By: Laura Allen
The pandemic has greatly affected the creativity amongst artists at Redwood. Art is an expressive outlet where students at Redwood are able to communicate and connect with others, but during this pandemic the connection and creativity has been difficult.
Mr. Harris the Redwood Art teacher is experiencing a struggling situation with providing students with the normal creativity outlet that there would be in a normal class setting. Harris says, “We will focus on pencil drawings in the 1st quarter and hopefully we will go back to school in the 2nd quarter.”
Harris says, “The district provides us with The Art of Education University, FLEX, so we can access vetted materials that go with State standards.” The Redwood Librarian also provides Scholastic Art Magazines so students can experience wider varieties of art. Harris has his students do tasks such as warm ups and projects to keep his students engaged throughout class time, and to improve their skill and creativity.
With these resources, students taking art have seemed to be doing well. They can get their jobs done and have fun with it. Harris is still holding out hope that students will be able to come back and experience real in person creativity.
However you can’t digitally replicate what goes on in the classroom, you can always try. As seen, there are ways to teach online, it’s only a little different. Not only are the students creative with the work they have done but teachers are creative in how they teach online now.
A big part of art and many other classes is participation and communication. This isn’t as easy online but it’s still able to happen through zoom and putting classmates in break rooms. Break rooms are a virtual way of putting people in groups to discuss a topic based on what the students are doing in class. So with break rooms in art class it makes it easier for students to be open about their art.
Jung Lee, ‘21 is a young aspiring artist, she draws pictures of people and characters, and a lot of her artwork is digital. She likes to post art and doodles online and is very skilled with her art.
“I believe creativity can be activated even when you’re doing online art classes. The problem would be the lack of materials.” -Lee
Regular face to face art class would be a much better experience obviously because there is more interaction and it’s easier to concentrate. Lee says, “I liked the art class in person because I got to talk with my friends and draw with them.” She also says, “I didn’t improve much art but I got to experience different things.” Even though art teaches you things to improve your skills, sometimes people can learn on their own too through practice.
Art can still be accomplished through many resources and using communication. This year Redwood students will shine through their difficulties and create beautiful works of art.
Tags: art, arts and entertainment