Teaching 8-12 year olds. What can they take in

mehfesto

Hi all,

I've got a job teaching children and adults photography for the summer. I've no problem teaching the adults, I've done it quite a few times before - but what should I aim to teach children?

I should say a few things:
1. these are 'gifted' children. They're more intelligent than your average tween.
2. They all won't have DSLRs, infact the majority will have point and shoots.
3.I'll have them for five classes. Each is 90 minutes long.

So far my plan is:
Class One: History of Photography and the basic camera controls/concepts.
Class Two: Portraits and flash (basic explanation of flash)
Class Three: Landscapes and Framing (Though I may move framing to the above class)
Class Four: Photoshop Basics, Sharing, Social Media etc.
Class Five: Trip to local park to put everything into action.

I'll be teaching them about Daguerreotypes and film photography in class one to help explain the three concepts (ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture). Though I won't be going too in depth with this. However, I'm concerned this'd be a tad dull. What would be a good, but small practical exercise for the first week?

Thanks all! I'm feeling okay about it, but any insight to kids or basic practical exercises, would be great!

I'm doing something similar myself (average age of students being about 12).

If i were being completely honest, I'd scrap a lot of the stuff you have planned. Too much technical jargon, in my opinion. The best way to kill someone's interest in something is to spend an hour telling them about the history of it, (again, in my personal opinion).

I've decided to spend the first class making a pinhole camera (won't actually use it to take pictures, but it'll be something practical for them to do and I can explain how a camera works in it's most basic form).

I also had planned to set up a multi-flash set up and show the kids how flash/light direction/size/etc. affected the person, with shadows falling in different ways, etc. but then I realised that most of them will be using point and shoots, so I'll be showing them something they cant do themselves, anyway (thus making it a bit redundant).


I've decided to spend most of my time just getting them to do something practical and basic. They won't learn much from me from a technical standpoint, but even if they did, as the likely won't have DSLRs anyway, they'd just forget it the next week. I'll do the rule of thirds and show them compression/depression with zooming and other such compositional things. These are things a point and shoot is capable of, so...


I would advise to keep away from stuff they won't be able to do themselves (I will be using paint.net instead of photoshop for example, as it's free, so they'll all be able to access it when they go home, if they wish, whereas the majority of them having access to photoshop is very unlikely).


Take my post very lightly though. I'm new to teaching kids (will be my first time, too) and obviously everyone will differ with their approach. My kids have to have something to show for the end of the week, and it has to be on a budget, so I've made my classes try to work around that. You can obviously do as you like with your classes - I'm just throwing an opinion at you

AnCatDubh

As a practical demonstration, if your teaching environment allows for it, camera obscura would be a jaw dropper. I always thought to actually bring someone into the chamber of a camera is such a cool concept.

Good luck with it.

mrboswell

Even for 'gifted' children, for 8-12 year olds 90 mins of a class is WAY too long.
I suspect that unless there is some practical activity they will be asleep after 25 mins. Pinhole is a good idea but you sholud make sure that at some point over the course you can show them you pictures they have taken.

I know that we are living in an advanced techie age but I reckon photoshop is a bit ott. I teach 12-18 and everything is cool for 5 mins but the next 85 could be very long....

mehfesto

Cheers guys.

I'm planning the large scale camera obscura for the first day. T'would be a good way to get to know everyone and it'll keep them occupied and interested, hopefully. Then on Friday I'll have them making their own smaller ones!

Cheers guys.

Well I did my first class on Monday, with a group of ~15 year olds (or so I'd guess).

My pinhole camera idea went out the window as soon as I walked into the class, and I can safely presume my whole planned curriculum will be completely different now. First class was mostly theoretical with a bit of practical (showing them how zooming compresses things, basic pose ideas, etc. (As they'll be most likely shooting each other a lot).

Class didn't go as well as hoped, but my group are Spanish and the language barrier is a little more noticeable than I'd originally expected it would be, so that may have been a contributing factor. That said, when they were actually taking photos they seemed happy enough. So if I were you, I'd get any theory you want to cover out of the way instantly, and then use the rest of the time to do practical stuff, but keep referring back to the theory you did the first day (this is my new approach).


I have another class today, and I plan to spend about 20-30 minutes going over what we did on Monday, showing them some more basic compositional things (focusing heavily on the rule of thirds) and then an hour outside letting them run wild, and working with them in turns, in small groups, two or three at a time.

Could go down in flames, of course, but it's a nice day out so I hope that bringing them outside will keep them somewhat happy and entertained, and with teaching in small groups they'll all learn something. I'll let you know how I get on!

Getting them outside a fair bit worked a charm. Language barrier still exists (though not as noticeable when trying to keep it as constant practical work).

mehfesto

Brilliant, cheers KKV.
I've tweaked the classes a little now.

Going to have three days of 20-25 mins theory (as told by Spongebob/me) and then take them outside to put what they learned into practice. Then the Thursday and Friday I'll be showing them how to use Paint.new/GIMP/Pixlr.com, with the images they've taken.

All going well I'll have time to put a challenge in each day too!

Thanks again - I'll try keep you posted on how I'm getting on myself!

Well what I was doing, was spending 15 minutes working on something, and then giving them 15 minutes to do it.

So I showed them the rule of thirds, for example, and they had to go out and take a photo that involved it. Then I showed them DOF and how distance works (closer your subject and further back your background, etc.) and they had to do that, (and so on) and towards the end of each lesson, they had to take a photo that combined all of the things we covered.


They all have their own point and shoot cameras, but I was also letting them take turns using my camera, too (big gripped DSLR camera was a bit of a novelty and was going down well with them).