Leading, teaching and learning
Teaching Ceramics in an Online World By Maria Sezer
W
hen in March 2020 we were told that we would teach online for two weeks, I was flabbergasted. I had difficulties imagining how my students could work with clay at home, thinking of factors like getting the clay to them, finding workspace at home, drying and firing and glazing clay. Another difficulty would be that as an art teacher we tend to hold our students’ projects, to turn them around in our hands to ‘look’ at them, because the tactile factor is also very important in assessing their work. That would be very difficult online too. I decided that I had to let my students do work with materials that everybody would have at home and that would not antagonize other family members, materials which would continue developing their dexterity and aestethic awareness. After all, it was only for two weeks...
26 | International School | Summer 2021
My students are mostly grade 12, with some grade 11, and take this elective class mostly for the purpose of having some relaxation in their difficult and heavy 12th year, so keeping it enjoyable was of the essence. (My motto is ‘grab their attention while they are enjoying themselves’). Cooking popped into my mind and I set simple tasks like: ‘Make a vegetable dish; take four photos of yourself doing the preparation and cooking, and one photograph of the final result. The result must look attractive, so set the table with a cloth and cutlery as well: arrange the food in a nice way on the plate (make a composition of it) so the photograph will be good to look at’. During class time we used Google classroom, which served us well, because there was no classical teaching going on; rather one-to-one talks with class members listening and chiming in. I made the assignment broad on purpose, since I had no idea what food would be stocked at students’ homes and I did not want family members to have to buy special food. Students had five 40-minute periods per week, 2 double and 1 single. The single period was reserved for arranging the photographs and uploading them to the Google classroom, and possibly for writing something about the dish. The double periods were used for cooking the dish, from beginning to end. Students were allowed to cook whenever it was convenient for them. They did not have to do this during class time, but they did need to check in at the beginning of class time, so we could have a chat about what they were making and they could ask questions of me and others. We had interesting conversations about baking powder and rolling pins. Since I am not a fantastic cook myself, I learned quite a lot from my students
