Friday, May 13, 2005
Today comes the first art camp (must read)
Our experience in India has two foci:
1) Putting on 3-5 art camps for children to learn about their perception of the world and themselves.
2) Meeting lots of people and learning about India, it's challenges, strengths and lessons we can take back to America.
In both halves of the project, we will be videotaping our journey in order to document what we learn and share it back in America.
The first child art camp starts today. We'll be working with 7-12 children from 8-14 years old teaching printmaking, creating marionettes and making self portraits. Jillian and I are interested in the perception of children on themselves, their family, India and America. When we have this art camp at several locations in Chennai and Bangalore, we will observe how the art is different from different socio-economic, cultural, or educational groups of children.
One strategy we are using to understand children's perceptions is self portraits. Upon the first 15 minutes of the start of our multi day art camp, children will be given a standardized set of crayons and paper and asked through an identical script to "create a self portrait of (1) themselves with their family, and (2) what they hope to become when they grow up, according to their greatest dream." This will be repeated on the last day as well and we will compare perceptions from begining to end of the camp, as well as accross different camps (demographics of children).
Throughout the camp, we have the theme of setting goals higher than what other people "say" you are capable of. We believe that children have more potential than they, their family, or teachers initially see. This talent may be latent within a child and never uncovered--but through inspiration, hard work, role models and creativity we feel any child can become someone fantastic.
Frequently there is a struggle between the environment (and circumstances) a child grows up in and their latent potential. The environment is a very powerful force, which we recognize cannot be changed over our 28 days in India. However, we do hope to share the results of this with the children and caregivers--in hopes to inspire some to strive for a better environment to grow up in. Also it will be instructive to Americans in recognizing our great opportunities we have been lucky to have, as well as urge us to have a greater social conscious.
1) Putting on 3-5 art camps for children to learn about their perception of the world and themselves.
2) Meeting lots of people and learning about India, it's challenges, strengths and lessons we can take back to America.
In both halves of the project, we will be videotaping our journey in order to document what we learn and share it back in America.
The first child art camp starts today. We'll be working with 7-12 children from 8-14 years old teaching printmaking, creating marionettes and making self portraits. Jillian and I are interested in the perception of children on themselves, their family, India and America. When we have this art camp at several locations in Chennai and Bangalore, we will observe how the art is different from different socio-economic, cultural, or educational groups of children.
One strategy we are using to understand children's perceptions is self portraits. Upon the first 15 minutes of the start of our multi day art camp, children will be given a standardized set of crayons and paper and asked through an identical script to "create a self portrait of (1) themselves with their family, and (2) what they hope to become when they grow up, according to their greatest dream." This will be repeated on the last day as well and we will compare perceptions from begining to end of the camp, as well as accross different camps (demographics of children).
Throughout the camp, we have the theme of setting goals higher than what other people "say" you are capable of. We believe that children have more potential than they, their family, or teachers initially see. This talent may be latent within a child and never uncovered--but through inspiration, hard work, role models and creativity we feel any child can become someone fantastic.
Frequently there is a struggle between the environment (and circumstances) a child grows up in and their latent potential. The environment is a very powerful force, which we recognize cannot be changed over our 28 days in India. However, we do hope to share the results of this with the children and caregivers--in hopes to inspire some to strive for a better environment to grow up in. Also it will be instructive to Americans in recognizing our great opportunities we have been lucky to have, as well as urge us to have a greater social conscious.
