Submitted by: james french

The Visual Arts Department did not meet. The meeting time is being applied to hours spent at the NAEA Conference.

Submitted by: james french

The Visual Arts Department met in the Middle School Science Lab – art rooms were unavailable – and all were present.

We began be touching base as we always do, checking in on what work/projects are being done in each others classes. We talked some materials and practices/technique.  Woven into that discussion was an examination of how our students are responding to being back full time this year and what it looks like.

Following that we dove into the DEI work. After sharing a version of the “What does equity and inclusion mean for our subject area? What are your goals? How will you approach it?” document provided by Kalil and Mark. We did a fifteen minute free write to consider what work we are doing and how we want to move forward and share our results. After the free write we each shared things we are doing in our classes that are responding to the questions posed. We came to the conclusion that since our classwork and approaches are so different that we could each take individual approaches. We intend to share our practices and results in a digital collection that will allow us to share and borrow from each other.

Submitted by: james french

Present: james, Rohan, Stephen, Susan and Carin

Absent: Jeremiah, Peggy and Shauna

We began the meeting by getting caught up with what has been happening in each others classrooms since we last met in person. The focus then shifted to the practical needs that we each have in order to better help our classes run – missing tech, software, equipment, ordering and budget questions, etc… From there we shifted gears to our DEI efforts. We set about establishing a plan for the upcoming years work and possible frameworks / lenses that we may want to utilize in order to best accomplish our goals. We framed the conversation through the DEI mission plan shared by Phil and utilized the principles of progressive education / principles of inclusive communities that we worked with during out professional development day.

Submitted by: james french

A considerable amount of our final meetings were spent reflecting on the challenges that we faced as a department this year: teaching materials over Zoom, being displaced from our normal work spaces – art on a cart, less time with our students, working a new temporary dept. member into the. mix, introducing SBG into our assessment practices and focusing on DEI and antiracist curriculum and practices into our work. We discussed our Visual Arts showcases. Finally we individually wrote responses to the 4 questions posed regarding DEI work. Below are some of the responses and a more comprehensive – and specific – list will be shared directly with Kalil.

1: Specific effort to introduce more topical art and artists, integrating more self-designed projects, more identity work, greater emphasis on resource sharing within the dept.

2: Universally we found this second question challenging to answer as the year was so different to manage, all things were challenging.

3: We would love the have Kalil occasionally attend meetings, share resources and look at curriculum.

4: Much of our departments work in the lower and middle divisions is in support of the humanities. While we are all under an umbrella the work that we each do – div/subject – are very different.

We concluded by celebrating our accomplishments this year and looking ahead to next.

Submitted by: james french

The Visual Arts Department came together to discuss a series of questions that had been poses during our prior meeting time. Members of the department were asked to consider:

1) What do you value in your art teaching practice? Personally? Professionally? Institutionally?

2) How do you share these with your students? Do you try to instill these values in your students? How so?

3) What does equity in the classroom mean to you? How is it reflected in your student’s work? How does meeting those goals manifest in how you guide students through their practice?

Jeremiah, Rohan james and Shauna shared their thoughts on the questions raised. We discussed the ideas through personal and school practices, projects and materials. There was consensus in students doing work in their voice, work that relates to their self and having a broad range of tools, materials and arts examples that are equitably distributed and reflective of our student’s identities. While we agreed on desired outcomes there was some debate of how to achieve those ends. Unfortunately with the shortened meeting time as the conversation heated up our time ran out. We intend to pick up from and build off of this discussion in our next full meeting.

Submitted by: james french

I was unable to attend this week’s meeting because I was receiving the second dose of my Covid vaccine. In lieu of meeting I set the department up with a series of questions that I hope they used the meeting time to explore and answer in preparation for our upcoming meeting on 3/3. I will report more fully on the discussion that unfolds based on those prompts after that meeting.

Submitted by: james french

Our second full department meeting focused on advancing our agenda of finding a framework through which we could study our classroom practices and role within our institution with the guiding principle of creating the optimal situation for learning and attachment to the subject for all of our students.

We began by checking in and touching base with how everyone was doing/coping in light of the news of the last several weeks and the challenges that arise on a daily basis teaching in a time of Covid. While seemingly not directly related to the DEI conversation that was to come it greatly informs our teaching and what we are able to bring to bear as teaching tools and guiding principles in our current practices. After reviewing the notes from our last meeting we started to consider our future work through several guiding questions:

Where do we fit into the institution?

What does our roles in cross-curricular collaborations look like? Are they true collaborations?

Do we need to reevaluate the traditional projects / pageants that our students engage with each year?

Is this work in service to the institution or our students?

When – age appropriate – does this type of work best serve our students?

How is art being used as an access point to culture?

How much freedom as teachers at LREI do we have to craft our material? To allow for the process to be at the fore instead of product?

What do our classes look like in this moment to allow for our rooms to be safe/enjoyable/less rigorous spaces in light of the nature of the world and the restrictions of their school life in the time of Covid?

All of this was a way of examining if the work we are doing best serves our student’s art education and the way they identify as – and how their identities are reflected through their work – as young artists. While planning for what ideas/discussion topics we hoped to bring to our next meeting we decided to reemphasize curriculum and to instead examine the values we hope to bring into our rooms and examine how they are seen/felt through our practices. From there we hope to do e critical examination of what this looks like in practice, what changes can be made to better serve our students and what institutional challenges hamper our abilities to achieve these goals.

Submitted by: james french

Following Phil and the DEI coordinators remarks the Visual Arts Department convened to reflect upon and discuss the questions that had been laid out for us. We free wrote and did silent reflections on each of the questions posed for half of the time. Periodically through the process we would talk about a question to assist each other in putting it into the context of our unique subject lens and practice. After addressing each of the questions we came together to talk about them with a goal of identifying common ground, difference and space to create a larger cohesive goal for our work moving forward this year. As is always the case when we meet as a full department the conversation was excellent. We each bring a different perspective to bear on the topics at hand and relish the opportunity to help each other navigate the challenges within our divisions/course structures/material needs/desire to craft age appropriate curriculum. To no one’s surprise – even after going a half hour over time – we do not have a totally clear defined agenda/set of goals. We do however have a solid foundation to build off of in our individual studies/self-reflective practices and have defined some critical lenses we hope to examine the department’s role within and relationship to the larger school institution and the outward facing nature of the work our student’s produce.

I was unable to attend so Shauna led a discussion – I provided a series of prompts – based on the content and themes of the Neo Rauch show. Most of the dept wasn’t present and with the exception of Shauna none of them visited the show. She made the most of the time and tried to lead the discussion anyway. Some thoughtful ideas were shared around process and what we value / display from our student’s output.