28/05_Rambling on education: Kandinsky and others

I have always liked the idea that we can use a same material and apply different layers of difficulty, which makes our work on one hand more challenging, adapting to the individuality of students and contexts; on the other, interesting because we can use a same material and observe how it is developed or can be connected with different areas of knowledge. This combines well with Van Hiele theory of how students learn geometry, with the zone of proximal development from Vygotsky and the necessity to attend students with special needs. 

Although we might thing that geometry is an “advance area” of the mathematical field that will only be introduce in the intermediate and advance levels of Primary School, the most basic figures are already present in such early ages as kindergarten as least in visualisation and recognition. We can see examples of plane geometry and forms in these illustrated albums:

Little Blue and Little yellow. In Spanish, Pequeño azul y pequeño amarillo - L. Lionni

With this fond story that will be object of learning for both young children and adults, we can introduce the idea of circle or point besides the moral ideas and the primary and secondary colour concepts that we are to teach if we want to.

Por cuatro esquinitas de nada - J. Ruillier

This can be the second illustrated album to introduce. Here it is distinguished the square and the circle, but also how a square can be moved, deformed… It is more directly connected with the mathematic field.

           

We should not forget that as teacher we must cope with all ages of the primary school education. For older students, we can motivate them with the use of geometry in contemporary art.

Artists that use geometry in their artistic projects

What conclusions can we draw from this video? I like how these artists merge the different geometric figures, breaking the figures, like Nicolas Warb. Also, I find interesting how those paintings play with the colours to stand out in relief in plane figures creating different effects for the viewers (take the example of Tom Gaughan). This video can promote an interesting in trying to guess of those figures were made, the process and techniques. Did they use mathematical operations to paint them? Was technical drawing needed?  Why is then important geometry?

Let’s take Kandinsky as a model to see how compositions with the same geometric figures can be created:

Create your own work. Kandisky

Create your own work. Neoplasticism

How many compositions can you create with the same geometric figures? Are you able to do your own artistic creation with plane geometric figures in a collage?

Kandinsky, Wassily. (1923). Amarillo, rojo y azul [pintura].

We can do an artistic-based project with the aid of ICT and the numerous free-access programmes that exist nowadays. It can also be a multi-faceted project if we introduce music, just like in the video:

Art projects in class: stop motion with Kandinsky

A stop motion can be the final product of a project that would involve linguistic, mathematics, music, art history and crafts, as well as being a motivating thing to do for students. As our Spanish law highlights, the use of geometry and comprehension can be a starting point to motivate students in other areas of the mathematic field. 

That’s all for today, I hope you have enjoyed my ‘rambling’ but considered thoughts about geometry and pedagogy and other areas of knowledge in education. Stay tuned for coming posts!

References

Kandinsky, Wassily. (1923). Amarillo, rojo y azul [pintura].

Lionni, Leo. (2005). Pequeño Azul y Pequeño Amarillo (Spanish edition). Pontevedra: Kalandraka.

Ruillier, Jerome. (2004). Por cuatro esquinitas de nada. Barcelona: Editorial Juventud.