Visit to Monroe Central High School

To continue my discussion about real-world encounters, I will now tell you about the art teacher we are working with at Monroe Central High School.

If I was required to describe Jeff Waggoner with 1 word that word would be "Cool." When we first met with Jeff, he sat down and talked with us during his prep period--which is quite a sacrifice on his part. After an hour of us picking his brain, his students came in..... [insert intimidating music here].

We all had mixed feelings of fear, anxiety and excitement when we first encountered the students, it was a bit awkward. PICTURE THIS: 15 university students drooling with anticipation of obtaining knowledge as they watch 30 high school students like caged animals interact. Luckily, Jeff did an amazing job at easing the tension and Beth suggested that we [art to go students] partake in the art activities alongside the High Schoolers. (If you haven't been paying attention up to this point, listen now. This is where the good stuff starts).

Although most of us scoffed at the idea of partaking in elementary-type games, we did end up participating in the class activities. Jeff's lesson was about realism, which is the style of art that depicts real-life scenes and people. At first Jeff gave a quick history lesson about realism (and by quick I mean no longer than 5 minutes). The lesson was interesting because he tied in interesting facts about realist artists and he pointed to examples of realism around his classroom. The students were interactive... I know, right? Who would have thought that students would actually be engaged in Art History. It was neat.

Then he changed direction and had the students (and us) do warm-up exercises--and no we did not run around the block to get our hearts pumping. The exercises taught us how to loosen up and pay attention to detail. Here are some examples of my work:

My eyes were open for this one. It was the first drawing I did.

I was allowed to do whatever I wanted with this drawing. It's my best one.

I did this with my eyes closed and my left hand.

I drew this with my eyes closed.

I got to do whatever I wanted with this one as well.

I drew this one with my left hand.

My eyes were closed for this one. I photoshopped some stars in with this one to be fun.

My eyes were closed for this one.

Sorry to disappoint, these drawings were not created by Picasso. They were produced by yours truly.

I also photoshopped all of these to get more experience in photoshop. It was quite a lovely time!

Overall, Jeff is a valuable resource for our project. He is our audience and if we do no not listen to what he wants, then our site will be unused. Although we took away several good ideas from our first visit to the school, the most important thing we learned is that Jeff--and most likely other art and humanities teachers--are adding a human element to their lessons. Teachers are asking one simple question: how can I relate this piece of information to my students' lives so they will be engaged, interested and ultimately retain the information?