Explore London's street art, contemporary art, and theatre communities to develop in-depth units about playwrights and artists that prepare students to create four large, school murals in collaboration with Boston Public School’s pilot Fab Lab.
This trip has expanded my view of education and the possibilities of where it can be taken with the right parteners and focus. My skills and expectation of the quality of work I hope to produce this year with my students have both grown this summer. By applying new styles and aesthetics seen and practiced in London and using knowledge gained through thoughtful conversation with other educational and art professionals I think my new expectations can become a reality!
My instructional practice will change by taking my teaching outside of the school walls and literally onto the school walls. As I partner with the English teachers I travelled and studied with on this FFT grant we will combine our experiences from this summer into mural project that reflects a combination of the things we, saw and the people we met.
The greatest personal accomplishment of this fellowship for me was the re-connection made to my practice, what inspires me as a person and a teacher and deeper bond with my brothers in education, all combining to motivate me to be a better teacher!
As I mentioned above the new mural project we will implement will provide a whole new experience for our students and allow them to bring there work to a public stage and bring them out into the community in a positive way!
As mentioned, I did this grant with two fellow teachers, with the specific idea of collaborating on the creation a series of murals for our school and community. In addition we'll be participating in taking students to a series of plays at the Huntington theater and a creative writing/contemporary art program at the Institute of Contemporary art!
By bringing the students work out into the streets of our school's neighborhood we look forward to having the community celebrate our students work! Our school is often depicted as troubled and gets the wrong kind of press, so put a positive spin our students and allow them to feel accepted and comfortable in the community the learn in can be huge for self esteem and their ability to feel accepted and confident in society.
We're still working out the details, but it looks like our murals will represent a wide and diverse series of people and ideas that reflect positivity in society. Woman's rights, diversity, creativity, peace will all be topics that are touched on.
Fundamentally this fellowship has influenced my inspiration, creativity, motivation, expectations and collaboration all for the better!
FUND FOR TEACHERS ©