For those doing the newest work (NTCI) this clarification might be helpful:
Dear Ben,
I recently purchased A Natural Approach to the Year and am giving it a try (and excited to do so). In reading the job descriptions in the HR Manual, it seems that the description for the Secondary Artist is missing. I could probably write one myself, but am hoping you can provide it.
Thank you!
Maureen
My response:
Hey Maureen it’s very simple. There seems to always be a certain kid in class who has difficulty with listening. You can see them sitting there kind of nervous because they have straight A’s because they’re really good at memorization but they haven’t found the part of their brain that works with CI yet.
So I thought to put this child with the primary artist, who, besides being a really talented artist, is always a good listener or she wouldn’t have the job, and so now the primary artist can kind of help her assistant learn how to listen, picking up especially details like colors, as described below, since that is her métier.
The secondary artist/assistant serves an excellent purpose in service to the primary artist because, in order to reduce the time for the creation of the drawings, she colors everything in. The primary artist frames the artwork and the secondary artist colors.
Doing this fits her meticulous nature as a memorizer (just tell me what to do…) and the two artists work together and it’s really cool to see that child no longer uncomfortable.
Just one additional point – it is often difficult for the two artists to finish their artwork by the time the story ends in time for the Reveal (for a OWI) or the Great Reveal (for Invisibles stories), and so usually I give the artists a little bit of extra time there, kind of stalling/reviewing, so that the drawing can be finished.
It’s an exciting time and I often have to shoo kids away from the artists’ table or easel, whichever one they have. (I vastly prefer the table because it means that I can see their work easily during the story and (1) make suggestions, (2) keep them on task and most importantly, (3) praise them in front of the class). Some kids even try to go to the bathroom and try to sneak a look at what the artists are doing, but I shoo them back to their seats.
This of course is so good for the second artist to be on a productive team, doing the most respected job of all in the Invisibles classroom. Before shat got that job she was isolated, and now she is involved.
When I was at the American Embassy school in New Delhi, where Dana teaches now, and all of this Invisibles stuff came into existence (spring of 2016), there was this one girl from England (the land of memorizers) who complained about my class all the time and she truly fit the above description as a memorizer. But as soon as she got the job as the second artist, mine was her favorite class. Whew! And of course when she came home each day so excited about French class every day, since she was a star, what could her mother say?
Hope that helps!