Emily Longworth Award

With Merve Ozkan, a fellow TELL-3C Teacher Candidate, I received an Emily Longworth Award that gave us a grant that allowed us to conduct a field trip to a pottery studio in Surrey during our practicum. Below, you will find our original proposal. You can download our final report for the proposal, which discusses what kind of objectives and goals we were able to achieve through the unit.

Emily Longworth Memorial Award Proposal

We are proposing a pottery field-trip in the lower mainland, at Totally Ceramics, located at Unit 119-18525 53rd Avenue, Surrey B.C. V3S 7A4.

The objective of this field-trip is to activate all five senses and be creative in the process. Moreover, this is a cultural project. We are proposing to take 22 Grade 1 students and 21 Grade 3 students ranging from ages 6 to 8 to take part in a morning pottery workshop. The expected date that this workshop will take place on Friday April 29th 2016, at Totally Ceramics in Cloverdale, B.C. We have attached the budget expectations for the pottery project, and according to www.vancouverschoolbus.com the bus ride will cost about $351 (at $78/hour and for a 4.5 hour field trip).

This project connects to the prescribed learning outcomes for art for K-3 in many ways. We look at the myriad purposes for pottery and the students develop strategies of magnification and exploring art beyond the surface. They are able to think about pottery both abstractly and specifically. All of the exploration will look at colours, lines, textures, and shapes. Children will learn basic hand building techniques. Students will learn how to wedge the clay and will learn coil making. Students will also experience how to glaze and learn about the process of firing. They will be guided by an instructor after the teacher has shown the students how to construct and decorate their piece. Then the students will go ahead and make their own unique pieces, which will touch on the learning outcome of creating art for a variety of purposes. We are hoping to teach this as part of a bigger unit over the course of a week or two.

The students will be engaging with the art of pottery prior to the field trip through discussions and inquiry about the nature of the project. Some examples of what the students will be doing is exploring the history and culture behind African pinch pots, and they will study different artists, such as Maria Martinez. We will also be looking at different types of pottery from around from the world, from places such as Nigeria, and Ghana. They will learn about different functions pottery plays in different cultures.

The learning outcomes for this project will include:

  • Learning pottery skills
  • Collaborating in a positive environment
  • Using their imagination and creativity to create something with their hands
  • The procedure of of making pottery is emphasized
  • Building self confidence
  • Excitement and fun and building on their own knowledge about art
  • Exploring a variety of pottery techniques

Our catchphrase and objective will be to Inspire, Inquire, and Imagine.

This project is important to us because pottery has been connected to our lives, personally. It brings people together and it is an art form accessible to everyone that allows self-expression and freedom to create and have fun. It can allow children to connect with themselves in a way that is frequently limited in the classroom. For some students, it can be a creative outlet.

It is also a form of art that has great cultural significance behind it that is often overlooked. The children are able to engage in place-based learning in that they learn where pottery comes from—does it come from factories? The earth beneath us? They learn about the origins of the materials as well as the art itself, and moreover, they are able to connect the art to the place they come from. This is because pottery accepts all cultural backgrounds in that children are free to explore and inscribe their own histories on their pottery.

Our practicum school, Dr. H. N. Maccorkindale, really emphasizes community and togetherness, and we are hoping that this project will bring our students together. We (Merve and Navneet) are hoping to teach and inform our students together, and moreover, we really want the students to feel like we are a family at the end of this project. Afterwards, we hope to be able to create a bigger community pottery project, where every student in the school gets a tile that they can personalize, and we would create a mosaic that would represent the sense of community we aspire for at the school.

Thank you for this great opportunity!

Sincerely,

Navneet Hans and Merve Ozkan (B. Ed. Teacher Candidates)