I've had a lovely two week break from college for Easter, which has been fortunate for me because it's given me some time to begin preparing for my new job as Art Tutor online. I've been working on the ten week course idea I had about 'Easy Art from around the World.' I had hoped to complete the preparation for all ten lessons during this period. However, I quickly discovered it was more realistic to prepare five lessons now, and the other five during the next college break.
My first five lesson, involve art inspired by the Russian, Australian, Indian, Irish and Japanese Cultures. The idea being that students will be able to 'travel the world' in their art and that this would be theraputic given the current lockdown situation. The picture above is an example of a design inspired by aboriginal art, painted in coffee! It has been one of my favourites and was fun to paint. I have it planned as lesson two of the course. The video below gives a demonstration which the students will be able to watch (and access again) on YouTube.
I began by painting and drawing all the artworks myself, to check how long they took me and that they are actually easy! Some were easier than others and one was too difficult so has been replaced. Now all the lessons are suitable for beginners, and each one introduces new skills and concepts, inspired by different countries and cultures.
In lesson four, we explore Celtic artwork and the students will complete two exercises. The first uses a grid as a guide, the second (triquetra) is drawn freehand. I thought these would form an excellent introduction to drawing and shading skills.
It has been interesting thinking of aims and objectives for each lesson. I am now considering how to weave elements of British Values and Equality and Diversity into the course too (as required by the provider). I have also done some training in these areas during this break and the last piece of paper I need to begin teaching is my DBS check certificate.
The picture above is an example of how much paperwork I would normally prepare for a two and a half hours lesson - and even though I've taught in colleges before I had forgotten just how much paperwork teachers have in formal education settings. There has been a LOT of paperwork to prepare for these classes, and each week there will be further documentation needed. It has been very time consuming, and I can see that even though I will have already done two weeks preparation for the first five classes I will need to set aside another full day each week, in order for me to keep on top of the paperwork. There are also staff meetings to attend throughout the year and a further training session to be done, before I go 'live' on 30th. I'm glad about the further training but I can't help wondering how full time teachers cope with such a big workload? They certainly have my sympathy!
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