Exhibition

The exhibition was a great experience. It was a nice feeling to be done with the workshops and to have all the products of everyone’s labor cleaned up and on display. It was enjoyable to show up and just take in the students’ work and spend time talking with them like everyone else who was attending. Meeting the students’ family and parents was interesting as well.

It was also slightly bittersweet to be done with everything knowing that I probably would not see my students again. But there wasn’t a lot of time to think about that during all the mingling and conversing—which was a bit exhausting for this usual introvert.

The one thing I wish could be more apparent in a final exhibition like this is all the learning that took place. Maybe someone would look at a few products of the students and say “Wow! How did my kid do that?” Or conversely “What in the world? That’s not that impressive.” No matter which thought a viewer may have had, what is lacking in an exhibition is anything that communicates skills and processes learned and student growth.
I think I need to do more research on how to show student growth and communicate more about learning processes in exhibitions. I know there are teachers doing this and knowledge available in this area. Overall, I was pleased with the exhibition and I think the students were as well. It was really gratifying to see students excitedly pointing out their work to siblings or telling their parents the process they went through to create something.