On Keeping an Eye on the Forest....

Through my experiences in the art world, I have learned many details and facts that I would love to share with my students. Their interests and goals for the class, however, are different than mine. While a few of them may be interested in the tiny details that I love to share, most of them are there to learn general art concepts or fulfill a credit.

While that doesn't mean that I water down their education, it does mean is that I must pull the bigger picture ideas away from the little details so as not to overload the students and push them away from the topic. As Ormrod says on page 158, "People are more likely to learn general ideas than learn words verbatim". I think when we focus on teaching students concepts rather than get lost in the little details, they are able to find more success in an enjoyable manner. Once they become interested in the topic, we can then focus more on the little details. 

The first year that I taught digital photography, for example, I had twenty point and shoot digital cameras to work with. Point and shoot cameras automatically expose for any given lighting condition. The only control that you have is over the composition- and if a point and shoot camera has different modes- such as sports mode- you may change those as an adjustment to the shutter speed. With manual cameras, you can change the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to create different aesthetic outcomes in your photograph. 

Although many would consider teaching about exposure an essential facet of basic photography, I felt that students would not understand this concept if I taught about it without having the ability to manipulate the cameras and perform these functions. 

I learned this the hard way- taking one class and trying to teach them about aperture and shutter speed without having the cameras that could do this. I had them memorizing f/stops and shutter speeds and it just wasn't working out. For what were they trying to commit this information to memory if they didn't have the cameras that could do this? It was a disaster, and the grades and attitudes in the class reflected this. 

Ormrod says on page 190, "It's important to help students sort through essential and non essential information so that they don't lose sight of the forest because of the trees." While I believe it's important to teach students the skill of deciphering what information is important for students to learn, I believe that teachers must put this into practice as well. When I finally realized what was going on and steered the class curriculum more toward concepts of creative thinking, visual culture, elements of art, and composition, the students found much  more success and students were becoming more and more eager to sign up for the advanced photography class (where I finally was able to secure manually controlled cameras!)