Hello world. Yes I'm still alive. I've been teaching 6 classes full time this quarter. It sucks that it breaks away from my artistic momentum. I didn't even go cafe sketching for over a month (I usually go once a week). I just setup a home studio in one of the spare rooms in my house and also got the scanner connected again last week. No art for this blog posting but heres some thoughts and reflections on what I've been up to. Its for my yearly teaching review coming up. Wish me luck!
Wattana Khommarth - Narrative Statement 2007
Reflection on Teaching Methods
It’s been a full 2 years of teaching here at AICA-SD and the growth process is still continual like a tree full of wisdom. Growth and exchange of knowledge relating to both the students first and for myself as a teacher second. Even with careful tending and nurture to the tree of wisdom the fruits that bears from it are filled with its own distinct characteristic according to each individual fruit. As facilitators of the knowledge we can only sit back and hope that the random variation of good and bad seeds will grow into their own fruition without bearing the burden of responsibility for every fruit. Sometimes nature and its own laws of natural selection are greater than any man made plans. We can only hope for the best and wish for optimism.
Here is the recap of my reflective statement from 2006 with added thoughts to my methodology in the next paragraph:
My daily lesson plans always starts off with a review and critique of their homework assignments and recap of last week’s lessons. I then go into my lecture for the week and show the students various animation clips and also live action footage. Then lastly I do a demonstration of the homework that will be assigned for the week’s lesson along with allowing the students to do in-class lab work to prep them for the homework. I find that by beginning the class with a review and critique of their homework assignment allows for every student in the class to observe the good and bad of their peers’ work. This gives them additional insight into the approach of another student’s methods so that they can apply that into their own work. I also encourage the students to critique one another’s work so that they can be more engaging in classroom conversations along with helping them build up their confidence to see the rights and wrongs with positive criticism. The lecture and visual presentation approach that I present to the students is to primarily to inspire them. As a teacher I am committed to encourage, inspire and help guide the students through their artistic endeavors and goals. Lastly, the demonstrations that I do for the class helps the students see a professional approach to the animation process. The in-class lab workshop also provides the students with hands on method of learning too.
I have also been extensively working with the Foundation Studies Department. It feels really good to work with students that are fresh to our curriculum and gives me a way to help them off to a proper start in their approach to their working methods and artistic mentality. Again, I start off these classes with a review and critique of their last week’s assignment. It helps to reinforce the lessons that were covered last week and helps to segue way into the current week’s lessons. I do tend to do more thorough in-class demonstrations and also have them repeat my working methods for the in-class lab time. Working with students that come from a variety of artistic backgrounds I have to make sure that everyone is on the same page. I never want to water down lessons for the sake of favoring one major than the other so the challenge lies in making the classes fun and informative yet challenging at the same time.
Continual Improvement as a Teacher
Continual improvement has always been a survival trait of humans. This applies as well to striving to improve as a teacher because that is what drives me to want to bring the best quality learning experience to the students I work with. I do understand the nature of our curriculum as being structured for preparing students to get ready for the industry but it is also important to integrate the challenge of artistic creativity to it too. Because without the understanding of the artistic nature of the craft then the work is just pencil on paper without any conceptual meaning behind it. Having a proper respect and understanding for the work is just as important as meeting the specifications of industry standards.
I have been delving into my own personal work of field sketching, painting and film making with a greater sense of understanding for these past 2 years while teaching here at AICA-SD. Concurrently I am still freelancing illustration, storyboarding and live entertainment art and share those experiences to the students so that they can keep up to par with what’s currently going on in the industry. Having a balance of the personal and commercial aspects of art making is important as one approach is creating for the pure enjoyment of ones dreams and the other is to help others chase their dreams. We all have to live and make a living but it’s important to follow your dreams as well.
Nature and life around me is my greatest teacher. It humbles me to see the beauty of nature and observe its constant state of change no matter how drastic or subtle it may be. By observing from life it helps to feed my imagination with new ideas and dreams. It makes me motivated to continually change my lesson plans from quarter to quarter as opposed to teaching the same old curriculum will make me lackadaisical. Its just human nature to want to improve just as in its relation to helping students become inspired about life and their art making process. From seeing the smiles and hearing the “hellos” down the hall I can honestly and humbly say I’ve helped to nurture more good than bad fruits. Idealistically I would prefer no bad fruits but that’s just the laws of natural selection taking its course.
