Residency 1, Week 1. 4.75 hours. Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN.
It’s the best feeling, beginning to build on what Lynda’s taught me in a space that I truly love. My first day (and only day this week) I helped two teaching artists set up for a two-class event that is part of MCBA’s youth program. One of the classes was creating a font sampler poster, pressure-printed on a Vandercook press; and the other was constructing a bridge petal-fold book with rainbow pages.
The visiting students were a mixed group of K-5 children. The group (45+ students) divided into two sections, and one started with the printing lesson and the other with the book arts lesson. They swapped halfway through the day. Each teaching artist taught their lesson twice, once to each section, back-to-back. I assisted with the book arts lesson both times. In the book arts lesson, the kids were given a demo on how to fold colorful text-weight paper, origami style, into pages which were then glued together with simple cardstock covers. The resulting book opened out like an accordion. The books’ movement and visual appeal totally captured the kid’s attention and enthusiasm. The kids got to keep their books after the lessons were complete.
It was such a privilege working with the teaching artists hands-on. The teaching artist I shadowed was so clear and concise with her language and the way she kept the kids focused. They were wild and beautiful architects of chaos and I’m still trying to wrap my head around how she did it—it’s a whole other way of communicating that takes so much skill and patience. Teaching a lesson or a syllabus at any level involves teaching at least four things simultaneously, not just concepts and physical skills but also critical thinking, life skills, and how to interact in a positive way with a group of other people also trying to learn those same things. (Honestly, it’s no different in a college class; just leveled up).
One question that was raised for me has to do with how to engage small children with difficult concepts or skills effectively in a large, mixed-age group that you only get to interact with one time. Some of the younger kids had more difficulty with the origami folds while the older kids finished them quickly and got bored. It wasn’t a huge problem (each child went home with a book in the end) but it’s something I’ll keep thinking about throughout my residency here.