Summer SAVY, Session 6 Day 2, Individuality vs Conformity (5th – 6th)
Hello SAVY families!
Today, we continued our discussions on individuality and identity and began to explore the unique way that people see the world and express themselves. We talked about all the different means of human expression and how we make our mark on the world – whether through creative arts like painting and music and dance, or through the studies and careers we pursue, or in our discoveries and the things we build, or in our participation and service in fields like medicine and politics. No matter what, there are so many spaces and ways that we, to recall a Walt Whitman poem we discussed, “may contribute a verse.”
Next, we learned about some famous artists known for their individuality such as Picasso and M.C. Escher. We inspected several different examples of their work and learned about Picasso’s color periods, his guitars, and Escher’s staircase which has inspired so many illusions and mind-bending models. And then it was time to put it into action! Utilizing the distorting and diffracting power of prism glasses, we observed the world around us until we found an object that we wanted to try and represent uniquely and colorfully. Woah, those glasses were trippy! After lunch, we got to paint like Picasso! We had paintings of only shapes or colors, images that morphed into something else, a few objects that turned into optical illusions, and many many unique interpretations of the same room we had all explored. Very cool. Ask your budding Picasso what kind of object they chose, what their painting ended up representing later, and why they saw it in that unique way.
Tomorrow we will begin to investigate – now that we’ve demonstrated how great it is to express our own individuality and perspective – how people can use their individuality and unique take on the world to inspire or influence others positively. We will also learn about propaganda weighing information and how the push for conformity can harm (and also sometimes help in particular circumstances where people need to come together).
Each morning, we will have a team trivia review of concepts and vocabulary. Within the evening blog each day, I will include a hint for a bonus question answer. Please share the hint with your students and allow them to look through the blog to find the answer!
Bonus question hint for students: Because we have also been discussing rhetorical devices, try to think of one with your caregiver that you can demonstrate in class. Example – onomatopoeia … WHOOP there it is!
Until tomorrow,
Ms. Rho