Art Classes

In most Swazi primary schools the students do not get much exposure to art. Art as a means of self expression or creative thinking is a pretty foreign topic. As a studio art major, I love art and feel it is an important outlet for primary school children to take part in. Every month the volunteers here at All Out Africa cycle in and out there was a one week period where I was the only intern/volunteer doing homework club. Due to the fact that it was just the project coordinator and I doing the homework clubs, it was not possible for us to actually do homework tutoring. There were simply too many children for the two of us to be able to assist. As a result, I was given the amazing opportunity to plan out an art lesson which we could do at homework clubs instead of homework for the days when we were too outnumbered by the children to tutor effectively.

I was really excited to be given the opportunity and began looking through all of the random art supplies we had around the office. I knew I wanted to design a lesson that would encourage the children to use their imagination and be creative. I also had to keep in mind the age of the students who attend homework club are between 8 and 14 as well as the fact that most of the children had very little exposure to doing art of any kind. I was very happy when I found a pack of tracing paper. I knew from previous homework clubs how interested many of the kids I worked with were in the animals that would appear in the books we would read. So it was from this fact that my lesson plan was born. I found simple black and white drawings of 12 animals and printed them out so the children had things to trace. I then made an example of a frankenstein's animal. I traced the head of a turtle, then gave it a giraffes neck, then a zebras back legs, a lizards front legs and a fish fin to top it all off. The end product was a crazy looking combination of animals, or a frankenstein's animal.

My first lesson I taught went way better than I could have ever hoped it would. I explained the concept of mixing random body parts from different animals together to create your very own animal, and most of the kids looked back at me like I was insane. Once I pulled out the example though the children burst out laughing and excitedly started picking out the animals they wanted to combine. One of my coworkers then had the great idea that the children should name their animal at the end and that got the kids even more excited.

I was very happy with the finished animals the children created. The pride the kids had in their creations was evident. At the end of the class when it was time for them to go home, they all started to hand in their creations. I told them that they all got to keep their creations and their faces lit up. The next week when I met with the same kids again, I had 5 children tell me they had hung up their drawings at home and wanted to make more!

I know to many people the fact that they do not do art lessons in primary school here doesn't mean much. However, art is very important in the development of children because it encourages creativity which is a vital life skill. Without creativity we would be unable to solve problems or invent new things.

I am very happy that I was able to develop an art class for the children and I plan to develop a few more lesson plans so that there can be more art classes even after I leave.

Here are some of my favorite finished animals from the first lesson!

Stay tuned for more!

Kelly

#Internship #Travel #Swaziland