 Hi, my name is Janine Campbell, and this is my presentation Beyond Teaching and Learning, Leaving a Legacy. I'm a 12th year middle school visual arts teacher from Byron Center West Middle School. I've always taught visual arts and I've always taught at the middle school level. This is my place where I feel most comfortable, and like I have the most impact on leaving a legacy with my students. This is my creative space. This is my classroom where students are encouraged to make art as you see on the board behind at the back of the classroom. I also have a really lovely space outside of my classroom where students can collaborate, meet together, and work on large projects, small projects, and as you can see, of course, work on their computers. Now when I'm thinking about legacy and what we do in our classrooms, I realize that now more and more with the use of technology students have the opportunity to really learn anywhere. Teaching and learning happens whether it's me at the front of the classroom or using any of these tools that you see displayed on the screen. So I had to ask myself what can I do to leverage learning in my classroom into a lasting legacy so that when they are leaving the door they're not just forgetting everything that they've done that they're able to take it with them to their next experience. So what I'm going to highlight in this session is making a difference, making your mark, and how important it is to share that impact with others. When I think about making a difference, I'm immediately drawn to a project that started when I was in high school called Empty Bowls. My high school art teacher, Mike Lily, who has done so many philanthropic things throughout his life, really instilled this value in us as high school students that we can take the power of art to save lives through our gestures and acts and in that way create common good through the works that we make. And so I really thought as I became an art teacher how can I take that message to my students. So on the first day of school my students are given clay and we create these clay bowls. I'm really excited to get their hands messy right from the get-go. So within like the first five minutes everybody's got clay in their hands and we're all making our bowls with this shared purpose for Empty Bowls. Empty Bowls is a project where students create these bowls. They glaze them and then they are displayed at a fine arts night. So at that night our music performances happen through our band orchestra and choir. We have donations of food that are brought in for our local food bank and then people who come can take a bowl home with them as well as enjoy a meal that is donated from our local subway. We've been able to raise thousands of dollars for our local food bank as well as provide you know hundreds of cans of of goods. It's an awesome opportunity to see the community come together and for those students to see the impact that they can have within our community. We've also participated in projects like Students Rebuild. On their website they always have a new project going on. We've done paper cranes for Japan. We've done paper beads for Tanzania. We've done a variety of different things that they've had in terms of challenges. Right now they have pinwheels for Syria children of Syrian refugees and so if you go on to their website you can find different things that your students can then do and have that lasting impact not just within their community but on a global scale. So by doing these types of projects students can see that their art makes a difference. The other thing I challenge with my students is making their mark. We start out the school year within that those first couple days by reading the book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. The Dot is a lovely story about a girl who thinks that she can draw and so her teacher asks her to just make your mark and see where it takes you. It's something that I relate to because I am an art teacher and it deals with being a student not feeling like they can draw an art class but it's also something my students can relate to because there's always been a time at some point in their lives where they feel like they couldn't do something and this book really encourages you to just not hold back or let yourself be held back by those fears of making mistakes and just dive in and see what can be done. So students are given paint and again that's kind of scary to give kids messy materials right at the beginning of school but they're given that paint they're asked to create a circular dot and we rotate it around the room so kids add on to the paintings as we go. We end up with these beautiful collaborated pieces that then can be displayed in our hallways of our school. This one's displayed out in my art space outside of my classroom. We've done one for the STEM hallway and we've also done one for the music hallway. These paintings are legacy paintings that will stay for years to come in our hallway so that students can come back and see their mark that they made for years and years to come. I posted about this on my blog and I really encourage you to blog if you don't and I tweeted it out to Peter H Reynolds and I said hey look at what we did you know based on your book and to my surprise and my student's surprise he shared he commented on our blog. My students were then asked to upload a section of the painting that they felt most connected to and write about it and many of those students wrote about their experience with the book how they related it to their lives as well as how crazy it was that Peter H Reynolds himself posted on our blog about their work and if you read Nolan's artist statement he talks about how he found it super cool that the teacher made the child feel special by displaying their art that is something I'm trying to do also with this legacy painting that they talked about when their siblings come to the school that they'll be able to look up and see this painting that he took part in and that you know this author took the time to recognize our art and comment on it and so for me it really is showing the power that that student has to have an impact on someone else and really on a larger scale which really leads me to my final point which is sharing I think it's so important to share the efforts that you do in your classroom and I think that's probably the biggest legacy you can get is to share that learning. So Allen November gave a Ted talk about leaving a legacy and he said that you know the big question is are your students leaving a legacy with their work are they making an impact in the world and I really you know internalized that and started thinking of ways like empty bowls like creating these legacy paintings so that my students do have a lasting impact within their school their community and the larger world. One way that we post our work online and share our efforts online is through art Sonia this is our classroom blog where students post their work we've been students can have their whole career work documented from kindergarten through twelfth grade. I also have my blog that I post to or not just showing final works like art Sonia but we show the process in which we got to where we are and then I present that's me in the background dancing on a chair you'll often see me dancing at a conference and I shared the works that my students do and my students know that because I tell them hey look at what I'm doing and look at this teacher thought that was really cool that you guys did this and some of those teachers who come to my you know to my sessions at conferences they take those ideas and make them their own one of them is Cassie Stevens who's from Tennessee she created this gallery of gratitude as a legacy painting for her classroom and her school where she had all of her elementary students create this lovely community painting to be displayed in their front hallway Trisha Fuglestead out of Illinois did something very similar her students created this really lovely painting and again it was just so flattering to me and my students that our work inspired them here's another teacher who saw me present and decided to do play with her students very early on in the school year and started an empty bowls tradition at their school as well and it's just you never know what you're gonna post that really captures someone's imagination and that to me is what leaving a legacy is all about you're putting yourself out there and then people are able to respond to it in their own unique ways which creates this cascading effect that influences other people which influences other people and of course our students and there's just so many things that we can do that we probably don't share that would have such a great impact on others and that's something that really hits home with me so now I want to challenge you it's your turn what are you passionate about in your subject area for me it's what art can do to impact others and really save lives so starting with my high school teacher he showed us the impact art can have and I want to leave that legacy with my students so that when they're adults they can then think about that as well I want to think about how does that passion translate to your larger school and community whether it's through you know big projects or even just small tokens of gratitude I think it's so important that we really train our students about what they do having a lasting impact in that what they do what they do matter you know what they do on a daily basis that that matters and then finally sharing the impact inspiring others to do the same whether you blog or you present at conferences I just think it's so important to share your story with others because you'll you never know how it's going to resonate with that person and how they're going to interpret it and make it their own so that they can have that same impact and thought about leaving a legacy in their lives if you'd like more information about any of my presentations feel free to contact me through twitter at camp all art soup or check out my website