Blindfold Experience

Being blindfolded definitely altered my sense of space. I thought I would be comfortable in a space that I'm familiar with but this was not the case. My house seemed like a different place. Everything seemed so far away and out of place. My sense of direction was completely off. When trying to find things my aim would be too high or too low. To negotiate the space around me I used my arms and legs for guidance. I would feel where things were in relation to other another in order to find what I was looking for. While walking around my house I would carefully move my feet to make sure I wasn't tripping over anything. The most difficult part of moving around my home was confronting the stairs. Going up the stairs wasn't so bad but traveling down was very challenging. My sense of balance was lacking and I felt that I was going to stumble. Needless to say I was relieved when I finally reached the bottom.


Like my sense of space I felt most of my senses were changed. Time went very slowly. After what felt like the first 15 minutes of being blindfolded I asked one of my housemates how much time had passed. He replied with a shocking 6 minutes! The entire experience felt much longer than it actually was. Apart from my sense of time being muffled my sense of touch was very sensitive. Every time I touched a surface it felt intensified. When I would accidentally bump into something with my hand or foot it felt much more abrupt and discomforting then it normally would when I have my vision.

Luckily my housemates were very accommodating with my temporary blindness. At fist they laughed and didn't understand the nature of this assignment but after the first 10 minutes or so they were of great assistance. They helped me with things I wasn't comfortable doing (ex. Pouring creamer in my coffee).

Overall this experience helped my realize how lucky I am to have my sight. A world without vision was very challenging. Little everyday tasks were no longer simple. Even though I was surrounded by my housemates in my own home, I felt alone. I'm sure that with more time I would have somewhat adjusted to being blindfolded but for the one hour it was very difficult. 

Disability Studies in Art Education Spring 2012: Assignment for 1/31-2/3 Post reflections about be...

Disability Studies in Art Education Spring 2012: Assignment for 1/31-2/3

Post reflections about be...: Assignment for 1/31-2/3 Post reflections about being blindfolded for one hour at home and consider the following: How was your sense of ...

Closing

I can't believe this is finally my last blog post. This semester has flown by! I have definitely gained a lot of valuable experience from this class. In my opinion the most influential part of the semester was teaching a lesson to the class and hearing everyone's feedback. I think this should be done more often in classroom's before student's get sent out for student teaching. Thanks for a great semester!


One last thing! Lesson's one, two, and three are completed from the unit. I still have to write the forth one. I'm think of making a sculpture out of recycled objects and turning it into a self-portrait? Here are some images I found by artist's I'm checking out.

Lesson 3 artist

I'm excited because I found an artist who paints on shoes.  Lane is an artist who paints hand custom shoes. Here are some of his shoes.

Unit lesson 3

For the third lesson of my unit plan I think I want to work with shoes as a basis of narration. This would go along with the theme of hybridizing art onto unusual surfaces. Students could paint a memory onto the shoes or possible paint a self-portrait? Either way I like the idea of using shoes because they are something from your past that use to travel almost everywhere with you.

If I do use this idea in my unit plan I think I will combine a reflective writing assignment or possibly an artist statement.

Unit Lesson 2

So I've decided what I what to do for the next lesson in my unit plan. I want to incorporate normal household items into a lesson. I think I might do a mixed media project where students bring in an item from home and incorporate it into a piece of work. This lesson will show students that things can always have multiple functions and art can be made out of anything. This plays along with the idea of "the world is your canvas." I think the two artist I want to use are Robert Rauschenberg and Terry Border. Here is some of the work!

Lesson Reflection

Overall I am mostly satisfied in how the lesson went. Together Michelle and I worked hard and made a lot of preparations prior to the day of our lesson. I think this showed through during the presentation. I agree with all of the suggestions written on our observation forms. I think the most important change would have been to warn students about the thinness of the newspaper. During student’s work time I believe they would have been less frustrated if they had been given warning. During the demonstration Michelle should have spent more time showing students what they could do with the pastels (blending and building colors upon each other). Maybe both of us could have shown the students various techniques. There could have been more improvements during clean up time. You’re right about having students do more rather then the teachers doing the majority of clean up. For next time I will have to come up with a better method of cleaning up. This experience has been very helpful. I understand that the class is limited with time but it would have been more helpful if we could have taught a lesson plan alone rather then in pairs. As time goes on and as I spend more time in classrooms I think I will start feeling more and more comfortable while leading lesson plans.




I meant to include this earlier but here is the peer-evaluation Michelle and I had students fill out after the completion of our lesson at Beacon High School. The answers we received were all positive!

Project/Teacher Evaluation

Michelle Brand and Lauren Hutton

Please honestly answer all of the questions with as much information as possible. It will be really

helpful to know everyone's feedback about our project for future lessons along with student

teaching. Feel free to write on the back for additional comments. Thanks!

1. Overall what are your opinions about the project? What didn't you like about it? What did you

like about it? Did you learn something new?

2. Do you think the way we instructed the class was successful? What worked? What should have

been different?

3. If you had to rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 how well do you think you did on this project?




Please explain your answer.