Busy Hands Equals Busy Minds The Renaissance of Art in the Classroom

Students keep busy at Clive School in rural Alberta.

and study guides cover both basic and advanced art concepts. One of my favourites is a book called ìBridging the Curriculum Through Art: Lessons in Interdisciplinary Connectionsî by Pamela Stephens and Nancy Walkup. It sounds dry, but itís revolutionary. Every subject is linked to art projects. Imagine math concepts in geometry enhanced by Escherís tessellations, or understanding oriental cultures through block printing. Language arts projects require illustrating a scene from a story or creating a visual poem.

Challenge your studentsíobservation skill by asking them to include a botanical illustration for a science project, or create a visual presentation of animal habitats as part of their biology report. Encourage your students to work from real objects, landscapes, and figures as often as possible. Working from nature gets you researching and thinking about your environment. Creating a piece of art requires observation skills to see details and recognize patterns. Da Vinci optimized the combination of art and science during the renaissance era. I also highly recommend the book ìHow to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinciî by Michael J. Gelb.

The other hurdle for teachers is that there is often little or no money set aside for visual arts in schools. There are many ways to economize. Careful paint distribution, and teaching proper colour mixing techniques will greatly reduce your paint budget. Asolid art program is not expensive, but donít be fooled into purchasing the cheapest materials either. Quality products will last longer and provide

Fine Art Materials & Advice

Celebrating 20 years of providing quality art supplies and inspiration for art projects; contact us for our school catalogue and more!

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The Renaissance of Art in the Classroom

better results. Brushes are not disposable, and shouldnít fall apart after one use; there are easy tips for making them last longer. One trick to restore a brush, hardened with tempera or acrylic paint, is to soak it in an ammonia window cleaner for a few minutes before combing out the dried paint. Never discard any artwork; reuse the painted paper for collage or card making. Invest in good watercolour paper for final projects; it is a pleasure to paint on and it will encourage students to spend more time on their artwork. Contact The Paint Spot for more tips for stretching an art budget.

Simple art projects, well displayed, are the best way to increase student pride in accomplishment and impress both parents and school officials to invest more in an art curriculum. Found objects and recycled materials make excellent collages and painted assemblages. Last fall, I saw the most impressive display of painted sculptures at a teachersíconvention. It was a coat hanger attached to a rectangular wooden base, and then bent into a curvy abstract shape. Nylon hosiery was pulled over the wire sculpture, painted with acrylic, and the base was painted black. This simple sculpture became an eloquent study of basic form. The teacher then asked the students to draw their sculpture seen from different views and different light sources.

Need more project ideas? Speedball Art Company provides a website of free lesson plans written by teachers for teachers. Visit www.speedballart.com for projects and lesson plans on block printing and screen printing. Start an art book collection with Betty Edwards. She is the author of two popular books recommended by art teachers called ìDrawing on the Right Side of the Brainî and ìColorî. Keep yourself inspired by attending as many art sessions as possible during professional development days and at teachersíconventions. Search out local art talent and bring artists to your classroom. Some provinces offer artist-in-residency programs to bring in artists to work with students for a specific project or time period.

Creating a school or community mural is a popular art

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3370 Beaver Lake Rd. Winfield, B.C. V4V 1S7 Nancy Corrigan, artist in residence, working with students.

project, and one that would benefit by inviting an artist to mentor students. There are many steps to creating a mural, and it is an excellent opportunity to teach the perseverance needed for complex tasks. The pride of completing a large project, and understanding all the steps it took to get there, is the key for teaching young adults that the reward of a true accomplishment is found in process as well as the outcome. Plus, the school gains a colourful addition to its surroundings. ìAdults and children who start art find freedom in expression. Art lets you experiment. It is risk free! Just express yourself, play and have fun,î says Crayola. I say, donít worry about doing it perfect to start. Donít be intimated. We all started somewhere. The important part is to start. The mind is a wonderful resource; so tap into your imagination. It is like a muscle - the more you use it the stronger it becomes. _______________ Kim Fjordbotten has a BFA in Art and Design and enjoys helping teachers build exciting art programs on limited budgets.She owns and operates an art materials store called The Paint Spot in Edmonton Alberta.Contact info@paintspot for more tips on mural preparation,paint coverage,and varnishing as well as price quotes on the proper paints for indoor and outdoor legacy murals.

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Reducing Custodial Injuries and the Organization of Work

IIn school districts, custodians represent about 10 to 15% of the workforce. However, on even a casual examination of injury or absentee data, it quickly becomes obvious that this group of employees is overrepresented in both areas. One set of data provided by the Workers Compensation Board of BC (WCB) revealed that custodians account for 50% of all injuries and 60% of all compensation costs in school districts.

Considering all types of employment in BC school districts, the average risk of injury is 2.1. This is simply a ratio that indicates the number of injuries among 100 full time employees each year. Another way this ratio can be expressed is in terms how many years a person can expect to work without injury, almost 50 years in school districts. This low rate of injury explains why school districts have the benefit of a

WCB assessment rate that is about 30% of what all industry pays. However, the data also shows that school districts could halve the assessment rate by eliminating custodial injuries. In fact, the assessment rate in community colleges and universities is less than 50% of that paid by school districts. With only a few exceptions, colleges and universities contract out custodial services. Consequently, the cost of injuries is not charged to the institution but to the firm who has won the cleaning contract. However we consider the issue of custodial injuries, it becomes apparent that relative to other occupations in school districts, custodians represent high risk employment. The risk of injury among custodians is about 3 to 4 times higher than other occupations. While eliminating injuries entirely among this group is not feasible, there are changes that can be made that can significantly contribute to a reduction in the number of injuries.

For facilities and operations management, the custodial area demands a lot of time and attention. High injury rates brings with it a need to hire, orient, and place replacement workers, attend to administrative issues surrounding WCB requirements in reporting accidents, investigating accidents, managing the claim, facilitating return to work arrangements, and communicating with schools and staff. Other reasons that demand time be spent in this area are related to structural, organization and, again, regulatory issues.

Custodial work assignments are frequently based on some assumptions of the capacity of a single worker. Each custodian is typically assigned an area. Some areas can be considered more desirable than other areas. When this happens, allocating space to individual custodians can be subject to labour relations and collective agreement considerations.

Work assignments based on area become individual posi-

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tions, and bring with it a sense of ownership limiting communications with other workers. It is not unusual to find that in large schools, several custodians work in the same building but have no contact with each other during their shift.

This style of organization, each worker working on their own, attracts the attention of "the regulators", be they WCB or other government agency inspectors. In BC, there are regulations that apply specifically to lone workers, and regulations that call for greater attention to the work being done by lone workers. Regulations on lone workers will limit the tasks that can be undertaken, and require extensive attention to communication issues.

Training in violence prevention can also be a critical issue. Some years ago, a review of WCB claims that were attributed to violent incidents showed that custodians were the most likely group to encounter the most violent incidents. The review found that custodians were the group to most likely encounter group violence as well as serious and wilful criminal activity in their school. In BC, regulations on violence prevention will identify custodians as a group requiring training, and in some cases, changes to both the building facility and how the work is done.

Athird regulatory area that presents significant challenges to employers is the issue of ergonomics. The regulations in BC require that the employer have in place a formal program to identify and reduce risks of "activity related soft tissue disorders". This kind of injury can include bursitis, tendonitis, tenosynovitis, epicondylitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and just plain old sprains and strains to almost any part of the body including the back. In another study of WCB claims among custodians, it was found that 60% of all custodial claims can be broadly assigned to this category of injury. The regulations require the employer to assess the magnitude of the physical effort required to perform a task, the amount of time it takes to perform the task, and the duration of the work involving the previous two factors. The ability to perform this kind of assessment, and then develop appropriate remedial measures with any effectiveness, is a skill difficult to acquire and time intensive to complete.

In 2003, for all of these reasons, the BC School Safety Association, with some assistance from the Industry and Labour Services personnel at the WCB, decided to investigate the high number of injuries among custodians to determine what could be done to improve the chances of a custodian going home at night healthy. Working with two professors (specialists in ergonomics and epidemiology) from the