Welcome to Art Room 161

This blog was created as an extension of the dialogue that began in our classroom and the purpose is to share creative ideas, images, and critiscm. All posts should be appropriate for the high school classroom and critiscm should be helpful and positive.

Friday, March 14, 2014

2014 Japanese Student Visitors



Next week we will be welcoming two visiting students from Tokyo, Japan for a two week stay through the Japan Society in NY who's Going Global project some of us worked on last semester.  The students will be staying with Gabby and Allison from my AP Art class and they we be participating in a talk that I am putting together with my classes for next week. 

This visit is a great experience for all of us to learn a bit about a new culture and teach them about ours.  The video above is from a terrific TED talk Derek Sivers gave that gives some perspective of how the different cultures view things and opens you mind to how we might view things differently.  I encourage you help welcome the girls next week, to be open to the experience, and most importantly to try not to judge things that you think might be weird, they are just different.

To give you a sense of how different school is in Japan, below is a photo of me and a class of Japanese students from the Nagoya area of Japan in the Aichi district.  The school had some elements like dress codes, student cleaning periods, student led field trips, and grade charts posted on the walls that were different but when class began the learning and students were very similar.

 
 
We'll be doing an art project I designed while in Japan next week based on the Tanabata Festival where you will interpret the myth visualy and use the color palette from Japanese woodblock prints.

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