School Experience #2: Days 01 + 02

So I have managed to secure a second placement within a school here in Japan! This time, the school exclusively teaches the British curriculum.

Prior to my first day at this second placement, I had been in contact with the head of the arts department at the school (for anonymity and privacy reasons, I will refer to her as Ms. M) and before I could commence my placement at all, I was informed that I had to undergo a criminal and education background check. As part of our correspondence, Ms. M outlined what kind of activities the department would like me to lead and engage in. These included:

• To develop teaching resources for Photoshop/Illustrator/Indesign and Lightroom aimed at KS4/5 students;

• Work with the student leaders of the extra-curricular (ECA) Magazine club on Tuesdays by teaching them new skills;

• Support and assist teachers as necessary working with students on individual projects in lessons. 

Ms. M and I had a meeting a few weeks before my background check had been cleared, where she spoke to me about how the students could really benefit from having someone teach them in-depth skills with Adobe Creative Cloud software. Seeing as my Bachelor's degree consisted of learning how to use Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator, I would be a strong candidate for the job. My placement will consist of me attending a full day of school every Tuesday to observe lessons for Key Stages 3-5 students (years 7-13), as well as participate in the Magazine Club meetings.

For my first two days at the school this past Thursday and Friday, I observed classes for years 8, 10 (GCSE Photography), 12 and 13 (Fine Art A-Level). My first day in particular, I took the opportunity to pay particular attention to the skills that the students wanted to develop using software tools. Some of these included, GIF-making in Photoshop, shadows and blending in Photoshop. As for the ECA club, I plan on having a presentation ready for their next meeting to show them some of my work and how I applied graphic design principles and software to craft publications and generate content.

The first Year 8 class that I observed was of roughly 20 students, in a relatively small physical space. This meant that Ms. M and I had to arrange materials in such a way as to maximise the space available while ensuring each student had enough room to work. To make matters more complicated, the students were finalising a project where they were working on large-scale canvases. Therefore, 1 easel, 1 bucket filled with water, and 1 stool had to be setup per student. I helped arrange the students' work in rows, using the large tables wooden tables in the classroom as guides. The easels took up a lot of room so, where possible, a stool would be turned upside down, and its legs would serve to hold up the canvas of the student's work. While unconventional, it was definitely a space-saver! There are a little over 40 students in all of year 8, and they are split in half, so half of their year group is taught in the morning, while the other half is taught in the afternoon. So Ms. M and I had to arrange this setup twice in one day while keeping track of which paintings were done, and which ones needed to be kept out because they belonged to the second class. It was tiring and required a bit of problem-solving, but the end-result meant each student had space to work on their piece.

The Year 8 students were told to complete a painting consisting of flowers (any kind/colour). The media they were using was drawing ink, and Ms. M had asked them to consider texture (dry brush/diluted ink/brush thickness, among others) and level of detail to produce their painting. The students' finished outcomes would be displayed as part of an on-campus installation for Remembrance Day in November.

I got the opportunity to walk around the classroom giving students advice and assisting them by explaining how to use some of the tools at their disposal to achieve the effect they wanted on their work. I was pleased to see how well some of the students responded me being there. They had never met me before, and while some of them remained too shy to speak much to me, a handful seemed to really value my advice and would approach me independently to ask for my opinion on their progress. I thoroughly enjoyed discussing their techniques and reasoning behind what they were painting. I also commented to Ms. M that I think getting the students to work on large-scale pieces early on would bolster their confidence for future experiences in art class. This confidence is something I already began to observe in the way the students interact with one another, and the way they seem unafraid to use painting tools of all shapes and sizes. I remember being their age and still being quite nervous about making mistakes or being unsure of how to fill space on a larger canvas - things I would only come to fully grasp towards the end of my secondary school experience.

During the Year 12 class, I was able to walk around the classroom again to talk to students individually about their final pieces. In doing so, I had an interesting conversation with one student considering going to university to study art. She was unsure of where to apply to, but mentioned UCL and UAL being strong contenders. However, she worried that she was being too ambitious since those universities have a big reputation in the arts industry. I managed to advise her about certain factors she might want to consider while applying besides reputation (e.g.: facilities, teacher:student ratio, ties to industry etc.), how the application process works, and what to expect from studying abroad. This conversation was possibly the highlight of my experience at this school so far, as I wish I had had someone to speak to about my doubts and insecurities of applying to art university four years ago (besides my art teacher and representatives and university fairs, there were no students or recent graduates that could speak about their experience while it was still fresh in their minds).

As for the Year 13 students, the class I observed with them involved the writing component of their A-Level portfolio - the 'personal study', scored out of 18 marks. Ms. M spoke to them about what was expected from this writing task, and we were all provided with an example of an essay that scored full marks, and one that scored much lower. Interestingly, Ms. M told the students to refer to the History A-Level essay rubric for more detailed information on how to write a successful essay. The fine art rubric is quite vague in its band descriptions, while the history rubric provides a bit more clarity. As all A-Level students pick only 3 subjects to be taught for two years, some students don't pick subjects that require much essay-writing, so Ms. M went over the 'PEAL' method (Point, Evidence, Analysis, and Link):

1. Point: Clearly state your main point, idea, thesis or topic sentence;

2. Evidence: Provide evidence to support your main idea statement from primary or secondary sources;

3. Analysis: Examine the statements you presented and elaborate on their meanings;

4. Link: Provide a smooth transition to the next paragraph as well as to your main thesis or argument. Your link is a crucial part of creating unity throughout your paper as well as maintaining logic and coherence. *

There are no classes next week because of a half-term break, so the majority of classes I observed this week were focused on completing assignments that could not be postponed until after the break, or setting goals to complete before school starts again in a week's time. All in all, the environment in the British School has been very different from the first placement I undertook. The first marked difference I noticed was how A-Level students have more free periods to catch up on work and practise for their subjects, since there are only 3 subjects to study for at an intense capacity. I was also confused by how this school has no bell to announce when one class must end and another begin, so teachers are responsible for keeping track of time on their own. Also, all the classes I observed here were over an hour long, and while this might just be a coincidence compared to the rest of the week's schedule, it means students have a significant amount of time to focus on their projects and make tremendous progress. These are just some of the differences I have begun to notice, so I plan on writing a more detailed post later, once I have a few more day's worth of experience at this school.

* PEAL method descriptions taken from: https://www.bestcustomwriting.com/blog/essay-writing-technique-example-peal-paragraph