What Does "Spaces for Possibility" invite you to do?

What does “spaces for possibility” invite you to do?

Here are some more responses from the questionnaire we collected at our first meeting on October 9th. Your thoughts are exciting and refreshing... here's to connections and exploration!

• Change, experiment, explore, performance and video as art
• More thoughtful choices w/ my curriculum
• Challenge my teaching practice and continually grow
• I am ready to take apart my entire curriculum. It’s been changing dramatically in response to my existential question. What do my kids REALLY need to get from art.
• Break free from my old ways of teaching. To be challenged. To try new stuff (that challenges me)
• Grow and let go.
• Break out of the 8”x10” artwork at the table. Get students to think about mark making and intentionality.
• To share with others and blog experiences, thoughts and ideas. To try new ideas and let go of others.
• Have time (carve out) to meet w/ educators and not talk about stodgy, foggy, bureaucratic stuff.
• Plan, develop, organize, collaborate, redefine what I am doing as an art educator. Plan curriculum that actually matters to my students and me.
• Explore 

• Engage other art teachers in Chicago in professional development and personal growth.
• Converse, share and collaborate. Reinvent/reimagine my classroom space. Create new spaces for my students and myself.
• Rethink my curriculum, as questions, investigate different ways to approach the elementary school “arts standards.” Develop ways to make lessons more connected to my students personal experience… community… concerns.
• To take ideas/lessons/projects apart and put it together again. What else can be added?
• Anything, everything. Have students and my self create deeper meaning in their art.
• I think being extremely “open minded” to the possibility of ART. Don’t be afraid to try something different.
• Explore in a safe place w/ support.
• Explore more ideas
• Collaborate. Communicate. Support. Fail (try) – grow/change.
• Opening ourselves up to new ways of thinking about our curricula and teaching approaches.
• Connections. Inter connections. Cross-sections. Play. Experiment. Transform. Build-Expand.

What Brings You to this Learning Community?

What brings you to this learning community? What do you hope to get from it?

Here are the responses from the questionnaire we handed out at our first workshop with the Spaces for Possibility learning community. We're excited for a great year working with this fantastic group of teacher!

• Continuing the greatness!
• Chrissy. Ways to integrate better w/ elementary classroom. I’m currently co-teaching w/ 4^th grade team.
• Community, conversation, to collaborate w/ other art teachers.
• The teachers who have been a part of our group. New blood, new ideas. Olivia!
• To learn more about this pedagogy. To be around other passionate art educators. To become a better art educator.
• The great ideas shared. I hope to grow in curriculum development.
• 20+ years experience. 3 years with project. Revamp my art curriculum.
• To share with others, to be inspired by others in the community. I hope to get new ideas and find the support of like minded people.
• I feel inspired to make meaningful curriculum and to be inspired by other art teachers (as I was the past 3 years). I would like to walk away w/ new ideas and being nudged to expand what I do as an art educator.
• Need for collaborative brain stimulation. Help organizing a very not good just-getting-by curriculum.
• A broader idea relating to curriculum development and a deeper, more inclusive, and diverse curriculum.

• I want to connect with other art teachers and practices. Ideas, experiences, conversations, and opportunities.
• Collaboration, conversation, community. I’m looking to push my practice – I don’t wanna get stale.
• Interest in growing my practice… having meaningful conversations with other art educators.
• It was recommended by my co-worker. I hope to stay innovated and critical the entire school year. Keep the creative juice flowing.
• New ideas. Fresh thinking. Collaboration.
• I have been in this program for 3 years, and I really don’t want to quit the group, because I enjoy working with artists. I really learn wonderful fresh IDEAS.
• Share and learn, Olivia, mastering my mapping
• Well, I just founded a Visual Art program… It was non-existent before. I have LOVED growing it from the ground up. We have grown so fast and I need to connect and learn from the wealth of knowledge in this group. I hope to be challenged by teachers and all their years.
• My quest for knowledge, ideas, inspiration.
• Create curriculum that is broader in that my students are able to express themselves. Less “cookie cutter” art. But… incorporate skills and aesthetic at the same time?
• I have been involved in this project for 3 years. This community has provided a “spark” I’ve needed for some time. We are often isolated at the grammar school level, without peers to bounce and share ideas. I’m excited to experience new ways of teaching and how to tackle core standards in unison w/ others.
• Support, resources, research based info. Olivia Gude is a great opportunity. Networking, keeping me and my work fresh. I hope to have some research/intellectual capital to promote (something) art experiences (something my ADD LOVES), but my partner art teacher does not practice and he has AP scores to back up this total focus on drawing.