Wednesday, April 25, 2018

This Teacher Works the Right AND Left Side of Your Brain

I am probably one of the least creative people you’ll ever meet. I am constantly on Twitter or reaching
out to the people I work with to get new ideas of how to integrate technology into the classroom. And I
am without a doubt the least artistic person you’ll ever come across. I hated Thursdays when I was
little because that was arts and crafts day at my elementary school. But I think my view on arts and
crafts would be totally different if I had Barbara Kennerly as my art teacher back in the day. The entire
right side of my brain would be way more developed if “Mrs. K” had been around in my younger days.
I have had the pleasure of working with Barb for a couple of years now and in my opinion, she is one
of the best art teachers we have in our district. She expands the cultural awareness of her students
tenfold from what they’ve had prior to walking in her classroom. She’ll even wear the clothing that
goes along with her lesson, which makes her even more special for her students. Here she is wearing
a Japanese kimono to go along with the lesson I'm highlighting:
She knows her curriculum like the back of her hand but it doesn’t stop there. She reaches beyond
the art program to make connections to what’s going on in the other areas of instruction. One of my
favorite projects that I helped out with this year was a collaboration with Mrs. K where she integrated
art, science and technology into the 5th grade literacy curriculum. Her students created a dragon
tooth that we then 3D printed for them!


I took a wild ride into Barb’s head to pick her brain about this assignment and get all the details. Here’s
what she had to say about this amazing lesson. Buckle up...
“It started with Dana Wyckoff (the 5th grade ELA teacher), she was doing a story Where the Mountain
Meets the Moon. I was integrating the Chinese New Year and how the dragon is used as a symbol in
more than one culture. Then the assignment was that we were going to be dragon scientists and we
discovered a new dragon. We logged all the scientific information into our notebook (where it lives,
what it eats, its environment and how it would influence its color, antarctic dragon would be white or
blue, etc.) In this project they designed the tooth that went with the dragon. The shape of the tooth
would indicate whether it was a carnivore or not. This was also connected to the Dragonology books
that students were working with in the media center.

Barb is going to take the dragon teeth that we 3D printed and turn them into a necklace that students
can wear! Almost like those shark tooth necklaces that you get at the beach. The students at Cameron
Elementary and Southern Pines Primary are very fortunate to have Mrs. K as their art teacher. I’m so
jealous of those Scots and Bees. They get to have an offbeat, inspirational, funny (in a good way)
and creative art teacher to open their eyes to the wonderful world of art.

-Clint