A comparative examination of after-school art programs in China and the United StatesProposal![]()
ABSTRACT AND LITERATURE REVIEW![]()
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Reflect on and synthesize all of the experiences you have had in this class. Return to your first blog and revisit, reflect, revise, and renew your thinking about what you include in your curriculum and how you teach your curriculum that powers visual thinking for ALL of your students to make your art program vibrant, viable and visible in your school and community.
I noticed I’ve learned a lot and have gained so rich experiences from this class. On one hand, I realized that I tried my best to connect the theory and knowledge I’ve obtained with the practice I am currently doing. For example, my final curriculum design is about Mandarin-integrated art. I believe art integration is a rich and complex approach to teaching and learning that not only aligns with new initiatives in education that prioritize conceptual and procedural skills but also contribute to education’s transformation. It is useful for conceptualizing the field, promoting art education, and developing art program further. It is obvious that Pink’s six senses are embedded in the curriculum design as well, because I think six senses could be the minor standards for the curriculum design. With the combination of six senses embedded, the curriculum will inspire and ennoble students. My goal is to nourish student’s thinking, at the same time, have students realize that the arts bring us joy, help us express our values, and build bridges between cultures. I think art integration is an excellent strategy collaborating with school’s teachers, finally, it would be beneficial for the school, teachers, and students. On the other hand, I recognized that public awareness and collaboration are vital for curriculum design too, which means the curriculum design should include how we present student’s work, meanwhile, how we set up a bridge for students to connect with community, even outside the country. I am inspired by Beth’s curriculum in which is an excellent example that emphasizes on the collaboration with the community. Art teaching and learning should uncover new ways to address community problems or concerns when the objectives of our work include paying attention, responding, making connections and yearning. I believe the curriculum design should develop and cultivate student’s cultural and global awareness too. Ask yourself now: “How can you make your art program indispensable?” Curriculum plays a significant role in art program and it is dominant to make art program indispensable. Obviously, it is important to make members of the community aware of art program. Moreover, working with other teachers is necessary. For example, art integration is an excellent strategy for different disciplined teachers, as a result, different disciplined teachers could understand each other better. Furthermore, collaborations between schools and museums are crucial as well, because they will provide visibility and support for arts and museums. How are you endeavoring to design your curriculum to meet the new NVAS standards of Creating, Responding, Connecting and Presenting art? Before taking this class, I felt like my curriculum design did not meet the new NVAS standards very well. After taking this class, I have a better understanding about the standards, at least, I’ve obtained rich experiences and knowledge from this course, as a result, I can design the curriculum in which meets the standards. I think my kindergarten art curriculum is an example displaying my understanding towards the standards. For instance, in creating section, I pay attention to student’s hands-on experience, but in my previous curriculum design (Fall 2016), I did not design many creating experiences for developing student’s skills. Based on my Mandarin-integrated art curriculum design, I can see I’ve grow up with the curriculum design skill along with the path in this class. How do you (or could you) utilize Pink’s Senses and the Capacities for Learning in your teaching of art? How would your teaching look different? How might student learning and production change? I think Pink’s Senses are synthesized and embedded in my final curriculum design. As I mentioned before, Pink’s Senses could be minor standards when we are designing the curriculum. Moreover, the capacities and strategies that he recommends could be used as class activities too. It depends on what grade we are teaching, and what goal we are pursuing. In addition, I realized that my current teaching style has changed a little bit, since I’ve taken so many rich courses with our Art Ed program. For example, Mrs. Lamme shared with me a book named The Importance of Being Little. I got inspiration a lot from this book and now my kindergarten classroom is better than before. Certainly, as we read Pink’s book, I continue to think about how I could utilize his strategies and senses when I am teaching kindergarteners. Here is the example. The sense of play is indispensable for teaching art, while I did not experience it until Dr. Unrath conducted the class with the sense of play. After the class, I was thinking of how I could use the sense of play for teaching those kindergarteners. When I was teaching sense, I had students touch different materials and allowed them play with materials. They then could make anything they wanted based on the materials. I think this is PLAY. I could see kids were passionate with different art materials and their final works were creative with meanings. Do you see your role as art teacher in a new light? Yes, I DO. I have a better understanding about the role as an art teacher, including how to design the curriculum better, to collaborate with different disciplined teachers, to connect with community, even outside the country. I’ve got so much rich, dense experiences and knowledge from this course and classmates. Meanwhile, my perception has changed as well. Can art teachers make a difference? Yes, we can. I understand it is still a long way to go, while we are already on the way to pursue the goal as art teachers. Except for the concepts that art teachers should know, the art teacher’s personality and attitude are important too. Building up the art teaching philosophy and being passionate with art teaching are crucial as well. What new insights have you gained from experiencing all 6 Senses presentation in an experiential manner? As I mentioned in design reflection, Pink’s six senses are echoing mutually. When I participated in Lauren’s Meaning presentation, I found these six senses were embedded in her activities. She designed the Meaning class with all six senses, and she has the mind of synthesizing, in which we’ve been talking last summer in Survey class. I think all six senses presentation were echoing mutually. The sense of play was embedded in Empathy presentation, and Play and Empathy were embedded in Story presentation… Each experiential manner inherits the spirits of six senses. In addition, I realized that these six senses are relevant to what we’ve learned from Survey class, including the disciplined mind, the synthesizing mind, the creating mind, the respectful mind and the ethnical mind. Five minds and six senses are vital for me to be a teacher, even to design the curriculum. Actually, when I was designing the final curriculum – Mandarin-integrated Art curriculum, I found that I was trying to connect what I’ve learned from Curriculum class and the past courses. For example, when I was thinking about the activity for kindergarteners experiencing the manner of empathy, I tried to recall what my classmates did in the empathy presentation. Some of my art activities are inspired by experiential manners in six senses presentation. Some of my classroom routines are inspired by Five Minds. I hope I can create a kindergarten classroom with respectful mind, synthesizing mind, and creating mind, meanwhile, give kindergarteners opportunities to experience six senses. As a design thinker, it is important to develop skills of play, empathy, story, symphony and meaning. All these five senses finally work for design thinkers. As I mentioned in the class, my goal is not to teach students to be designers, while I aim to nourish students’ thinking - to be a design thinker. In my teaching philosophy, I always believe student’s thinking process is more important than their results, and student’s thinking process is one of my assessment criteria. Curriculum DesignKINDERGARTEN MANDARIN-INTEGRATED UNIT PLAN![]()
APPENDIX![]()
One-second video reflectionWhat do you notice about your attention to the theme (Sense) you were connecting to your video moments?
First, I noticed I paid attention to the definition of the sense before participating in the sense presentation. I tried to recall what Pink demonstrates and how it could be related to our real life. Second, I realized that my video moments changed a little bit after participating in the sense presentation. Well, some experiential manners happening in the class give me more chances to think about what the sense is, and my horizon is broaden. For example, before participating in the sense of meaning presentation, I tried to capture some moments with meanings. I think my curriculum has meaning, and my artworks have meanings too. However, after I experienced Lauren’s class, I found that spiritual words contain meanings, and sprits are one of meanings as well. I then captured the moment when I appreciated the Thailand music performance at MU Alumni Center. How did you choose your seconds? First, I chose the moments related to Pink’s demonstration of six senses, at least, the seconds should be displayed the senses we’ve been learning in the class. Second, the seconds are related to my personal life expressing the meaning of the sense. What was challenging about this assignment? It was difficult to remember to film the moments every time. Moreover, I had difficulties looking for the moments in which related to what sense “requires”. For example, I usually study and sleep a lot during weekends, and nothing special for me. Therefore, some seconds may not be recorded during weekends. What have you learned so that you could structure this process as a successful experience for your students? Learning experience can be recorded visually and verbally via technology. For young students, the process of learning and creating can be recorded by drawing, painting, words, etc. It can be displayed finally via art. For senior students, the process of filming their stories, life, and emotions are paralleled with their reflection on their life. They have time contemplating on their life with learning, making, and creating. How else might you use this strategy in your art classes? Since I am teaching kindergarteners, I may not request them to record their experience after class. However, I’d love to have them record what they’ve learned through today’s lesson. Kids can take pictures for the process of learning, making, and creating. Certainly, I can help kids record their learning process too. Moreover, I would ask students questions and assess what they’ve learned. ![]() “Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life”, Frankl states. (Pink, p.217) Personally speaking, I believe most people in the world are searching for their meaning of life, as Pink states ““our fundamental drive, the motivational engine that powers human existence, is the pursuit of meaning” (p.217). What I am confused is the difference between meaning and purpose. To some degree, they are the same to me. For example, I seek for purpose of my life = I seek for meaning of my life. I looked up the dictionary, it says meaning refers to what is meant or conveyed by an action, word or concept, while purpose refers to reason for which something is done. However, these two words could be used interchangeably when meaning refers to the worth of something. At this point, what Pink says meaning, to some extent, is similar to purpose. Additionally, what I found another interesting statement is that Frankl “demonstrates meaning can sometimes grow from suffering.” (Pink, p.217) Though “it is not a prerequisite to finding meaning”, “the search for meaning is a combination of external circumstances and internal will”. (p.217) Honestly, I agree with what Frankl states. Meaning is changeable because of surrounding environment and people’s internal desire. Simply, environment and believe finally shape or influence people’s meaning. Does meaning require conditions? I would probably say “YES”. If people still in the condition of lack of food, or live in a poor environment, it is obvious they would emphasize on materials they lack. As I mentioned in the beginning of this semester, families who are from poverty tend to view education as a threat to their family unit. Usually the mother is at the head of the unit, and they see their children as "property" expected to contribute to the income of the family. So if their children become educated, they fear that their children will abandon the family in the long run. Can I describe this kind of people Materialist whom “emphasize economic and physical security above all” (p.219). As a teacher, when you face this situation, how would you help unprivileged students search for meaning? If individuals, families, and businesses want to search for meaning, there are two practical, whole-minded ways – “take spirituality seriously and take happiness seriously.” (p.219) I would predict that happiness might be a good strategy when we teach unprivileged students. For example, to remind students to live in a pleasant life” in which is “full of positive emotions about the past, present, and future”, because “more happiness causes more productivity and higher income” (p.226) Well, this could be what mothers of unprivileged students concerns most. So for those people who are satisfied and over-satisfied with material needs, how do they search for meaning? Pink suggests us to “take spirituality seriously because of its demonstrated ability to improve our lives” (p.222). Research has shown that spirituality can keep people healthy, and it is a contributor for us to find the living of meaning. I think teaching is one of the most spiritual jobs in the world, though it does not mean to earn a lot of money. For me, teaching is to make my belief of education come true, to take action to change, to pursue a profession that provides both income and spirituality. Certainly, I’ve got happiness when I am teaching too. Therefore, I believe teachers would be spiritual and happy people as well as artists who are creating meanings. In addition, our curricular have meanings too, and meaning occupies a very important position. Every part of curriculum design requests meaning, for example, big idea, why do you want to teach this big idea to students, what ideas, facts and new knowledge will the students acquire? What is your final purpose/goal? All these questions are related to the living of meaning. Since meaning is the last whole-minded skill that Pink recommend, I’d like to take a couple minutes to think about how we implement these skills when we are designing curricular and teaching. I feel like designing curricular require all these six skills, from my perspective, they are not separate, because they are echoing mutually. We do have our own standards when we design curricular, while what if we use these six skills as our minor-standards? Read and blog about: Design As Pink claims, design is one of the six senses can help people develop “whole new mind that this era demands”. That is fascinating. From Pink’s perspective, “design is a classic whole-minded aptitude. It is, to borrow Heskett’s terms, a combination of utility and significance… Design – that is, utility enhanced by significance – has become an essential aptitude for personal fulfilment and professional success”. (p.70) He provides three reasons: 1) people are more enjoyable with design and good design becomes popular; 2) Design is beneficial for modern companies; 3) Design may change the world finally. When I read the third reason, Steve Jobs came to my mind. Steve Jobs designed products beautifully and functionally. He was an amazing designer because he not only realized what design was about but found employees that did as well. Obviously, it is the creativity that runs Apple and make it such a wonderful company and creativity is a necessary component of design. Everyone can be a “designer”; the designer here I do not mean to be a REAL designer, such as graphic designer. What I mean – designer – is people who is creative; who finds a solution to a problem; who looks beyond what is already there and what needs to be there. At this point, symphony really works for design. At least, it would nourish the sense of design, because symphonic people can “see relationships between seemingly unrelated fields, detect broad patterns, and invent something new”. (p.130) Moreover, what I’ve realized is that play, empathy, and story are skills that finally develop the sense of design. Designers play with ideas, come up with the new idea; they empathize with everything around them; their experience and personal stories finally serve the objects they designed. Pink highlights CHAD that students take core subject classes as well as design and art classes. This school focus on fostering creativity while implementing it within the core standards. I realized that it is significant for us as teachers to allow students to be creative and design the world around them. Meanwhile, we need to make sure that our environment around our students allows the creativity and learning to happen in an easy way. The design chapter reminds me of Design Thinking took kit that we used in summer course. Design thinking is a process for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues based around the building up ideas. It is about the design of objects, information, environments and experiences. (p.11) From my perception, design thinking is relevant to what Pink describes in his book. Therefore, I was wondering how we could implement design thinking and Pink’s design portfolio together in the classroom? Here is the example I found that would work for students in the classroom. This TED talk is really fascinating too. Designer Emily Pilloton moved to rural Bertie County, in North Carolina, to engage in a bold experiment of design-led community transformation. She's teaching a design-build class called Studio H that engages high schoolers' minds and bodies while bringing smart design and new opportunities to the poorest county in the state. I just read the journal of the National Art Education Association March 2018, where I found something very juicy. ART + DESIGN = STEAM??!!!Read and blog about: Integrating art into other subjects
Art integration has a profoundly positive effect on student learning and engagement. From this article, as the author states, “before IAA become an arts-integrated magnet school, only 17 percent of its third-graders were proficient in math on the NECAP test, Vermont’s standardized test. After five years, 66 percent met and achieved the standards.” This is excellent example that shows how art integration works and why we should choose this approach. I’ve been thinking about how I can integrate art into my Chinese lesson for Pre-k and Kindergarten kids, and I haven’t really contemplated on art integration practice and strategies. What I’ve found from this article, collaboration plays an important role, which is the unique opportunity to work professionally with others on a mutual goal that benefits students. As Riley states, he “focused on building up educators’ capacity to effectively collaborate. In my situation, I am the only one Mandarin teacher in my school, and the curricular are made by myself. Sadly, I do not have someone whom I can work with or collaborate with. Sometimes, I try to integrate art into Mandarin class, and it works well. However, we do not have formal art teachers in the school. It is difficult for me to implement art integration in my school now. Why isn’t art integration more popular? The author hits the point. “Art scares people who are not in the arts”. SO TRUE. I was scared about the traditional art, for example, painting and drawing. I was totally out of comfort zone when I was taking beginning drawing class. This is natural feeling. However, “having an atmosphere of being open to various art forms is all your students need”. Therefore, I try to touch as many as different art form in my graduate study. My goal in the future is to teach art and Mandarin in K-12 setting. I think I am lucky, because I have Mandarin teaching experience already and now I am learning how to teach art. Since I have mutual experience, it will help me design curriculum of Mandarin-art integration well. For my final curriculum presentation, I am thinking whether I could create a unit combining art and Mandarin? Symphony, as Pink states, is “the ability to put together the pieces” (p.130), which is fascinating. I’ve never though symphony is the ability, at least, before reading this chapter. Symphonic thinking becomes more important because of the Information Age. As Pink demonstrates three reasons of why symphony plays an important role, I feel like today’s China is looking for people with comprehensive talent, including these skills that Pink recommends, such as play, empathy, story, even symphony. Certainly, we do not use the same word to describe this ability, but the function is the same. We need people who can “see relationships between seemingly unrelated fields, to detect broad patterns, to invent something new.” (p.130) ![]() To better understand the aptitude of symphony, as Pink claims, “is to learn how to draw” (p.131) I am so lucky because I’ve been taking drawing for one year, and I can definitely tell my feelings that are similar to Pink’s. “Drawing is largely about relationship” (p.131) which is so correct. When I started learning drawing, I’ve learned the shapes, lines, values, proportion. I remember Prof. Ballou had us draw something unclear, like Bomeisler did for Pink, “you know nothing about what you’re drawing” (p.132) “The goal is to trick the left hemisphere and clear the way for the right. When the left brain does not know what the right brain is doing, the mind is free to see relationships and to integrate those relationships into a whole.” (p.132) Drawing helps me develop my skill of observation, meanwhile, improve my envision of seeing small pieces and seeing big pictures. So, what kind of person contain symphonic thinking? Pink suggests three types of people, including the boundary crosser, the inventor, and the metaphor maker. (p.134) Personally, Film makers and producers are the boundary crossers, especially film producers. From my perspective as a former, unprofessional film producer, I’ve found it requires so many skills to achieve the goal. Film producers should know and be responsible for every part of work. They are not requested to be excellent film directors, while they are requested to know, at least, the story from this film is excellent. To some degree, they are required to know the aesthetic appreciation of film. However, this is not enough. They need to know everything, including selecting actors and actress, seeking funds, even film promotion. I think film producers are the best example to describe what the boundary crosser is, and film producers are always seeing the big picture. I really like the idea that Pink states “most inventions and breakthroughs come from reassembling existing ideas in new ways” Wonderful, that is what play works and why play can improve people’s skill of creativity and innovation. In addition, I do appreciate metaphorical thinking, while it is really difficult to understand people when their wording implies metaphors. I think most of international students have these feelings. Pink claims metaphorical thinking is critical because it helps people understand others, therefore, I think it is time to take notes when you hear something metaphorical. I was wondering what if we read some visual culture literacy? Does it help us improve our metaphorical thinking? My answer is YES. Many decades before scientists demonstrated why “psychological androgyny” is essential to creativity, Virginia Woolf (a British writer) articulated this idea in a beautiful passage from her classic 1929 book-length essay A Room of One’s Own. She claimed that the best mind is the androgynous mind. “In each of us two powers preside, one male, one female… The androgynous mind is resonant and porous… naturally creative, incandescent and undivided.” From Pink’s chapter, “A psychologically androgynous person in effect doubles his or her repertoire of responses and can interact with the world in terms of a much richer and varied spectrum of opportunities.” Symphony is a great skill that art teachers can implement in the classroom, like Pink recommends in this chapter. For art teachers, when we are going to teach drawing, what if we use Bomeisler’s strategy – having students draw something unclear – which set student’s mind free to see relationships and to integrate those relationships into a whole. Second, design thinking is a good way to nourish the symphonic thinking, including looking for solutions in search of problems. Third, what if art teachers have students make their own decision for creating something they could not do? What if we give some challenges? ![]() Stories consist of each of us, which means we are all stories. Everybody has his/her own stories, and the world composes of everyone, then it is certain that the world composes of stories. We can perceive stories everywhere, including gallery, museum, school, community, and home. We are people person, and the world is not just icy numbers. We have empathy and we do have stories. Personally, I do appreciate the courses I’ve learned in my undergraduate study about writing good stories and how we make stories related to our real life. To be honest, I believe that good stories come from real life, and it is significant for people who are interested in writing stories to experience different lives, including rural life, metropolitan life… Well, I feel like empathy is the basic skill if we do want to improve our story skill. Like Pink claims women are more empathic than men, I was wondering whether women write better stories than men? I had a debate with some friends (most of them are male, and they are majored in hard science). The debate is about story and fact, and whether we should believe stories or facts. We had the same idea, at least, stories come from facts, and stories, to some degree, are vivid facts. Simply, most of films, fictions, artworks based on the true fact are vividly wrapped by stories, and they help people have a better understanding about facts. As Pink demonstrates, “story is having another important impact on business. Like design, it is becoming a key way for individuals and entrepreneurs to distinguish their goods and services in a crowded marketplace.”(p.109) Nowadays most of commercial ads are full of stories. It looks like companies are selling their stories, in fact, they are selling their products. Simply speaking, commercial products are packed vividly by stories.
The second example is podcast. I am a people person, naturally, I’d like to listen to people’s stories and experience. I sat up a podcast program online several years ago. If you are interested in my program, you can click on the box below. It is in Chinese language, while you can see my program list. Each program has its own topic, for example, friendship is one of topics I made and I interviewed several friends sharing their perception and thoughts about friendship. My skill of story was improved a lot during this process, honestly. As the organizers of StoryCorps say, “we’ve found that the process of interviewing a friends, neighbor, or family member can have a profound impact on both the interviewer and interviewee. We’ve seen people change, friendship grow, families walk away feeling closer, understanding each other better. LISTENING, after all, IS AN ACT OF LOVE”. (P.121) I think we can implement many strategies about how to improve student’s story skill. As Pink recommends, “Play Photo Finish” seems like VTS. Mike and Mellisa claim that VTS is an excellent tool to improve student’s empathy, certainly, VTS is good to students to develop their story skills too, because students are asked to decode the stories made by artists. Moreover, making digital storytelling is fascinating. Last semester, Amy had us make our stories by digital application, either photo app or video app. I made a short film about myself – how my perception transformed from NO to YES. The video can be seen in the below. From my perceptive, digital storytelling could be done better for high school and college students. If I want to implement the project for young kids, I would have them take photos and share stories in the classroom, like PhotoVoice project.
The first time when I heard this word “empathy” in which came from some art teachers interviewed by me last summer. Actually, I was unfamiliar with the word at the first time, even though I know the meaning in Chinese. When I read this chapter Empathy and it reminds me of Amy’s response when she was interviewed by me. When she shared her strategies for teaching international students, she said she tends to exercise a lot of empathy and she likes to feel what’s happening within the context of the class. She watches how international students watch the others and whether they interact with other students, whether they are hesitant to communicate with others or herself. What she frequently does is to try to engage them quietly and respectfully because she does not want to make anyone uncomfortable. Moreover, it is also important that international students feel seen and safe in the class. At this point, empathy is the method for teaching international students well, while it is people’s personality, personal speaking. As far as I know, not all teachers could empathize with students, at least, I have seen some teachers abusing their “power” towards students. Personally, empathy is natural coming from people. Certainly, this skill could be trained and cultivated. For example, as Pink mentions in the chapter – “eavesdrop”, “it’s an excellent way to put yourself in an-other’s shoes and see the world through that person’s eyes” (p.180) However, I still believe that it comes naturally and could be distributed. For instance, you’ve noticed how your parents/teachers/friends empathize with others, and I am sure you naturally get this sense which “allows you to see the other side of an argument, comfort someone in distress, and bite our lip instead of muttering something snide.” (p.160)
Pink claims that “empathy is much more than a vocational skill necessary for surviving 21st century labor markets.” (p.165) I totally agree with that. However, when I think twice, I feel like empathy may happen conditionally. If people are working on making a living, they might neglect the empathy. Obviously, when their life is getting better, they might consider about empathy. Generally, IQ is the passport opening the door for better life, whereas EQ brings them to next step. I think empathy is one of features of EQ. I am intrigued to know whether EQ comes naturally (a person who has talent) or could be trained? Take me as an example, most of my friends say that I have high EQ, while I disagree with that. I’ve neither trained my EQ, nor read some books for improving EQ level. If they are right, could I say my EQ comes naturally? So as empathy. Recently, I’ve met some international students who are going to be my research participants, and all of them ask me why I want to make a documentary about international students, so as Mr. Currey, the associate director of MU International Center. Now my answer would be clearer. It is because of empathy. I can feel and intuit what they feel. “It is the ability to stand in others’ shoes, to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hearts. It is something we do pretty much spontaneously, an act of instinct rather the product of deliberation.” (p.159) Dr. Unrath was modeling how she empathize with me many times when I was telling my stories. It is important for me that someone is listening to you not just ignoring you. You can tell and feel when you look at the listener’s eyes whether they show their empathy. It is true that the relationship and friendship are built because of empathy. I realized why Pink takes empathy as a significant skill for people who wants to survive in 21st century. Empathy is one of important skills that helps people to build their network and relationship with others. Is it true that Soft Science people are more empathic than Hard Science people? I believe I am a people person, so I have sense of empathy. (I do not think I am humorous enough because I was educated by Chinese educational system which is serious and colorless.) Based on my experience, those people majored in hard science are pretty strict and stiff. (Sorry, I am biased) This is the reason why I’d like to make some friends from soft science area. Last summer I was interested in the topic – teaching culturally diverse students, now I am wondering whether we could implement Pink’s practice in the real classroom setting? I’ve read some researches talking about empathy, most of them admit that empathy is a necessary but not sufficient, trait for working with culturally diverse students. They believe that teacher education programs have huge effect on teachers and pre-service teachers. Teachers’ beliefs about empathy and their resulting attitudes and behaviors point to the value of nurturing powerful beliefs, such as empathy, in teacher education programs. I think Dr. Unrath, Dr. Roupp, and other professors model empathy very well to me. They distribute their empathy to me, and it is time for me to show my empathy to my students. It is like branches representing my lineage tree. Oh my gosh! This is the sense of Play! This is PLAY that I never tried it in China. Here are some thoughts from “Sense of Play” activities held by Dr. Kathy. First, I was nervous when we were asked to only use scissors and papers to create 3D self-supporting forms. “I AM NOT CREATIVE!” This feeling came to my mind. I was totally out of comfort zone and I even forgot to use scissors. I teared the paper quickly since we had time limitation. I broke the rule which made me so embarrassed. “Was this a sense of play?” I ruminated. I doubted. Later, when we were asked to re-established other’s forms, I realized that play should be under “instruction”, however it should be “truly free” as Dr. Unrath mentioned in the class. With my feeling calmed down, I enjoyed re-set other’s forms. At that time, I did not care how beautiful the forms I should create, while I did care the moment of PLAY. It is my special moment and it is my world. Second, I realized that play comes from collaboration. Collaborating with others is like having fun with friends. I almost forgot the time, the limitation, and even professors. We just played the papers and shared with each other what we found something interesting. I think we broke down the barrier when we three played together. This is totally a comfort zone in which I do not want to leave. I really ENJOYED, especially when we were taking pictures for the 3D form. Everyone came up and contributed their ideas. Tonight’s play was a process with sense of “out of comfort zone” and sense of “comfort zone”. I think what surprises me most is, oh my gosh, this is play! I want to implement this strategy to teach Chinese students, and I do want to share it with my friend Mindy who is currently an after-school art program teacher and see how it goes with Chinese students who are learning arts. Finally, I did have much fun tonight.
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