obviously very suitable for first-year students, who have limited knowledge of words and may not be accurate in retelling them in words.
In one lesson, the teacher gave the students an interesting assignment: draw a picture on a piece of paper and complete it according to what the teacher described verbally. In the painting, there should be a green square at the top of the paper and a yellow circle at the bottom. At the same time, write your name in the middle of the paper. Draw a red heart on the left side of the name and an orange flower on the right. Draw a blue circle around the heart and a yellow square around the name. An orange star is to be drawn in the circle at the bottom.
Although the little girl understood the teacher's description, she omitted to paint the circle outside the heart and the color of the square around the name in the process of drawing. This shows the importance of oral expression in primary education in Canada. Students are required to give presentations in class, and even the supporting materials for the presentations can be self-drawn drawings. This not only helps to develop oral presentation skills, but also deepens the understanding of the subject matter.
One of the presentations was titled "My Favorite Winter Activity". The little girl chose to skate and decided to draw a picture of herself skating as a supplementary material. Despite the abundance of ** to choose from, she chose to paint a picture herself to show her love for the subject.
The reading comprehension assignment also includes drawing, and students are asked to color according to the description and add missing elements to the original picture. After learning Xi a period of time, the difficulty of reading comprehension gradually increases, and students need to understand meanings beyond words and speculate on information that is not directly expressed literally.
A recent class assignment included a text description from which students were asked to draw the content. The description records the activities of the sick student during the week, as well as his plans after the weekend**. Students are asked to express the next week's activities in their drawings, which may not be clever enough, but can clearly convey the anticipation of the new week when they recover.
These class assignments come in a variety of formats, from oral expression to drawing and writing, helping students develop language skills in a variety of ways.
The use of painting in the study of science is not limited to language, mathematics can also play its role as an aid to thinking.
One math assignment was a coloring drawing with a pre-printed line drawing of a frog in a top hat, and the parts were marked with numbers or addition equations. The task is to color in according to the results of the calculations - all areas with answers 5 are painted in purple, 6 in blue, 7 in yellow, and 8 in green.
Science and health are taught by another teacher, but the importance of fine art in both classes has not diminished.
In science classes, we learned a wealth of knowledge about plants: the names and functions of the various parts of plants, the elements needed for plant growth, the life cycle of plants. To consolidate what he has learned, the teacher assigns a booklet task to fold a piece of paper into three leaves, describing these three aspects of the plant separately. Although there are no specific requirements, the cover should also be lively and interesting, and at first glance it is clear that this is a booklet about plant knowledge.
Health lessons can also be expressed through drawing. What are the security risks in the community?How to ensure safety in road traffic?Let's draw it!
The writer paints the invisible text, and the painter has the tangible text. "In fact, drawing is a very practical skill for the expression of the mind, whether it is good or bad, as long as you can conceive a suitable image and present it, you can effectively achieve the purpose of communication.
In the movie "Little Soldier Zhang Ga", Gazi intimately left a picture while recuperating to inform his whereabouts. In the TV series "Latent", because Cui Ping is illiterate, Yu Zecheng conveys the emergency through drawings and asks for her help. Therefore, training primary school students to use drawing to express their thoughts is just as meaningful as teaching oral expression and writing.
At school, the little girl gradually developed the Xi of using drawing to express herself, and brought this Xi habit beyond the classroom.
In this week's spring break Chinese class, the teacher recommended a virtual event hosted by the Federation of Overseas Chinese. A Chinese audio is sent every day, and students need to answer a question after listening to it. Responses can be made by recording** verbal responses, or they can be expressed through drawings. The little girl chose to paint, retelling the story she heard in the form of pictures - Liu Bei was noticed as a child because of his unusual ideas and expressions. In order to keep his clothes neat and tidy, Liu Bei even stripped off his clothes when climbing a tree to avoid getting dirty, and also told other children that he would become emperor in the future. The teacher asked to describe what Liu Bei looked like when he was a child, but the little girl was reluctant to record ** and chose to paint. She drew a boy wearing a crown with the word "king" written on it. It doesn't matter how well or badly you draw, the key is to be able to express your thoughts clearly.
The teacher incorporates all the lessons into the concept of art classes, and perhaps this is not unreasonable. While it is important to acquire knowledge, it is also important to be able to express ideas clearly. Mastering an additional form of expression means an additional means of communication, which is similar to learning Xi a new language. What do you think of such an "art class"?
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