Claudia MacPhee on sat 11 dec 04
I teach ceramics part time at a VERY small school in the southern Yukon.
There are 54 kids, 4 yr olds to grade9. These are mostly Native kids and we
have lots of problems with FAS, ADD, etc. which makes restless an
understatement. These kids are usually visual learners and very good with
their hands. Needless to say they love pottery. I have been trying to
incorperate ceramics components into their social studies ie:making greek
style pots with the 5-6 class while studying the Greeks, doing Egyptian
paste scarabs and grave objects with the 7-8-9 class while they studied
Egypt.
One of the first things I found out was to quickly engage their interest.
Keep the explaining and demoing to a minimum, get them working as fast as
possible. Once they start learning techniques and are comfortable with the
materials they tend to listin better. Have the materials and workplace all
prepared before the kids arrive. Lots of these kids are conditioned to
respond to negative attention. Difficult as it can be it works better to
ignore their misbehaviors and concentrate on positive attention. Takes
awhile but they will come around.
Some of the first things I do with them are rolling out clay, using
cookie cutters (I have lots of them, moose, lots of bears, fish, relavant to
their lives). Once they start working their imaginations take over fast. My
afterschool group (sometimes as many as 14 at a time) can make up to 44 lbs
of clay in two hours! These guys also love the wheel-I have two electric
and one kickwheel at school. I will center the clay, give some hands on
instruction and off they go. Watching a kid who is 14, reads at a grade 2
level, can't hold still for more than 5 minutes, spend 45 minutes working at
the wheel is very nice. No 5 minute pots for them and a good thing too.
Probably the longest time they have ever concentrated on anything.
It is most rewarding to see these kids settle down and become productive.
Just remember not to expect them to behave 'normally' from the start. Have
everything ready to go and the rest seems to take care of itself. We started
with the cut-outs and now we make everything you can think of. Good luck,
Claudia MacPhee, on the frozen shores of Tagish Lake in the beautiful
Yukon Territory
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