The Taste of Colors

In Chu-Jen Junior High School, every class has set up its own reading corners in the classroom for years. However, not every class could design a satisfied reading corner that met all expectations of the students. Because they only had a little budget, and most of the three-tiered shelves on the market were standardized, their options were limited. Mrs. Hsu, therefore, came up with an idea. Introducing the concepts of proportion and positive/negative space to the class, she asked the students to use them to design shelves both for functional and decorative purposes. The outcome of the kids was out of Mrs. Hsu’s expectations. Their design drafts showed their creativity and diversity. At last, the students and the teacher even brought one of the drafts into reality and finally made their own bookshelves.

In the Plantae, there are colors that cannot be seen by the human naked eye. To dig more into the essence of colors, Mrs. Chang led the students to walk out of the classroom to take a closer look at plants. They brought the beautiful specimens they collected back to the lab for interdisciplinary experiments and color analysis. After the interesting exploration, they were surprised that the plants they see on campus every day consist of more colors than they had imagined. By extracting colors from the plants and observing the stratification phenomenon, the students learned the variety and complexity of how nature generates colors. To Mrs. Chan, one of the purposes of the art and design course is to break conventions, and the class indeed helped the students to realize that leaves and flowers are not merely in red and green. Through these scientific experiments, the kids’ competence in rational observation was built up. Moreover, the course also triggered them to hold a bolder attitude toward exploring more possibilities.

After the art and design course last semester, Mrs. Chen expected to take the students to sense more beauty in life. She thus came up with a new lesson, The Picnic Lesson in Everyday Life, which brought food and life to the class. The students prepared food by themselves, and during the process, they applied the concepts of art and design to their work. Mrs. Chen invited a Home Economics teacher to interdisciplinary cooperated with her. They translated the compositional design rules: dots, lines and planes into knife skills: dicing, julienning and slicing. With different thinking of making food, the students created amazing dishes which they even couldn’t believe were made by their own hands. The most important part of the lesson was encouraging the students to walk out of the classroom to physically experience things in life with all senses.

“Aesthetics should spread naturally like particles spread in the air.” The art classroom at National Hsinchu Senior High School was the best place on campus for teachers and students to indulge in art and design. Setting up the space, Mrs. Wu expected it could be a hub to stimulate the transport of art and design. Inspired by the idea, a group of students started their exploration on campus to search for any possible changes. They opened their eyes and located the problems, such as the unsuitable fabrics and cuts of their uniforms as well as the confusing signs in the store. Bringing their finding back to the art classroom, the students kept on thinking of solutions. They attempted to make some changes and spread the aesthetic particles to other parts of the school more than just in the classroom.