For the micro teaching session, I had a very lengthy mental block/mild existential crisis on what I was going to do and only really fully formulated my lesson plan the night before. I ended up deciding to facilitate a life drawing session with objects.
When planning this, I was aware of how few activities I could fit into the 20-minute session so decided to go with just four drawing exercises, this meant I had to leave out a few exercises I would have liked to include.
I brought in a bag of objects that I use for my short courses (things such as seashells, a corn on the cob that had dried out, a plastic plane and a small fake plastic tree etc. These were not inspired by Thom Yorke or Radiohead.)
I went with the following four exercises:
Task 1 was “blind drawing”.
For this activity, I asked students if they felt comfortable wearing a blindfold to select the object from a bag, I would hold out for them. Most people seemed happy to do this, and it felt like a good tension breaker (just for me probably) to navigate the selection of objects.
I then asked students to draw the objects, whilst keeping their blindfold on or keeping their eyes closed.
This exercise was of course about freeing up relationships with drawing by not looking at the object, but instead recording the experience of how the object feels.
The aim of this is to draw how your object feels, allowing for senses other than your visual perception to take over. I feel this exercise is a useful tool for students (in particular on foundation) to help students to engage with their own making, to not compare their work with others and to hopefully relieve the pressures one’s critical self-places on making something look representationally accurate or “good” whatever that means.
Task 2 was drawing without looking at the page. Another exercise aimed at relinquishing control and self-criticism. I wanted this task to help students to experience the object through looking and recording the experience of looking through drawing again without having full control on the outcome
Task 3: Observational drawing. I asked students to look at their object as if they were a tiny insect moving across the surface. I thought that this more traditional drawing exercise would be a relief for students. I think it was the exercise people had the least engagement with.
Most people felt that their other drawings ended up being more interesting than this more traditional one. Whilst this task was less “successful” in its engagement, I think its purpose was to bring awareness to less traditional ways of thinking about drawing or making. I also think the openness and sophistication of making/thinking of the group played a role in this experience.
Task 4: Drawing from memory. For this final task, I asked students to turn their back on the object and draw it from memory. I wanted to place this one last after students had tried out the previous tasks which had given access/opened up other ways of thinking about drawing and making. It felt like it was a middle ground of control and journeying.
Take aways
I think I learnt quite a few things during the micro teaching for my own teaching practice. I find it really useful to have feedback from the other teachers. I noticed during the tasks that quite a few people finished drawing within the time set. At the time, I assumed the session was a bit of a car crash, but when discussing afterwards, everyone was really positive and engaged and interested in the session. Obviously, everyone was being very kind and positive with one another, but it did make me feel more confident in my lesson planning and to not assume that someone is not enjoying themselves/is not engaged if they finish early. This is a very simple thing, but quite a big one for me.
On reflection, I think the blindfolded drawing task holds up a mirror for me to the spaces that I want my teaching practice to open up for students. To help students gain access and connection to their inner worlds, to journey through one’s self to language our own voice. And crucially to create an environment where students have the confidence to not censor what comes up when they try to access this. The end goal being to set students on their own path to create their own personal structures and languages that will keep them engaged outside of education.
I also really loved having a micro window into other people’s worlds and teaching practices. The variety of ways of teaching and subject matter was really inspiring. For my own teaching practice, I think Flo’s session really struck a chord with me. I really enjoyed it and it felt like we spent most of the time having fun and playing and it was great to engage with people in this way. It made me think of how important play is in making and in life and how we can test out different parts of ourselves in games and role play. I would like to find the confidence in my own teaching practice to incorporate more games and more play, after all play is a serious thing!
