A Collaboration Between Artists & Educators Transcript

VERONICA ALVAREZ [sync]
00:00:04 Good morning, everyone. This is our last planning session after all of these months. So, excited to be here with you guys. I know!
00:00:10 [TITLE: Arts Integration: Art at the Core – A Collaboration Between Teachers & Teaching Artists]
VERONICA ALVAREZ
00:00:14 Art at the Core is really trying to get the arts integrated into the classrooms. The idea is to teach the teachers and do model lessons for them, using works of art aligned with Common Core standards. And we pair teaching artists with the teachers in order to do art in the classroom.
LORENZA ARENGO-YARNES [sync]
00:00:33 It looks good, though. That looks good!
LORENZA ARENGO-YARNES
00:00:36 My name is Lorenza Arengo-Yarnes and I am a 5th grade elementary school teacher. During the collaboration meeting, it’s the 5th grade teachers and then it’s the artists and then it’s two Getty educators.

00:00:48 This is a three year collaboration with the Getty. The project started with just the artists working with the students, but ultimately, they want the general ed teachers to be in charge of the lessons and then the artists would pull back.
AMANDA YATES-GARCIA
00:01:02 My role in this project is one of four teaching artists that was hired by the Getty Museum. We’ve been having weekly meetings for the past five months and really built our lesson plans up from there.
VERONICA ALVAREZ [sync]
00:01:16 We’ll start with each of the classroom teachers and the teaching artists just discussing what happened in last week’s session – what worked, what didn’t work, and what modifications you would like if you were to do this lesson again.
LORENZA ARENGO-YARNES
00:01:28 In the lesson the students were creating a bust of a profession. Part of the project is writing an opinion piece about choosing the profession. And being able to sculpt something and make it look close to human as possible, that was kind of a challenge because many of my students haven’t had that experience.

00:01:47 You know, we talked about that at our collaboration meeting because they really struggled.
LORENZA ARENGO-YARNES [sync]
00:01:52 I kept hearing that they wanted to say, “Did I get it right?” I mean, that’s why we each had to say-
AMANDA YATES-GARCIA [sync]
00:01:55 Yeah, that’s what I was going to say, too.
LORENZA ARENGO-YARNES [sync]
It’s like, “Was it right?”
AMANDA YATES-GARCIA [sync]
How can we build their confidence so that they don’t feel like they need your or my permission? Because that was what really held us up last time in terms of completing the lesson on time. Have you ever encountered that?
LORENZA ARENGO-YARNES [sync]
00:02:11 Well, so there was times when I said, “You have to look at the picture-
AMANDA YATES-GARCIA [sync]
Yeah.
LORENZA ARENGO-YARNES [sync]
-and you need to sort of use that as a guide.
AMANDA YATES-GARCIA [sync]
00:02:17 That’s a good idea.
LORENZA ARENGO-YARNES [sync]
Because some of them caught on a lot faster.
AMANDA YATES-GARCIA [sync]
Yeah.
SANDY RODRIGUEZ
00:02:20 So, wrap up this part of the conversation. So, what were some of the biggest challenges that you faced in a lesson implementation on a portrait bust in the round?
AMANDA YATES-GARCIA [sync]
00:02:29 Our biggest problem was a mantra from the students that we heard over and over and over again, which is, “Is this right? Is this right? Is this right?”
SANDY RODRIGUEZ
00:02:37 The crisis of realism that our 5th graders are constantly going to be facing. Between 3rd and 5th grade, developmentally, students in their art production are just so interested in “Is this right? Does this look like what it’s supposed to look like?”
AMANDA YATES-GARCIA
00:02:51 In the interest of saving time, we thought the best thing to do would be to show the students very precisely how to do it. You know, so that we’d get a good result and everybody would kind of have a clear figure. What we didn’t anticipate was that they would get so wrapped up in the way that we said to do it, that they weren’t able to do it unless it was exactly the way that we’d said.
SANDY RODRIGUEZ
00:03:12 How do we make them realize that there are a million ways to make facial features.
AMANDA YATES-GARCIA [sync]
If we were doing it again, maybe we shouldn’t really provide that much direction at all for creating the features. And that we should just say, “Create an eye,” and let the kid do it. There’s no rule this time.
SANDY RODRIGUEZ
00:03:29 There’s no- there’s no one way to make some ears.
AMANDA YATES-GARCIA
00:03:31 What we decided to do was try and really communicate to them the level of freedom that they had. This is an exploration. This is an opportunity for you to figure out how to put on a nose. And to really just lighten up and take a risk.

00:03:49 That’s a really huge step for creativity and independent critical thinking.
SANDY RODRIGUEZ
00:03:53 I just want to say congratulations because you guys did such an incredible job at really thoughtfully planning out the lesson steps for a pretty complex project.
LORENZA ARENGO-YARNES
00:04:02 Today’s collaboration was problem solving and then we just tried to figure out how we can make it much more approachable for the kids and accessible.
AMANDA YATES-GARCIA
00:04:12 There’s a huge potential for growth relating art curriculum to all education and that’s something that I really hope to work more towards in the future.
SANDY RODRIGUEZ
00:04:21 We have a resource that is online for your K-5 students, really focused on ELL strategies, using our still life as the primary source.
VERONICA ALVAREZ
00:04:32 What we’re hoping is, the teachers will take ownership and continue to do arts integrated lessons, even when we’re no longer in the classroom. For teachers to get these resources from the Getty, they’re always free.

00:04:43 We have over 200 lessons on Getty-dot-E-D-U.
00:04:47 [TITLE: Search Lesson & Activities on www.Getty.edu]
VERONICA ALVAREZ
00:04:49 My advice for teachers out there is to look at your local museum. Museums all across the country do a lot of integrated art lessons and museums want to give teachers as much resources and access as possible. It’s just such an amazing way for students to engage in what they’re learning in the classroom.
00:05:14 ***FILE END***