Where Minds Meet

Sculpture Title: Meeting

Learning Lens: Approaches to Learning

Curriculum Access: Art, Career and Personal Planning, Counselling/Psychology, Drama, English, ESL, Language Arts, Math, Physical Education, Science, Social Justice, Social Studies, Home Economics, Applied Skills 

Big Idea: Sharing, Expressing, Understanding, Reflecting.

Guiding Question: How Do We Know We Have Learned?

Strategies and Approaches: teamwork; Socratic Questioning; informal assessment, prompting, experiential learning; critical thinking.

Background for students: Meeting was made by the Beijing-based artist Wang Shugang. The sculpture was first exhibited during the G-8 summit meeting of world leaders in 2007. The placing of the figures in static sitting positions with cupped hands is not without irony, as Shugang has pointed out.  “Would there be important results from their meeting?  Wasn't it really just a few people carrying on some formality while wining and dining away?” Over time the meetings of the G-8 group have become longer, larger, and highly organized. As a tool of reflection, the Meeting challenges people to think about the effectiveness of their own gatherings and the purpose of truly garnering the opportunity to express, share, understand and create. Please refer to Learning from Art Section - Meeting for more information.

Informal Assessment: Through discussion, ensure students form an expanded meaning of a “meeting.” Encourage them to think about their concepts and the larger issues of meetings within their school, families, and larger community. Have them think about how they have shared, exchange experiences, as well as learn from each other.

Materials: pen, paper, access to information and research materials.

Curriculum Challenge:
15-20 mins, Open/Reflect: Welcoming Multiple Interpretations 
1.    Students are encouraged to disengage from their recent experience and their busy surroundings to practice Mindfulness. 
2.      Direct students to “mindfully” (quietly/individually) explore the piece and develop their own interpretation. More information on Mindfulness for the classroom can be found through http;//www.thehawnfoundation.org.  
3.      Direct each student to share their interpretation of the piece without judgement.  
4.      Connect students’ individual interpretations to the background information provided above.

40 mins, Challenge:
1.    At the teachers own discretion, students are provided with a discussion topic where they are able to take responsibility for their own learning. Central to this is "learning how to learn," particularly running a meeting and sharing ideas.
2.    Have students reflect on an issue on their own.
3.    Have students share their ideas with a partner.
4.    Encourage a large group discussion on the topic.
5.    Reflection pieces students may want to consider for journaling can be the following: Today I learned and do not want to forget… The most interesting thing I learned today… The thing that surprised me the most… This reminds me of… I want to learn more about… One thing I learned today that connected with something I knew before is… I like what x said about…and it made me think…
6.    Challenge students to create a piece of work that reflects that they have learned. These are some ideas on what they can create (individual/group): justified musical soundtracks, design for an artistic piece that encompasses one of the main things they learned (painting, sculpture, drawing, poem, sketch, song, dance), education station on an issue they found important (multi-disciplinary: case study, demographics/community, community service- resource package, environment- real life application such as a map bike route to school).

Debrief: Have students consider the following: are they open to others’ ideas. Are they open to the way they gather information and the benefits of meeting.  How have they shown this?