Category: Reflections

After seeing a Facebook post, I made sure that I attended a Virtual Townhall Meeting on Anti-Racism with Minister Anne Kang, Parliamentary Secretary Ravi Kahlon, and Multicultural Advisory Council members Patricia Barkaskas and Dr. Ismaël Traoré. I found Dr. Traoré’s words to be particularly powerful and well-articulated.

Do the Anti-Racist Work

Dr. Traoré referenced a great analogy on racism. Everyone’s on this conveyor belt. A passive racist is a non-racist, just standing on the belt. However, an anti-racist is walking faster than the speed of the conveyor belt, in the other direction, and it’s exhausting because the anti-racist is exerting a lot of force against the flow. Dr. Traoré encourages us to do the anti-racist work.

Black History in BC’s School Curriculum

The public was invited to submit questions prior to the townhall. One of the questions that stood out to me was: “When will we introduce Black history in the BC curriculum?” Kahlon responded by saying, “Not soon enough.” Dr. Traoréfollowed by explaining that the Board of Education in Richmond voted to advocate to Rob Fleming, BC’s Minister of Education, for Black history instruction to be mandatory in schools and to create a working group to develop strategies across the district. Dr. Traoré also encouraged a push to include SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) instruction across BC schools.

Another question that was asked was: “How do we get more indigenous and black teachers in the districts?” Dr. Traoréwas quick to answer by saying: “You hire them.” He stressed that Black and Indigenous teacher candidates are applying, but that the government and society need to help them get there. He also said Black and Indigenous students need to have the same opportunities.

Defunding the Police

The panel was also asked about their position on defunding the police. All panelists agreed that it was necessary. Dr. Traoré mentioned that a police-person only needs 30-credits of post-secondary education to enter the force. He demanded that they need more. In addition, he suggested that the divested funds should go towards existing community-based organizations, education, or free public transit. He posed a powerful question: “What kind of society do we want for the future?”

BC’s Steps Towards Anti-Racism

Kang mentioned a provincial resilience program. I found some news releases and information about the program’s aims, but I could not find an official site.

I wanted to share my assignment that I completed for my Literacy Practices and Assessment course. The assingment was:

“Using an academic text of your choosing, you will create a genre translation of the text. In other words, you will translate/transform your text into a different genre or modality, one that is unconventional to your subject area. For example, you might write a poem about polynomials; create a recipe for writing a short story; record a rap song about mitosis; enact a dramatic monologue about algebra; perform yoga asanas to show how to make a bentwood box… the possibilities are endless!”

Chosen Texts:

10 influential people of color throughout art history

20 female artists pushing sculpture forward

Note: I am in the Art cohort and chose to use new texts that would inspire me to create my cross-genre activity. These playlists are a musical translation of the text. Typically, I would use the texts to supplement a PowerPoint presentation showing the “Artist of the Day” to my class. Translating art history to music reflects a certain time period, inspires creative play and echoes the artist’s voice and style. I created a “fake” Artist profile with Photoshop and used Bannersnack to design accompanying album covers. I provided links to Youtube Videos instead of Spotify so all non-Spotify users have access.

Introducing…

Mode – Curated playlists for Creatives

Celebrate Visual Artists through music. You Choose the Artist. You Press Play.

Cover art adapted from Basquiat’s Sabado por la Noche (Saturday Night), 1984.

Playlist:

Kaytranada – Gray Area (ft. Mick Jenkins) – Kaytranada

Charlie Parker – Lover man (Remix)

Miles Davis – So What (Rabon Remix)

Gray (A band Basquiat was a member of) – Sweetness of The New (Free The Robots Remix)

Travis Scott –  Coffee Bean

Cover art adapted from Sher-Gil’s The Little Girl in Blue, 1934.

Playlist:

Jai Wolf – Like It’s Over (Howle Remix)

The F16s – Boudoir

Richard Spaven – Faded (Sandunes Remix ft. Jordan Rakei)

Sepalcure – Fight For Us (ft. Rochelle Jordan)

Peter Cat Recording Co. – Where the Money Flows

Cover art adapted from Yaghmai’s Slide Samples (Lures, Myths), 2018.

Playlist:

Mac DeMarco – Chamber Of Reflection

Kamyar Ring – Break the Distance

BICEP – Glue

Nima Aghiani – Attract Repulse

Beach House – Space Song (Slowed)

“1. Respect: ourselves and our feelings, anyone being creative with us today, our tools, and especailly the land that we are on
2. Nothing is for keeps – share any photos with us if you’d like, but everything goes back in the recycling afterwards and gets cleaned up!
3. No expectations! Try something new!”

-ArtStarts Gallery Coordinator and Preparator Kay Slater, illustrator

At the end of year, students are eligible for subject awards.

I remember when I was in high school it wasn’t a surprise as to who received them. Awards may have amplified the stereotypes and labels teenagers grow attached to and use as a self-identifier.

Who deserves to get one? They are usually based on academic standing. What do awards do for students? When I’ve received any sort of recognition, I would feel a swell of pride but also wonder, why me? I never thought to ask, I thought the title of the award said it all, a four word sentence that was supposed to embody the diligence and commitment to… a high school law course…

Awards tell us that hey, YOU! You’re good at this thing. Maybe you should continue pursuing this thing.

What if Awards were given for growth? But the title didn’t say “Most improved.” The title of the award  is so important, just as are pronouns and names. The title should describe them as a person. Maybe a trait or a skill. Art Awards can be broken down into different subcategories. I was searching the internet, trying to find appropriate titles. I found a website that cleverly linked the award to an artist’s name and came up with interesting ways to present awards (my favourite was reusing old brushes and decorating them so they become trophy-like.)

If teachers consistently award students who show excellency in academic performance, do those students feel any different? What kind of example does that set for the rest of the students: If I can’t ever reach that level of “academic performance” why bother trying?

Some students just do. They aren’t performing for anybody. Don’t forget those students. Don’t forget the students who contribute in class and practice kindness and respect to others. Don’t forget the students who don’t quite nail the assignments and continue to try. Are educators awarding students who consistently have the privilege to maintain academic standing, who have not faced an intense loss or experienced failure?

What does it take to be deserving?

I am so excited to share my students’ work. My school advisor and librarian have made this possible. It has been posted to the North Vancouver School District website.

 

I decided to dig into online resources and galleries. The wonderful problem with the internet is that it sucks you into a black hole! I tried to find reliable, local content that I can apply to my teaching practice.

Art at Home: Advice to Parents

I often forget about parents taking on teacher roles during distance learning. Here are some tips provided by this site that I condensed:

Materials: you don’t need fancy materials. You can draw on the back of envelopes and food packages.

Create space: Try to not hover, hang back and give your child mental space. Let them go down their own paths.

Feedback: Don’t quickly judge what they’ve made; “Who doesn’t remember someone telling them they can’t sing or can’t draw, and then that person never revisiting that activity as an adult.” Ask them to tell you about it, or try the activity yourself and have a conversation about it.

Quick Drawing Prompts

Mindfulness Prompt Cards 

Download these simple prompt cards to help you make mindful drawings. Suitable for all ages.

A Canadian site that puts together online art resources:

https://cultureonline.ca

Vancouver Art Gallery

Walk through the Vancouver Art Gallery using “Street View.”

Current exhibition: Douglas Coupland

Pros:

-Free access

-Quick shortcuts to important works in the thumbnails (with title and artist name)

Cons:

-Could take a long time for images to download

-The ‘experience’ of the artwork is different (a good inquiry question for students)

-Reflection on glass-frames (hard to see actual artwork)

-Can’t go super up-close to the work

Ideas: Students can choose a virtual gallery to explore and answer questions reflecting on art history.

Capture Photo Fest

To gather future inspiration for photography classes and keep up with the Capture Festival which Argyle students are involved in (Incubator and Chesterfields), I decided to check out the site and explore their current programming.

Social Distancing Portraits

-Adad Hannah

-long lens, distance of 5 meters

-shot in the streets of Burnaby

-20 second long videos/images

-“the portraits serve as a powerful reminder of the ability art has to connect across physical distance.”

Wanderings

-Anna Binta Diallo

-Access Gallery

-Installation of photo collages

-Reinterpretation of folk stories

-Extending the possibilities of photography (set-design, prop making in photography)

WestCAST 2020 is a conference that brings together educators, students and administrators from BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba to share their experiences and knowledge in the teaching field. I submitted my proposal, derived from my Inquiry question I explored in one of my courses. I didn’t think it was going to be accepted, and I didn’t think that as a teacher candidate, I would have something to valuable to share because of my inexperience.

It doesn’t hurt to try. So on a whim, I submitted a brief of a workshop I wanted to lead and called it ” “Utilizing Discomfort in the Classroom Through an Interdisciplinary Lens (Social Studies, English, and Art).” I wasn’t sure if I could do it on my own, so I reached out to an amazing friend who had a similar topic of inquiry on chaos, boredom and play. I was so thankful she was just as excited to jump on board. She has fantastic energy, sincerity and intelligence as a teacher and a friend.

When the schedule released, we had the 8:30 am time slot. GREAT. We though no one was going to come! Who gets up early on the last day of the conference for a workshop? Well a group came through, and suddenly I felt pretty nervous. Uncomfortable you could say, haha. We started the session by introducing ourselves by name accompanied by a wild gesture. With a bit of silliness and giggling, it broke the ice.

Two activities that our workshop was based on was Redacted Poetry (also known as black-out or erasure) and Sense Poems (adapted from Johnny Macrae from Vancouver Poetry House). No poem was the same. Readings elicited serious head-nods, laughter, and of course, *snaps*. I was blown away with the pieces strangers came together to create and share.

For one participant’s poem, she described a topic of personal discomfort through our Sense Poem activity (using the 5 senses). At the end we had a guess…And had no idea her gruesome and detailed lines were about wearing high-heeled shoes.

I really liked speaking in a small-group setting, and having participants from a variety of places and contexts. Shea and finished the workshop feeling fantastic.

WestCAST ended their conference with an incredible speaker, probably the best I’ve heard because of the power and relevance of his words. Chris Scribe shared personal stories and indigenous knowledge with a room full of strangers. I feel not just motivated but it being my responsibility to educate myself on Indigenous culture. He had a great analogy for why Indigenous knowledge needs to be taught in schools. For example, I am Chinese Canadian but I feel out of touch with my Chinese background. Where would I go to learn more about my culture? Probably China, where I can learn about traditional practices, beliefs, and even modern culture. In Canada, it is not the same. We’ve buried and tried to erase Indigenous culture with unsettling stories of colonialism that still remain in students’ textbooks today.

That’s just a fragment of the knowledge that I left with that day. I felt heavy, on the verge of tears, and lost in thought after Scribe’s speech. I wish everyone could’ve heard it.

My SA and I went to a George Littlechild collage workshop at the Gordon Smith Gallery. I have never been to the gallery before, and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of environment and place-based photographic work up in the gallery. I took note of Aimee Henny Brown, who made these structural collages from nature and architect magazines. I thought it would be a good idea for the prompt of Utopia/Dystopia for my students when brainstorming ideas for the Chesterfields contest at the Polygon.

Back to the George Littlechild workshop:

I learned how do make a trace-mono-type which was super fun. I’ve been wary of printmaking because teachers say it’s messy, and I am unsure of how students can take turns and keep the work flow going. Seeing it happen amongst teachers showed me that other people can work on collages while others can try out the printmaking process.

I like how the facilitator, Amelia, directly mentions a first people principle (learning requires exploration of one’s identity) when beginning the workshop. I would like to make more direct references to the principles in my lesson. She connected Littelchild’s loss-and-finding of Cree identity to me. I’ve always thought it would be hard to relate to Indigenous learning and culture, but it was much easier to understand his use of symbolism and archived photographs as being a part of re-finding of his cultural roots. For me, this would connect to my Chinese heritage, which I feel very little connection to. The book Amelia showed us, “We are All Related” provides great examples of collages students made in the 90s based off Littlechild’s work.

Polygon Gallery

I went to the Polygon and wrote down notes on artists that made an impact on me:

Elizabeth Zvonar

-“Photography Is Hard” is a cheeky title that she named one of her pieces, which play with psychology, history, and technology in a vinyl wall collage/photograph
-this would be a funny theme for students to expand on
-Personal archive/Index. What if students made a collage of a bunch of items and numbered them, with titles? What does it say about commodity, and identity through symbols and objects?

Xan Shian

-Lind Prize contestant
-Water+Space, multimedia installation and photography
-the content of the photo relates to how she destroys the photograph (soaks it in salt water, so that the viewer can see the crystals on the photograph!)

Rebecca Bair

-“Reach and Coil”
-identity without depicting the body
-bodies are tied to assumptions, expectations around race and gender

I don’t think that the Polygon is too tiny and or privileging high-art (not community based). I felt proud to see two of my classmates’ work at the Lind Prize exhibit (Rydel and Lacie, not pictured), and Elizabeth is also an Emily Carr graduate. I think the photos require space, and a special setting to really live.