Teacher at elementary level are expected to teach everything and one of the subject they hate teaching is art. This is because most schools and parents have a nonchalant attitude towards art as an academic subject. So the typical art lesson becomes a waste of time or is stolen for other subjects. This is because teachers often feel that they are inadequately trained to teach art and they dwell on the negative attitude that ‘I cannot draw’ and art proficiency requires an inborn talent. I am not privy to what goes into the training of a teacher for our national schools today, but if this is the attitude, they should stop to ask why art is part of the general subjects in schools. Is it not unfair of the education system for the masses to place a congenital condition known as ‘talent’ as a pre-requisite? I am of the opinion that everybody can draw and it takes practice to draw well.
Like doctors make the worst patient, teachers sometime make the worst students or is it that some people just have a bad attititude for learning. Art training is very much like sports training. Using the analogy of jogging, its not really about going anywhere, its the exercise that matters. So if an instructor gives for an example a still life exercise and the student resisted because they have done that before, it obviously demonstrate that the student has not realised the value of improving through practice and that perfection in is not absolute.
Teachers at Mee Toh Primary engaged me to conduct a five session workshop which covers fundamentals of drawings and how to effectively handle the different art materials.
Explaining the difference between watercolour, poster colour, acrylic, gouche, tempera, ink, etc and how to use them effectively was covered in the wet medium module.
Art Media Training for Primary School Teachers
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