Filmmaking: A Different Frame for Learning
OAC Artist and Pickerington Local Art Teacher Go Where Students' Imaginations Lead
There is no telling what ideas will emerge when Mary Sheridan's visual art classes make a film with OAC artist in residence Steven Bognar. They might decide to make a feature film about a trash monster or a time machine. Or—as happened in May 2009 with a group of third-graders—it might be a serious documentary that grows out of research into the struggles of others.
Bognar follows wherever students' imaginations lead, opening his residencies with intensive brainstorming. He uses Socratic questioning to guide students away from imitations of what they've seen in Hollywood movies and toward ideas that spring from their own experiences. As an Ohio Arts Council teaching artist since 1988, Bognar has learned to trust the vision of students. "I don't show up with any preconceived ideas," he says. "If we're trying to introduce the idea of making art as a form of self-expression, the kids have to come up with the idea. You just kind of nudge the idea process until it's really humming."
That creative hum delights Sheridan, who taught at Tussing Elementary School in the Pickerington Local School District for 12 years before moving in 2009 to the district's new Sycamore Creek Elementary. She completed four residencies with Bognar while at Tussing and uses what she learns from him to add new layers and dimensions to her teaching.
Layers of Learning
"Filmmaking is the ultimate fantasyland," says Sheridan. "It has so many complex levels that are easily achievable; it extends the possibilities into anything a child can imagine."
But that stretching is only part of the story. Sheridan, Bognar and Melissa Godoy, another media artist who is making a film about Bognar's last residency at Tussing, recently shared with Links & Threads some of their observations about the layers of learning underlying the product students created and then screened for their families and teachers at a gala premiere in the school auditorium.
Deepening inquiry
Students' inspiration for the latest Tussing film came from their own experiences with the Empty Bowls project, an international, grassroots effort to end hunger. The project began several years ago when students in Michigan made ceramic bowls and sold them, along with dinners of soup and bread, to raise money for the families affected by a plant closing in their town.
Third-graders at Tussing Elementary made a documentary about hunger after they raised nearly $6000 for their local food bank by selling meals served in their beautifully crafted bowls.
Since then, schools around the world have used the same arts-based service learning strategy. Last year, the bowls made by Tussing students raised nearly $6,000 for a local food bank.
The documentary on the Empty Bowls project began for Sheridan's students with thoughtful conversations about hunger. They researched hunger in their community and one team of students visited the local food bank and interviewed the staff on film. Those who filmed and edited the production had to think deeply about their subject as they made decisions about camera angles and selected the clips and images they would use to tell the story.
Sheridan sees parallels between those filmmaking activities and scientific inquiry. "We're gathering and selecting data to test an assumption," she says. "You do that in science all the time. You try to prove what you set out to question in the beginning."
Developing technical skills
Bognar teaches students to use video cameras and editing software as part of the residency, as well as to create animation.
In the Empty Bowls documentary, for example, a team of students animated images of the bowls they had made to create a stunning effect of color and motion.
"Students are not at all fearful of the medium," says Sheridan. "They have a better concept of what film can do than my generation does. They dive in wholeheartedly." Bognar adds that he has often been surprised at what young children can do with the technology. "One general principle I've discovered," he says, "is that students can handle the technology much better than we think. If I think something is on the edge of their grasp, I let them try it. It's worth the risk."
One team of Tussing third-graders decided to create a computer animation of the bowls they made.
Another team edited the documentary, gaining both technical and collaborative skills. Other students conducted and taped interviews with community members.
Gaining a more critical view of media
According to both Sheridan and Bognar, students and teachers often say they will never look at a film the same way again after a media residency. "After making a film, you find yourself listening for ambient sound, looking for the angle of the camera and listening to the music and how it affects the shot," says Sheridan.
That heightened awareness to media, says Bognar, is extremely important today. "Images shape youth in a huge way," he says. "Whether we want to admit it or not, kids come to movies, magazines and web pages looking for signals on how to walk this world."
He hopes that deepening students' understanding of electronic media will reduce their vulnerability to manipulation. "It's almost an immunity shot against all the consumer culture that's thrown their way," he says.
Learning 21st century skills
Bognar says creating animation and working with editing tools takes careful planning, attention to process and innovative problem solving. Those technical challenges exemplify some of the skills required in a variety of 21st century careers. Even more striking is the resemblance of student film projects to the collaborative project environments found in many of today's high tech and creative industries. "The filmmaking process is incredibly interactive, and everyone is interdependent," says Bognar. "You have to reach consensus and collaborate with other people." Filmmaker Melissa Godoy also sees a close connection between student filmmaking and the challenges students will face on the job. "There is a job for everyone on a film crew," she says. "It's a vocational exploration as much as a creative exploration, and it makes people feel good because there's something everyone can do and do well. And I think that's essential in education-finding where people's gifts are and using those gifts as a key to everything else."
Learn More
Are you thinking about introducing filmmaking in your classroom? Sheridan and Bognar provide some great advice to help you get started.
Part of the Bigger Picture
Bognar is not the only OAC artist that Sheridan has brought to her school. She also has completed residencies with musician Hal Walker and visual artist Susan Shie. Those residencies, as well as the films she makes with students on her own, represent much more than special art projects. They mesh with her integrated perspective on teaching and learning. "I don't see what I do in my class as just an art lesson," she says. "I see it as a way to help students understand their world."
This article was published in March 2010
Read about other excellent arts integration practices and artist residencies.
