It’s been a whirlwind, but here at NOCCS we are wrapping up the year and with it our Shelter project. The element we really got to sink our teeth into was the panoramic drawing and subsequent discussions and data analysis of our CONTEXT. Students brought up several interesting points throughout the process of making these drawings, such as “what if you think something is essential and I don’t?” or “what makes something privileged?”. The exercise of really examining our surroundings brought each student (and myself too!) to a deeper awareness of what we have. This led to discussions of what that means – should we feel badly that we have so much when others have little, or should we just feel lucky? What course of action is necessary following this kind of realization?
The final piece of this project is for each student to interact with this blog, the catalogue and living document of the thoughts and actions of so many others around this notion of shelter. NOCCS students and parents if you are reading this, please consider the assignment an open invitation to share your thoughts and reactions, ideas for courses of action, and responses to what has already been written/shown.
amze
arielleira
arzumistry
branchandbee
lindahughesperalta
lindarhlathrop
mistershawn
tnoval
toddelkin
The Shelter Project 2011 
Hello everyone!
I am very excited to be taking part in this project, and about bringing in a younger-student perspective. Because our visual art time is limited, the activities we will be doing are smaller in scale, but I think they will be effective in starting this conversation about privilege and what it really means to have the things we need to live. Here is a rough sketch of the Shelter plan at NOCCS:
1) Hopefully we will get started on Tues the 24th, although if our current projects run over we will have to make it the following Tues the 31st. On this first day we will do a panoramic drawing activity where the students do a continuous mapping of their classroom by attaching several studies (made while facing 4 sides of the room) together. Then the students will color code what they see in the room according to the following categories: Essential, Privileged, Something you never noticed. This activity will be a scaffold for a structured conversation (most likely in groups then share-out to the class) about our CONTEXT, what that means, what do we have, how we interact with multiple contexts, how does that affect our view of other contexts, etc etc.
2) The previous activities may last 2 lessons, but in case we do them in one, the following lesson will involve creating a venn diagram with three circles (one for HAVE, one for WANT, one for NEED) – see where things overlap with each other and if anything falls into all 3 categories. If we do not have time for the venn diagram, lesson two will be to create a concept map (something they have practiced already) on the idea of SHELTER. With this map they will:
1) Generate ideas about what falls under the umbrella of ‘Shelter’
2) Sort these ideas into overarching categories (synthesize!)
3) Connect ideas/items to each other and articulate the reasoning behind these connections
4) Extend; look at the entire map and pull out big ideas, conclusions, themes, and questions.
3) Finally, I plan to have each student (as homework? In class? Not sure yet) access the Shelter blog and make a comment on the emerging work. I need advice as to how to structure this, give a shout out if you can think of a way to maximize the meaningfulness/efficacy of this step. Of course at this point we would reflect as a class on the entire process, and if there is time each student will create an artwork in response to a question or Big Idea that came up for them.
Ginny: Great to see you here!
It would be awesome if you and Linda could hook up and share some ideas.
I think that the shelter project is really cool because it really makes people think about there surroundings and how lucky they are compared to other people.
I think this project is a great way for us to acknowledge how lucky we are. We really should be more grateful of what we have in lives compared to others. Doing this project is going to make me think more before I start talking about little I supposedly have. I wish we had had more time to expand on this idea, but it was still interesting.
the project was not my favorite. i think if it had a little more structure and planning and more time it would have been a much more enjoyable project for me
I think this project opened up a lot of people’s eyes as to how one can tell from the structure of a room about the people that pass in and out, the kinds of activities that take place, and location of the building. It is really important to make other observations in a similar way as we did in class, but of other places much different than NOCCS, then relate and connect back to what we observed at our school. That is one thing I think we should have done in this project, maybe if we had more time.
Yes Devan!
The fact that you are making that connection is great. It’s too bad we kind of ran out of time, because it seems that you, your class and Ms Tremblay are having important and deep insights. We can DEFINITELY keep the converdsation going on the blog though!
These are wonderful and insightful comments everyone, and I am deeply grateful for your feedback. I hope you will continue to engage with your learning in this way!!
The shelter project seems very helpful because it makes you think about how much you have in life and how little some others might have