Schools : Let's celebrate School Libraries Month !

credits : Chris OBrien

http://www.chrisobrion.com/

"Without libraries what do we have? We have not past and no future."

Ray Bradbury

No it's not about public libraries. However they very important in our city. It's about school libraries.

School Library Day US

http://www.ala.org/aasl/slm/2015

Every October school librarians - United States is in April - are encouraged to create activities to help their school and local community celebrate the essential role that strong school library programs play in a students education and career.

International School Library Month

http://iasl-online.mlanet.org/

Throughout October, every year, the world celebrates International School Library Month, the perfect time for students to visit their own school library and browse through the hundreds of books and e-books available.

October is the International School Libraries Month. In Portugal, schools celebrate SLM on 26 October 2015. This is the reason I am writing today about the SLM, thinking in all students and school libraries that will be celebrating it on the next Monday.

The SLM theme 2015 is "The School Library Rocks"

credits : Peter H. Reynolds

http://www.peterhreynolds.com/

International School Library Month allows those in charge of school libraries around the world to choose a day, week, or the entire month of October to celebrate the importance of school libraries.

The first International School Library Day was celebrated on 18 October 1999, with the theme, "A Day in the Life..."

The change to International School Library Month was approved by the IASL Board in December 2007.

Kids reading at school library, Canada

http://img.radio-canada.ca/

Education:

"There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing."

Isaac D'Israeli

Activities :

You will find some suggestions to celebrate this day on my post International School Libraries Day 2015 (my blog to Portuguese students and teachers)

However the ISLM is organizing special activities. There is information on the ISLM website to help you. Take part in one of the special activities :

• ISLM Bookmark Project

The ISLM Bookmark Project involves matched schools making homemade bookmarks - be creative - to exchange with each other.

This year Marie O’Brien of Australia and a team of her school colleagues will co-ordinate the 2015 Bookmark Exchange Project and Skype Project.

Aim:

The Bookmark Exchange Project is a simple, fun way of sharing the pleasure and delights of books and libraries and of making new friends through school libraries worldwide. If you and your students did not get involved last year perhaps you will this year.

You might wish your students to communicate with each other as you make your bookmarks so that they can learn something about another culture and a different way of life. 

If you don’t want to do either of these things you can simply just swap bookmarks or devise your own activity.

You will be able to register your interest by entering your details into a Google Spreadsheet

If you are unable to use the spreadsheet you can email Marie O'Brien. Register for the project, using either the Google spreadsheet or by email, as soon as possible. For detailed information, visit the ISLM Bookmark Project.

ISLM Skype Project

• ISLM Skype Project

Would your students like to talk to others in a far away country during ISLM2015? 

Join in the fun! If you would like to be part of the Skype Skype Project, complete the Survey Monkey form to receive a possible match for your school.

If you experience difficulties completing the form or have any queries please contact Marie for assistance.

• What people are doing for ISLM 2015:

You want to submit your school activities for the ISLM ? Send in your submissions for What people are doing for ISLM 2015 by email to the IASL Secretariat.

For detailed information, visit the ISLM's activities page

Deadline : November 15th 2015

By country : 

You would like to know what other schools from you country are doing? After the deadline, the ISLM website will publish.

Other activities:

In Portugal we have a different activity using social networks. I like it a lot.

Tweeting in SLD

Teachers invite students, parents, other teachers, and school staff to write a #tweet (140 characters) about the importance of school libraries. They will be published at the Twitter school/class account using the hashtag #IMSL15

The best tweets of each class/ group will be delivered to the school librarian. The school librarian choose the most creative to publish on the school library website.

My thoughts:

School libraries in the XXI century must have the books, e-books, e-readers and tablets in order to motivate the new generations.

School libraries meet the needs of all kind of learners. Never forget children's preparation to use e-books, especially the students from disadvantaged social backgrounds or having special needs.

Integrating digital literacy as critical elements for education (all levels) is essential to keep our students happy and captivated at the school libraries.

As I already wrote on this blog, implementing these new digital books is about more than just jumping on the latest technological bandwagon or attempting to reinvent the library and printed books in order to stay relevant.

Le Petit Nicolas pop-up

http://www.babelio.com/

School libraries must be prepared to introduce innovative devices without forget the enchantment of printed books. The smell of paper, the illustrations, some pop-up for the younger readers, the pleasure to touch or turn the page. Just beautiful gestures that we must keep.

Teachers must be innovative of course. So printed books and e-books are both welcome.

School libraries are integrating learning spaces that values connections between home, school, community, and the world.

Encourage students to be creative and never let them lose their sense of wonder. So let's keep reading all over the year in the classroom, encouraging our students to become lifelong avid readers.

"To build up a library is to create a life. It’s never just a random collection of books."

Carlos María Domínguez

G-Souto 

25.10.2015

Copyright © 2015G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Schools : Let's celebrate School Libraries Month ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Teaching Arts : Lygia Clark, the presage of modern digital information era !

Lygia Clark, MoMA exhibition, 2014

https://s2.glbimg.com/

"This sensation of precariousness, of being absorbed in the immanence of the act of discovering the sense of existing."

Lygia Clark, “Capturar um Fragmento de Tempo Suspenso”

(To capture a fragment of suspended time), 1973

Aspiring to break down the barriers between art and everyday life, Lygia Clark radically re-imagined what art could be. By facilitating an engaged and embodied relationship between the art object and its audience, 

Clark's work anticipated the development of participatory art, and has influenced generations of artists pushing the boundaries of sculpture, performance, and art-as-pedagogy.

Lygia Clark is one of the most innovative artists of the 20th century. 

"Rebellion in heart, she was committed to innovation, and she had the privilege to be known as a pioneer in her field of interest."

Nadia Herzog

Google Doodle : Lygia Clark' 95th birthday

https://www.google.com/doodles/

• Google Doodle:

Today's Doodle celebrates the 95th birthday of artist Lygia Clark, famed Brazilian painter, sculptor and teacher born on 23 October 1920. The Doodle reflects his own distinct Neo-Concrete style.

• Some biographical notes:

Clark [1920-1988] is a Brazilian artist who trained in France with Fernand Leger. Lygia Clark co-founded the Neo-Concrete movement, which sought to change art from a passive viewing experience to an engaging interaction. 

Lygia Clark [1920-1988]

via Brasil247

"We do everything so automatically that we have forgotten the poignancy of smell, of physical anguish, of tactile sensations of all kinds."

Lygia Clark

Lygia Clark was born in Belo Horizonte on October 23, 1920. A Brazilian artist best known for her painting and installation work. 

Clark became an artist in 1947. In this year, she moved to Rio de Janeiro to study with Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx. Between 1950 and 1952, she studied with Isaac Dobrinsky, Fernand Léger and Arpad Szenes in Paris. 

Lygia Clark

https://post.at.moma.org/

In 1953, she became one of the founding members of Rio's Frente group of artists. In 1957, Clark participated in Rio de Janeiro's first National Concrete Art Exhibition. This would be one of Clark's frequent trips to Brazil in order to exhibit her artwork.

She was often associated with the Brazilian Constructivisme movements of the mid-20th century and the Tropicália movement. 

Even with the changes in how she approached her artwork, Lygia did not stray far from her Constructivisme roots. 

Lygia Clark, exhibition in New York

https://live.apto.vc/lygia-clark/

Along with Brazilian artists, Amilcar de Castro, Franz Weissmann, Lygia Pape and poet Ferreira Gullar, Clark co-founded the Neo-Concrete movement. 

The Neo-Concretists believed that art ought to be subjective and organic. Throughout her career trajectory, Clark discovered ways for museum goers (who would later be referred to as "participants") to interact with her art works. 

She sought to redefine the relationship between art and society. Clark's works dealt with inner life and feelings.

Bicho (critter), 1960, aluminum and hinges

Image Source: Ramirez, Mari Carmen and Hector Olea

 Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004, pl. 127, p. 188.
https://onceandfutureartblog.files.wordpress.com/

Her art pieces,  specifically the bichos, were designed to be modified, re-positioned and folded into new configurations by participants. These "critters" were an early step in Clark's attempts to bridge the gap between artist and viewer.

Lygia Clark

https://pepsic.bvsalud.org/

• Information +

Much of Clark’s work involves the audience manipulating or navigating through the work. 

At times, the objects manipulate the participants through sensory deprivation suits and masks. 

Lygia Clark co-founded the Neo-Concrete movement, which sought to change art from a passive viewing experience to an engaging interaction. Her art pieces,  specifically the bichos, were designed to be modified, re-positioned and folded into new configurations by participants.

Lygia Clark : Bichos

https://uploads2.wikiart.org/

Clark's Bichos (or Critters) are meant to be manipulated by participants into new forms directed only by the Bicho’s construction. These objects are created from flat plates of metal that are hinged together to create something that can move and take on multiple instances of itself. 

These "Critters" were an early step in Clark's attempts to bridge the gap between artist and viewer.

Some critics say "her artwork presaged the modern digital information era."

Later in her career, Clark turned the evocative power of her art toward healing, and became a proponent and practitioner of art therapy. Her work focused on bodily awareness as well as unconscious sensory perception, the inner life, and emotions.

She died in  Rio de Janeiro on April 25, 1988.

"Lygia Clarck was among the young Brazilian artists who, in the late 1950s and 60s, fostered a wider use of colour, greater sensuality, and poetic sentiment in concrete art, drawing inspiration from artists like Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich."

Lygia Clark,  MoMA exhibition

https://s2.glbimg.com/

Education:

“Art is not bourgeois mystification. What has changed is the form of communicating the proposition. It’s you who now give expression to my thoughts, to draw from them whatever vital experience you want."

Lygia Clark

Doodles! Well, doodles are a awesome digital resource to include into the curriculum to surprise the students as a motivation awaking their curiosity. 

Students love be surprised in lessons. Something rather new, unexpected info is just the right tip.

Love Google doodles! Doodles combine creativity, curiosity, digital skills, culture and a surprising motivation to a different start of an interesting lesson.

You must think about it.

My usual readers know how I support an entire education in school. STEM are crucial, Literature and Languages are essential, we can't develop digital skills without those curriculum. 

And Arts ! Oh Art is the first, huge step towards a new future to gifted kids.

Lygia Clark

https://www.widewalls.ch/

All over the years, you read my thoughts about the importance of Arts in School Education, no matter the art fields: Music ; Dancing ; Painting ; Literature ; Sculpture, Architecture.

Arts are absolutely necessary to a complete a better education of children and young adolescents. During Secondary education, some students discover their inner path in Arts and later, they will choose Arts education in college or higher schools of Arts to develop their aptitude by a real learning.

Here, a good introduction to Non-Concrete art. Of course each teacher must prepare and adapt the activities to the level they are teaching.

Digital Resources: Teachers & students 

• No-Concrete on Google Cultural Institute

• MoMA: The World of Lygia Clark

• Brazilian Neo-Concrete Art (slideshare)

Digital culture is well-come into the the classroom as important tools to tackle the world's toughest problems creating bridges and establish a truly intercultural world, where diversity can be celebrated, a world where different cultures not only coexist but value each other for their contributions and potential.

Level: All levels. Focus on Arts (Vocational Education) ; School of Arts (Higher Education.

Curricula: Arts ; Design ; Digital Arts.

Secondary education: Cross-curricular projects (Literature, Arts, Music).

"The instant of the act is not renewable. It exists by itself: to repeat it is to give it another meaning. It doesn’t contain any trace of past perceptions. It’s another moment. At the very moment in which it happens it is already a thing-in-itself. Only the instant of the act is life."

Lygia Clark

G-Souto

23.10.2015

Copyright © 2015-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com

update 25.10.2024

Teaching Arts : Lygia Clark, the presage of modern digital information era by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.