Last year I applied for and received a TreatySmarts grant through the Saskatchewan Arts Board. During our project we touched on graffiti and hip hop as we delved into Spoken Word. I was fascinated with the "free wall" behind White Buffalo Youth Lodge and somewhat surprised that a person could paint so beautifully with a spray can. It tested my biases about the quality of artistic work in the graffiti world.
We were able to work with Amanda Murray, hip hop dancer for a brief afternoon. Her robotic moves were so slick and cool that I wished that we could have spent a lot more time learning the art of hip hop.
This year I applied for an Arts Smarts grant, also through the Saskatchewan Arts Board. We were successful in our application and started out the new year working with three artists to explore rap, graffiti, and hip hop. Jordan Shultz is a spoken word artist who works with ordinary household items to create rhythms to go with his pieces. Mike Mirlin is a dance instructor at Georges Vanier School, here in Saskatoon. He will be our hip hop guru. Pavlo Isak is a graffiti mural artist who got his start in grade seven, and just to challenge everyone's assumptions right off the bat, I can tell you that Isak is currently doing his residency at the University Hospital in oncology. That's right, he'll soon be a doctor.
Throughout the project we hope to explore culture, the globalization of culture, how culture is expressed through the arts, and how culture is expressed through the hip hop, graffiti, and rap/spoken word.
Last week was the first week that our students were able to meet the artists and begin work with them. In that short time, we've already explored the music of Stomp, created our own short hip hop dance pieces, and learned a brief history of graffiti.
Dianne Goulet, our grade eight teacher, and I have met numerous times to map out the direction of our project and the various starting points for the three pillars. We decided to start by asking a few essential questions: What is globalization? What is culture and how do I express it? Is graffiti art or vandalism?
We had the students view two videos on globalization. Find the link here and here. Students jotted a few notes during the video and then afterward we mind mapped our knew knowledge. We viewed a powerpoint on graffiti that asked the question is graffiti art or vandalism. Most students decided that it depends on the location, if permission is granted, and on what the subject material is. We had students try to establish a definition of culture and to define their own culture. This was hard for many of the students who were born and raised in Canada - they felt like they had no culture. I suspected this would happen and plan to find ways to get the students to see that they have their own cultural biases and therefore do not realize that their way of life is not the way that all children around the world experience life.
The artists have all been in to work with the kids. Pavlo came in and spoke the the students last week about his start to graffiti and showed them his work. We had a provocative discussion about tagging, aliases, free walls, the underground nature of graffiti, and the reasons why someone tags or graffiti paints. Before his visit, our students participated in the One Word project. We had them come up with one word that described them and explain why that world defined them. At first we thought the world should be a virtue and that creatively spelling it would help to make it more of an interesting alias. This was a difficult task for many kids, I think because many of them have limited vocabularies - they are only 11 to 13 years old. The students then attempted to create a tag from their name. Pavlo instructed them on letter style, proportions, and how to work into 3D. It was a great session. The only down side so far has been that I've had a parent question our judgement in encouraging kids to tag and graffiti. I can see how some might make the assumption that if you learn about something, you are encouraging kids to do it. We are, for the record, not endorsing the tagging of schools, private or public property at all. We are encouraging kids to learn about ideas and issues outside of their own world, to form opinions, develop a moral compass, and to seek to understand before judging. I believe that looking at a bigger picture is where the good learning happens, and it's the exciting part of my job.
Mike came in twice last week and had the kids doing cool robotic moves on the first day, and collaborative pieces on the second day. I walked into the grade 8 session and was blown away by all of the student engagement. I did not see one student hanging back. It was awesome. My class was a bit of another story. I have a few shy kids in my class, as well as a few students who are struggling to get along with each other. My hope would be that I will see the most amount of growth in self esteem and getting along with each other in my room. I had a few kids that just didn't want to participate and in my mind, I debated what to do with them. I think that I will allow them to sit and watch, but from opposite ares of the rooms so that their power is as diffused as possible. Mike will be back today, and I am looking forward to seeing in which direction he will go today.
Jordan has come to work with our students three times now. The first two sessions were mostly about finding beats and drama games to get the kids warmed up and comfortable. In some ways, poetry is where you are the most vulnerable. When you read your poetry to others, the spot light is right on you. It's probably more scary to some than dancing or the graffiti art. I hope that the positive experience that many had with the spoken word project last year helps them to open up and dig in more quickly. I do have to say that creating music with the kids has been fun and rewarding. It wouldn't seem like making a good sound with a plastic jar of dried peas, a pack of markers, and a bottle half full of water would turn out well, but it really did. For the last session, we had kids make poems ahead of time to share and work on with Jordan. They were awful. Almost embarrassing, but it was my fault. I didn't give them enough time and I did no pre-teaching. I did learn that I will have to do some work on poetry writing and descriptive writing before we can dig into the meat of the project. The poetry writing may be one of the harder tasks. I have a large class, and conferencing with each student takes a long time. Somehow Jordan and I will need to break the students into smaller groups so that meeting with them in smaller groups is more manageable.
As I write this blog, I realize just how much we have covered in the last week and a half. There is so much to cover that it seems like we've only scratched the surface.
On Friday, our project team and community supporters will have a planning meeting in the morning, and then all three artists will work with our kids in the afternoon. I think that the kids will be treated to turn tables and rap. There will also be a documentary maker out to document the project for the Arts Board, which is an exciting honor.
So we will continue to explore the foreign world of hip hop, graffiti, and rap. The kids will also be exploring culture and cultural expression in other parts of the world, like the Pacific Rim and Canada. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but it will be good work, and exciting to help develop and watch unfold.
Follow our class on twitter @StAnne6_7Class
I want to thank the Saskatchewan Arts Board for their support as well as to acknowledge their sponsors:
The Saskatchewan Arts Board is governed by The Arts Board Act, 1997, and funded by the Government of Saskatchewan through the Ministry of Parks, Culture and Sport, with additional support from the Saskatchewan Lotteries Trust Fund for Sport, Culture and Recreation as a result of the Arts Board's partnership with SaskCulture Inc.
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