Curriculum That Empowers Students with Self-Knowledge & Mindfulness
Author Rachel Albert explains in her article, ‘Being both: An integrated model of art therapy and alternative art education’ (2010) how she combines her two professions of art teaching and art therapy in a seamless way in her curriculum. Her curriculum teaches students how to work with artistic mediums while incorporating unit plan themes that are therapeutic. Some of these themes include improving self-esteem & self-image, self-advocacy, creative thinking, reconnecting to cultural heritage, communicating personal stories and identity, exploring the subconscious through dreams & memory, and validating life experiences. In my teaching practice and during my Practicum the art projects in my units focus on the exploration of identity, self-empowerment, and personal transformation. I believe that self-knowledge is the path to understanding one’s self-worth, self-confidence, to understanding others, understanding the world, and understanding one’s purpose in life. During my Practicum I found that these understandings helped to create a more positive and strengths-based outlook that supported students to feel more inspired and secure within themselves.
Author Michelle Kohler examines in her article, ‘Creating space: Mindfulness and art making’ (2011) how mindfulness practices can enhance the art-making process. Kohler explores how mindfulness practices can help to overcome student’s psychological blocks to creativity such as fear. Kohler explains that mindfulness practices can have a positive effect on creativity, risk-taking, and self-awareness. I agree with the author that fear, ego, perfectionism, negativity, and limiting beliefs all hinder creative expression. Creative problem solving and mindfulness activities help to create a sense of flow and relaxation so that we can be in the moment and express ourselves more freely. I am intrigued by how mindfulness practices that use movement, breath-work, and guided meditation/visualization can help to relieve the stress and trauma of high school students. In my practicum school a great deal of the students suffered from various degrees of trauma, poverty, and special needs. I found that my students responded well to the mindfulness activities, such as guided visualization. My hope is that mindfulness practices will help to alleviate student suffering and allow them to then open up emotionally and creatively. I believe that these mindfulness activities will help to provide a sense of safety, comfort, and relaxation to the high school students. Relaxation can help an art project to flow and become a more joyful experience.
In the study ‘The impact of an expressive arts group therapy process on anxiety and self-esteem for highly sensitive adolescents’, (2012) the author Strader-Garcia, S. investigates how an arts therapy program helped to decrease anxiety and improve self-esteem in highly sensitive adolescents. Rather than continue the tradition of competitive thought, expressive arts therapy encourages co-operation and enjoyment of the creative process. Art instruction with a focus on art therapy improves the student’s self-understanding, self-compassion, and their connection to the art modality. Like the author, I am also a highly sensitive person or HSP, and I have had many private art students that are HSPs. I have seen how taking a therapeutic and gentle approach to creating art has had a positive effect on my students in their confidence and ability to perform artistically. Expressive arts therapy has been shown to help with relaxation, immune system function, healing, growth, learning, and personal transformation. (p.47)
I did find that my art therapy focused unit themes, such as my ‘Safe Place’ palette knife painting unit, worked well to help my grade 10 students to relax and open up. This unit plan theme reflected the safe and supportive learning environment that I aimed to create, using nurturing, respect, self-exploration, and positive reinforcement. My unit plans are focused on the topics of personal identity transformation, and they include activities such as class brainstorms, discussions, and individual work. When students are encouraged to interact in a community by sharing ideas, they learn more from each other and they find out also what their own opinions are. My hope is that the soul-searching that happens in the class group and in individual student work will help students to find out who they are and feel empowered by their strengths as a person. Listening to students helps them to feel valued, respected, and heard, which allows them to be more open to learning, to sharing, and to growing.