Yasmin started her art career through television art programmes for art enthusiasts in India. She has over 20 years of experience in Art, 15 of which she has spent teaching Art to various age groups. She is experienced in teaching PYP, MYP Art, ICSE Art, IGCSE Art & Design, Singapore MOE Art & PAL Visual Arts (Programme for Active Learning Visual arts). She believes in experimental learning by incorporating different art forms and techniques to widen one's art knowledge and skills.
Yasmin is a Postgraduate in Resource Management with Early childhood education experience. She holds a Cambridge Accreditation for IGCSE Art & Design and Cambridge International Diploma for Teachers & Trainers from CIE. She is also certified in Educational Studies from The College of Teachers, UK and is a trained professional in Portrait drawing & Western Art from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore.
Yasmin strikes a balance with traditional and digital art as she firmly believes that both these art forms are interrelated. She was privileged to be nominated for the prestigious President's Design Award 2012 and was blessed to share her school publication design works with the then Hon'ble President of Singapore Mr Tony Tan Keng Yam.
Yasmin believes OWIS’ strong commitment to its art programme is a perfect fit to unleash one’s aesthetic and creative expressions. She trains students to be expressive through art as it is a reflection of them and their technical skills are strengthened from the foundation level.
As far as her learning approach towards art is concerned, Yasmin is convinced that "Art is a process, not a product!"
Interpretation is the power of linking perception with expression. It is how one person sees something in an object, a text, an idea or a visual cue, that another may not. It relies on the bond between observation and judgement, and this relationship itself is coloured by one’s experiences, knowledge, and training.
For school-going students, working on the skill of interpretation in art classes translates into manifold benefits in their own artistic ability and output, in their abilities in other subjects, and their overall development.
When used in the context of art, interpretation refers to discovering meaning in the work of an artist and then forming connections to it to further our thinking or creative pursuit.
For example, take a look at this image of a dried leaf on a tile. Going beyond what you see with the naked eye, what does this remind you of? Try to form a connection with something else you may have experienced or seen.
These following doodles are personal interpretations of how different people with different mindsets may strike a connection between the leaf and other things they are familiar with.
All these options are equally interesting in their own way.
In schools, typically the focus in art lessons is the creation of an artwork or building of practical art skills. Teachers work on giving students exposure to different media, materials and processes and the formal practice of creating lines, shapes and colours.
While this aspect is very important, there is a case to be made for the strong connection between learning to interpret art and the art one creates. When students are shown the works of great artists, their takeaway should transcend literal observation and admiration of the artwork. In order to have a meaningful engagement with these visual masterpieces, students should have the tools to be able to bring some intellectual line of thinking to explore the vision of the artist and the expression of the idea.
At One World International School, we believe our art classes for Primary and Secondary students offer a wonderful opportunity to hone this skill of interpretation and utilise it for the well-rounded development of the child. These are the benefits of teaching interpretation in our art classes:
A teacher with a structured teaching approach to learning may find it difficult to be creative. This will affect logical thinking, and in a dominos-like effect, the power of interpretation. For IGCSE and IB DP Visual Arts students, this will affect the freedom of detailed interpretations, evaluations, and comparisons, and they may find it tough to move further in their research.
At OWIS, our experienced art department is trained to build this skill in interpretation. Besides all the benefits listed above, we also consider interpretation by students as an opportunity for them to voice their opinion and exercise agency.
These are some of the steps in the teaching process to guide our IGCSE and IB DP students to a fruitful point of destiny in their art process:
Logical and creative thinking are like two sides of a coin. By guiding students to put their thought processes in a logical order, our teachers manage to improve their creativity.
A vivid example of the role of interpretation in art is our 2021 Eco-Art project. In this collaborative exercise, students across the school were given a theme and they had to interpret the theme as per their collective knowledge and experience, and then shape these thoughts into a meaningful outcome. By applying grade-appropriate artistic techniques and their power of interpretation and creative expression, students worked together to create beautiful works of art with recycled material.
At OWIS, art is an integral part of our balanced curriculum and we understand the value it brings to academic outcomes, physical and mental health and community well-being. If you would like to know more about our balanced curriculum, please join our virtual tour.
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