Creative Ardagh

One of the reasons that this blog has been so quiet is that I've been busy with a new venture. In August myself and my cousin got the opportunity to open a new business. The heritage centre in Ardagh, Co. Longford was opened in the 90s in the old school building where I spent part of my Junior Infants year. It subsequently closed and reopened briefly as a restaurant but has been empty for a long time. My mother and my grandfather both taught in the building. The history and heritage of the area, which stretches from ancient mythology, through saints and scholars and famine times to national tidy towns success, formed the basis of many of my own projects in college. Bringing this to life for a wide audience through art has been one of my ambitions for many years and when the chance to take over the building arose during the summer I jumped at it. At the moment we are running creative programmes for children and adults and hope to expand to include arts-based heritage programmes for schools in the near future. You can find out more about what we have done so far at Ardagh Heritage and Creativity Centre and our plans for the future at www.creativeardagh.com

It's been awhile ...

I'm not sure how many people were following this blog, but I'm sure any who were thought I had given up by now. I can't believe how long it has been since I've updated it. I have been continuing to work on the project all the time and posts will be much more frequent from now on.
I finished the pilot project in Glen before Easter and made a return visit to the school in June. I was delighted to find out the most of the pupils were still using their journals as they got ready to leave primary and start secondary school in September. I hope they have all settled in well by now and thank them again for the effort they put in to their Identity books.
I'm posting video clips of three contrasting finished books here now. All of the rest of them were equally unique as they each approached the project in very different ways.
The first example chose to take an abstract approach to the book, creating it from a single sheet, with lots of different art techniques and colour, but no recognisable pictures. The second is more traditional in style and mixes image and text in a basic but effective way, while the third is mainly image based using humour and a variety of illustration techniques to get its message across. The audio is from the final evaluation which I videoed. We had done a trail run before which actually worked much better than this version as the class had not seen each others' books in full before and asked much more interesting and deeper questions and gave fuller explanations of their own work. If anyone would like to see more samples just email and let me know.
I have completed a scheme booklet which includes lesson plans, resource lists and curriculum objectives and comes with a few video clips to allow teachers to carry out the project with their own fifth and sixth classes. I will post some sample pages later and if anyone would like a full version of the document I will email it or post a copy on if you send me your details to corkeryannette@eircom.net

Identity project so far

I've just completed the seventh week of my scheme with fifth and sixth class in Glen NS. We have integrated English, Drama, History and SPHE lessons with a lot of looking and responding and practical work across a range of art strands. The pupils are now well into creating their own books exploring a range of techniques including embroidery, painting and collage. Here's a summary of the first six weeks:

Storybird - creative art-inspired stories

Thanks to Dazzled and Frazzled for the link to storybird.com. It looks like it would be a great way of integrating art with English or Irish or starting a looking and responding session before creating your own stories in any of the visual arts strands.
Link to the original post below:
Irish Gifted Education Blog: Give Your Kids’ Imagination Wings: " Guest Post by Natalie Butler of GAS Storybird, a free online collaborative storytelling service, is an ideal way for parents, child..."

Upstart blog debating creativity in education

Anne Parsons is asking the question "How Important is Creativity in Education?" on the Upstart blog:
upstart.ie/blog/?p=79 She's hoping to get some discussion going about the role the arts plays in Irish society, especially in education and to get some feedback about the Upstart poster campaign. Join in and let her know if the arts in education is important for students, teachers and the wider community and if so, why!

Upstart is "a non-profit arts collective which aims to put creativity at the centre of public consciousness during the Irish General Election Campaign in 2011" more info at upstart.ie

My integrated scheme

I have been working on a scheme which I hope to implement in a few primary schools in the near future, but I would like to get some feedback on it before I start. I have approached a few people for their opinions, but I thought I'd also post it here for discussion. I don't seem to be able to attach a pdf file though, so if anybody would be willing to give me comments or suggestions, get in touch by email and I will send you a copy. All criticism, positive or negative, will be appreciated.

New Year, new plans

I haven't updated this blog in a long time as I've been debating where to go from here. In December and January I met with a few people who have offered me food for thought on the place of creativity in the education system at the moment. I want to thank them all for their help so far. I've also come across a worrying development in the form of the new Dept. of Education draft plan for Literacy and Numeracy (available at: www.education.ie/servlet/blobservlet/pr_literacy_numeracy_national_plan_2010.pdf). I've come to the conclusion that action research would be more beneficial than just observation, so I'm making the leap to the last paragraph of my 'about me' section: developing methodologies for integrating the arts into the curriculum and ways of assessing the results. 

To do this I've come up with my own working definition: Creativity is the ability to come up with novel, valuable solutions to a problem. (Solutions may take the form of thoughts, ideas, processes or products). It is characterised by a set of behaviours that involve questioning (finding problems), making unusual connections (transfering knowledge between disciplines), imagining possibilities (generating ideas) and reflecting (evaluating outcomes).

I've used this as the starting point for the integrated visual art programme that I've been developing. The idea is to promote these creative behaviours and hopefully help the child develop a creative approach to learning and life in general.

I've focused my reading on assessment lately, especially assessing creative learning. Here are a few of the most useful weblinks, articles and books I've found so far:

www.action.ncca.ie/en/afl

www.creative-partnerships.com/in-your-area/durham-sunderland/resources/the-creativity-wheel-resource-for-teachers,217,ART.html

Barnes, Rob 1993 Getting the Act Together: It may be Cross-curricular, but is it Really Art? in Journal of Art and Design Education Vol 12 No 1 pp 63-72

Craft, Anna; Cremin, Teresa & Burnard, Pamela 2008 Creative Learning 3-11 and how we document it Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books

Didaskalou, Eleni & Millward, Alan 2007 Rethinking Assessment: Managing Behaviour and Reducing Disaffection in Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties Vol 12 No 3 pp 191-203

Douglas, Katherine M. & Jaquith, Diane B. 2009 Engaging Learners Through Artmaking: Choice-Based Art Education in the Classroom New York: Teachers College Press

INTO 2009 Creativity and the Arts in the Primary School: Discussion Paper Dublin (available at: www.into.ie/publications/)

Lindström, Lars 2006 Creativity:What Is It? Can You Assess It? Can It Be Taught? in International Journal of Art & Design Education Vol 25 No 1 pp 53-66

Sefton-Green, Julian & Sinker, Rebecca 2000 Evaluating creativity: making and learning by young people London: Routledge