When Amy Eibler, 2nd grade teacher at SES, wanted to teach her students about critical thinking, she turned to apples.
Mrs. Eibler’s students studied apples to attempt to look at them differently. Over the course of the first few weeks of school, her class studied different artists who create with different perspectives. Then she asked her students to draw an apple from the perspective of that artist. They drew Picasso apples, Monet apples, Matisse apples, and Kandinsky apples. Mrs. Eibler wanted to teach her class that there are a lot of unique ways to solve a problem, just like there are a lot of unique ways to look at an apple.
To cap off her study of apples and perspective, she asked her friend, artist Beck Seashols to video in her class to talk about art with her students. Mrs. Eibler and a technology coach used her document camera and Google Hangouts to meet with the artist, who lives in Virginia. The students met with the artist for about 30 minutes, where they were able to see some of her art and ask questions about being an artist.
Mrs. Eibler hopes to reference this lesson throughout the school year. She hopes that students will remember the apples when they have to solve a complex math problem or interpret the meaning in a story. This lesson on critical thinking and problem solving was a great way to encourage students to reach out of their comfort zones and think abstractly.
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