Week Without Walls

One of the selling points for me when deciding to work for LPS College Park last year was that the school has this community learning week known as Week Without Walls. The premise is that you take students out of the classroom for a week of educational field trips in late May. Sounds great, right? Yes, except that there are little guidelines or support for design given to teachers. They're expected to come up with everything by themselves on a budget that is revealed (weeks before the deadline) to be approximately $400 for about 15-20 kids per teacher.

As the deadline approached I became more and more anxious and stressed. Eventually, I hooked up with a fellow stressed out teacher and we decided to pool resources. After many hectic planning sessions we eventually hacked out a discernible week-long plan. We entitled our project From Walls to Museum Halls: An Exploration of Bay Area Art.

The catalog blurb for the students was as follows:

"Experience what the bay area has to offer young and aspiring artists or just lovers of art. Our week will include a guided tour exploring the urban art of San Francisco’s Mission District Murals, a glimpse into the world of fine art at the Oakland Museum of Art, and a strenuous nature hike where students will explore landscape painting and discover their hidden talents. The week will culminate with a gallery walk and reception where students will display their masterpieces to be judged for prizes. If this sounds like a blast, join us for a week of fun and exercise!"

We had 29 students assigned to us. Of those 8 showed up on day one. Although, it was upsetting that so many of our students chose to opt out of the week and stay home, this was really a blessing in disguise. With so few participating students our budget was able to stretch much further.

We spent our first day actually teaching some preliminary art history and basic drawing techniques. We gave each student a sketch pad, gum eraser, and set of charcoals.

Day two we hopped on the BART and headed out to Balmy Alley in San Francisco's Mission District. We toured the many murals and public art works of the Mission and the students practiced sketching by choosing an element from their favorite mural to recreate.

Day Three we hiked around Joaquin Miller park and drew nature sketched and landscapes from a great look out point from which you can see San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

The fourth day, we hopped back on BART and toured the Oakland Museum of California's new exhibitions, "The Birth of Cool" and "Cool Remixed" featuring local student artists of the East Bay. Our students really liked this one.

Our final day, we dragged out the barbecue and cooked up some carne asada while the kids had a water balloon fight and then showed off their work. We awarded prizes for the best art and gave out a lot of art supplies which we couldn't have done without the windfall of cash from such low attendance.

Overall, it was a great experience and next year I will have a better idea of what can be done. I still think improvements are needed for the activity at a network level, but I will do my best to help any new teachers next year.