Results are still coming in for the Urban Planner project. So until then, a placeholder:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
by J, 10th grade
- "Draw a comic strip aobut how you spent your [Thanksgiving] holiday"
First frame: A happy woman holding a baby.
Second frame: 3 weeping figures around a coffin, with text that reads "R.I.P. Baby Matthew".
Third frame: The same woman from the first frame, now weeping, in front of a table full of food.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
A roomful of city planners
My primary goal as a teacher, at its loftiest and most philosophical, is to create meaningful, living content for students that encourages critical analysis and self-reflection. Unfortunately, this is the first thing to disappear from view when bogged down by assessments, paperwork, classroom management and endless faculty meetings. Too often I let the students try to find their own meaning in a project as I rush through the introduction in an effort to get their hands busy. But now that I have the benefit of a year's previous experience and a semester under my belt in my current placement, I am able to focus more on these overarching goals - what Neil Postman refers to as the "ends of education", not the means. The means are the technical and mechanical aspects of schooling: standardized testing, integration of technology, methods of remediation and so on. The greater issue, the one that determines the true value of school, is a metaphysical one. "It is important to keep in mind that the engineering of learning is very often puffed up, assigned an importance it does not deserve," he writes in The End of Education. "To become a different person because of something you have learned - to appropriate an insight, a concept, a vision, so that your world is altered - that is a different matter. For that to happen, you need a reason. And this is the metaphysical problem I speak of."
My students are halfway through a project that, in the past, was much more technical than metaphysical. It is called Cityscapes, and in this project, students draw an urban street corner scene using 2-point perspective. Linear perspective is one of those basic art skills that needs to be covered in Art I, either explicitly or implicitly. A good project will embed technique into meaningful, student-driven content, but occasionally there are techniques that are more often studied, at least in part, in isolation before being applied to artwork. Clay technique, and printmaking strategies for example. I had always assumed that linear perspective was one of these techniques as well.
For those who don't know, linear perspective is the graphic system for creating the illusion of depth using lines: the tunnel vision-style of one-point perspective, or the street corner-style two-point. Of all art processes and concepts, it is the one that most resembles a mathematical formula or scientific principle: follow a set procedure, achieve a predictable result. The art teacher is usually in the business of encouraging and rewarding divergent, creative responses, but linear perspective produces convergent, similar responses. It is usually covered in middle school, but since art is not a core requirement after the 5th grade, some of my students may not have had art since elementary school. The challenge becomes to teach a relatively dry subject in a new way. Standard linear perspective projects include Dream Bedrooms (design your fantasy bedroom using one-point perspective) and Cityscapes (design a street-corner scene using two-point perspective). Both have the potential to be fun and creative, but on its own linear perspective is fairly rote, dry stuff.
With the help of my mentor and some inspiring passages by Postman and Paolo Freire, I brainstormed a way to give this project real-world problems, a cultural connection, opportunities for collaboration and meaningful critical analysis. After teaching the principles of perspective and letting students practice it for several days on worksheets and observational activities in the hallway and classroom, I proposed a challenge. They would be required to include 10 different entities in their cityscapes - businesses, living spaces, city services, etc - that would be replaced by actual local entities of their choice. The dilemma: some of these entities may be in conflict with each other. Role-playing as City Planner, how would they acknowledge the issues that exist in our city, resolve some of these conflicts, and design a city plan that is safe, productive and equitable?
The 10 entities are:
1. Bank
2. Hospital
3. Apartments (low rent)
4. Condos (upscale)
5. Institution of Higher Learning
6. Sewage Treatment Plant
7. Mom & Pop Restaurant - African-American-owned
8. Chain Restaurant - White-owned
9. Barber Shop - African-American-owned
10. Clothing Store (inexpensive) - White-owned
Our city has a population split approximately down the middle between black and white (with a burgeoning Hispanic population). It is a southern city, and has a typically unsavory history of racism and segregation. There is also an economic disparity split roughly along racial lines, with a giant, glaring symbol of this rift in the form of an elite private college populated largely by affluent white students from outside the community, especially New England. The nation
learned of our city's racial and economic disparity less than a year ago when several of this university's athletes were accused of raping an African-American student from a neighboring, historically black college.
How would my students address these issues? Would they acknowledge or ignore these problems? Would they, all but a handful being African-American, resent discussing these issues with a white teacher? Would they keep things in the city the way they are, if given the power of an urban planner, or would they try to fix problems that they see?
We've gone pretty far beyond a Dream Bedroom in one-point perspective now.
I broke students up into groups and proposed some of these questions. I let them discuss it for 10 minutes or so, sketching some ideas for their city plan, then had them share their results. I circulated the room while they collaborated, and was impressed with the level of engagement in most groups. Discussions were meaningful and often intense. Disagreements occurred, often settled by a debate about the logic of a certain scenario. For example, it was difficult for students to resolve the issue of the sewage treatment plant. It couldn't be put near a living space or a restaurant or a hospital. Where do cities usually place such things? How could they include this urban necessity, while still being fair to the population?
Some sample discussions:
R & E (period 4) decided that the low-rent apartments should go downtown so that those people could have access to the things they need. They also put the bank and the restaurants downtown as well. They placed the upscale condos far on the edge of town, thinking that the wealthier people could afford cars/transportation, while low-income residents would need to walk.
Bright & creative K (period 4) surprised me by designing a city that was essentially the way it is now: a racially and economically segregated city. The chain restaurants ("upscale" by her assumption) were placed next to the college, bank and upscale condos. The mom & pop restaurant and barber shop - both black-owned - were placed near the low-rent apartments, which sidled up to the sewage treatment plant.
A, a distracted kid who is usually more interested in the remote control for my stereo than any art project, asked why there wasn't a library in the cityscape. Together, we decided there should also be a school and a grocery store for future projects.
The students have just begun to produce final drawings of their cityscapes, incorporating all of these themes and ideas. The culminating activity will be a gallery walk, where students observe and discuss each other's work, then produce a written response about the exercise.
As results come in, I hope to record them here. In the meantime, I will look ahead to future projects and redesign them so that the focus continues to be about the ends of education, not the means.
My students are halfway through a project that, in the past, was much more technical than metaphysical. It is called Cityscapes, and in this project, students draw an urban street corner scene using 2-point perspective. Linear perspective is one of those basic art skills that needs to be covered in Art I, either explicitly or implicitly. A good project will embed technique into meaningful, student-driven content, but occasionally there are techniques that are more often studied, at least in part, in isolation before being applied to artwork. Clay technique, and printmaking strategies for example. I had always assumed that linear perspective was one of these techniques as well.
For those who don't know, linear perspective is the graphic system for creating the illusion of depth using lines: the tunnel vision-style of one-point perspective, or the street corner-style two-point. Of all art processes and concepts, it is the one that most resembles a mathematical formula or scientific principle: follow a set procedure, achieve a predictable result. The art teacher is usually in the business of encouraging and rewarding divergent, creative responses, but linear perspective produces convergent, similar responses. It is usually covered in middle school, but since art is not a core requirement after the 5th grade, some of my students may not have had art since elementary school. The challenge becomes to teach a relatively dry subject in a new way. Standard linear perspective projects include Dream Bedrooms (design your fantasy bedroom using one-point perspective) and Cityscapes (design a street-corner scene using two-point perspective). Both have the potential to be fun and creative, but on its own linear perspective is fairly rote, dry stuff.
With the help of my mentor and some inspiring passages by Postman and Paolo Freire, I brainstormed a way to give this project real-world problems, a cultural connection, opportunities for collaboration and meaningful critical analysis. After teaching the principles of perspective and letting students practice it for several days on worksheets and observational activities in the hallway and classroom, I proposed a challenge. They would be required to include 10 different entities in their cityscapes - businesses, living spaces, city services, etc - that would be replaced by actual local entities of their choice. The dilemma: some of these entities may be in conflict with each other. Role-playing as City Planner, how would they acknowledge the issues that exist in our city, resolve some of these conflicts, and design a city plan that is safe, productive and equitable?
The 10 entities are:
1. Bank
2. Hospital
3. Apartments (low rent)
4. Condos (upscale)
5. Institution of Higher Learning
6. Sewage Treatment Plant
7. Mom & Pop Restaurant - African-American-owned
8. Chain Restaurant - White-owned
9. Barber Shop - African-American-owned
10. Clothing Store (inexpensive) - White-owned
Our city has a population split approximately down the middle between black and white (with a burgeoning Hispanic population). It is a southern city, and has a typically unsavory history of racism and segregation. There is also an economic disparity split roughly along racial lines, with a giant, glaring symbol of this rift in the form of an elite private college populated largely by affluent white students from outside the community, especially New England. The nation
learned of our city's racial and economic disparity less than a year ago when several of this university's athletes were accused of raping an African-American student from a neighboring, historically black college.
How would my students address these issues? Would they acknowledge or ignore these problems? Would they, all but a handful being African-American, resent discussing these issues with a white teacher? Would they keep things in the city the way they are, if given the power of an urban planner, or would they try to fix problems that they see?
We've gone pretty far beyond a Dream Bedroom in one-point perspective now.
I broke students up into groups and proposed some of these questions. I let them discuss it for 10 minutes or so, sketching some ideas for their city plan, then had them share their results. I circulated the room while they collaborated, and was impressed with the level of engagement in most groups. Discussions were meaningful and often intense. Disagreements occurred, often settled by a debate about the logic of a certain scenario. For example, it was difficult for students to resolve the issue of the sewage treatment plant. It couldn't be put near a living space or a restaurant or a hospital. Where do cities usually place such things? How could they include this urban necessity, while still being fair to the population?
Some sample discussions:
R & E (period 4) decided that the low-rent apartments should go downtown so that those people could have access to the things they need. They also put the bank and the restaurants downtown as well. They placed the upscale condos far on the edge of town, thinking that the wealthier people could afford cars/transportation, while low-income residents would need to walk.
Bright & creative K (period 4) surprised me by designing a city that was essentially the way it is now: a racially and economically segregated city. The chain restaurants ("upscale" by her assumption) were placed next to the college, bank and upscale condos. The mom & pop restaurant and barber shop - both black-owned - were placed near the low-rent apartments, which sidled up to the sewage treatment plant.
A, a distracted kid who is usually more interested in the remote control for my stereo than any art project, asked why there wasn't a library in the cityscape. Together, we decided there should also be a school and a grocery store for future projects.
The students have just begun to produce final drawings of their cityscapes, incorporating all of these themes and ideas. The culminating activity will be a gallery walk, where students observe and discuss each other's work, then produce a written response about the exercise.
As results come in, I hope to record them here. In the meantime, I will look ahead to future projects and redesign them so that the focus continues to be about the ends of education, not the means.
Monday, February 12, 2007
A hostile audience
"God! I do NOT want to do this! Art is stupid! God-uh... Why can't I change classes??" So sang B, the day after it became too late to change classes.
One of the things that attracted me to teaching as a career was the fact that it retained some of the most exciting elements of music as a career - creative, social, with a performance aspect - while adding more rewarding and frankly reliable elements - a state paycheck with state benefits, professional opportunities, and oh right, the chance to positively impact the lives of children. I think it is my background in those first elements that has made my career shift relatively smooth and painless. When I was a record store owner, I learned that if we wanted to be able to pay our bills every month, we needed to adapt to the slippery, evasive needs of our clientele. Perhaps more importantly, as a performer I learned how to negotiate a hostile bar crowd who has not come to see you play tonight, and is refusing to pay the $3 cover charge required if they want to continue to drink there. You stock the right records, you play the right covers, you contort yourself but don't sell yourself out. If we were saving a cover of Cheap Trick's "Surrender" for an encore, we'd open with it to appease the scowling bikers and hobos hovering around our girlfriends.
My brother, now a Penn State faculty member, followed a similar career trajectory from bar band to classroom. From tot to teen, I admired the rock star side of him, and was honestly perplexed by his passion for education. I remember him saying, after being asked by a confused little brother who had just inherited his vintage, no-longer-used Gretsch Chet Atkins Tennessean, that teaching was just as satisfying as performing. Standing up in front of a class of students, he assured me, was just as rewarding as standing up in front of an audience at a club.
I didn't believe him.
Now that I'm on the rational side of planning a career in the creative arts, I can understand where he is coming from, and yes, it is just as rewarding. Maybe even more so, because you know it matters. Songs are great, and I love nothing more than being told by a complete stranger that my music affected them on a deep level, but what fills me with happiness now is to see a student discover a love for art, or if I'm lucky, discover that they have a valid, even important voice.
That's why I take B's comments as a challenge, and one that I'm ready to win.
The project was Hand Drawings, wherein students practice and apply skills for drawing from life and observation - accurate shading and detail are preferred. Though seemingly simple, it is exactly the kind of project that causes a student like B to shut down. Drawing the human body, especially something as complex as the hand, requires a fair amount of skill and, because of the familiarity of the subject, leaves little room for error. Everyone is familiar with what their hand looks like (it's not like the back of their hand, it IS the back of their hand!), so for a student who feels like she can't draw, it is like being asked to speak Russian or breathe underwater. Most often, a student who doesn't understand will reject the project by either shutting down or becoming defiant. B was feeling defiant.
"Let's take it one step at a time. Now, how do you begin drawing hands?" I say. I had shown them some techniques whereby the artist simplifies an object into geometric shapes.
"I don't care, it's stupid!". She is looking away from me. But I'm still there.
"Well, can I see what you've done so far?"
"I didn't do anything. It's not good, I'm not an artist. God, can't I change classes? Can't I take Creative Writing or music instead?"
She has drawn something, in fact, and I move it closer. She is still looking away, and is very poor at hiding her annoyance with me.
It is a rudimentary mitten-shape hand - the first step in the process of observational drawing through geometric reduction. There are still three steps to go: contour lines for the shape of the fingers and hand, details in the wrinkles and lines, and finally shading.
"OK, well this is actually a good start," I encourage.
"No it's not, it's dumb. God."
"Look, you've only just started. Right, it's not beautiful now - I wouldn't buy this and put it in a frame and hang it on the wall - but you're on the right track. You just have to keep going."
She is looking at the drawing now, not looking away. She is quiet.
"It's like cooking. Do you cook? Well let's say you're making a soup. You melted some butter in a pan, cut up some onions, and then you push the pan away saying, 'I can't make soup'. Well you haven't made soup yet! You're only getting started! Wait til you make the soup and taste it, then you can decide if you can make soup or not. OK?"
She is still looking at the drawing. She has picked up her pencil, and is kind of tickling the paper with her pencil. I move away and keep my distance for the remainder of class, but I keep my eye on her. She will work on her drawing for the rest of period.
At the end of class, she comes up to me with a finished drawing of a hand like her own, holding a pencil. It is crude and simple, but she is beaming.
"Look, what do you think?" she gushes. I praise enthusiastically, it is the freaking Mona Lisa. I give her a verbal pat on the back, saying that I always knew she could do it.
She takes the drawing with her, and will come back periodically throughout the day to show me her progress on the drawing. A little detail added to the knuckles. A change in design to a baby hand holding a rattle, and oh yes, how do you draw a rattle? Some color, some shadow. How do you get the right skin tone?
She hasn't asked to drop my class since.
One of the things that attracted me to teaching as a career was the fact that it retained some of the most exciting elements of music as a career - creative, social, with a performance aspect - while adding more rewarding and frankly reliable elements - a state paycheck with state benefits, professional opportunities, and oh right, the chance to positively impact the lives of children. I think it is my background in those first elements that has made my career shift relatively smooth and painless. When I was a record store owner, I learned that if we wanted to be able to pay our bills every month, we needed to adapt to the slippery, evasive needs of our clientele. Perhaps more importantly, as a performer I learned how to negotiate a hostile bar crowd who has not come to see you play tonight, and is refusing to pay the $3 cover charge required if they want to continue to drink there. You stock the right records, you play the right covers, you contort yourself but don't sell yourself out. If we were saving a cover of Cheap Trick's "Surrender" for an encore, we'd open with it to appease the scowling bikers and hobos hovering around our girlfriends.
My brother, now a Penn State faculty member, followed a similar career trajectory from bar band to classroom. From tot to teen, I admired the rock star side of him, and was honestly perplexed by his passion for education. I remember him saying, after being asked by a confused little brother who had just inherited his vintage, no-longer-used Gretsch Chet Atkins Tennessean, that teaching was just as satisfying as performing. Standing up in front of a class of students, he assured me, was just as rewarding as standing up in front of an audience at a club.
I didn't believe him.
Now that I'm on the rational side of planning a career in the creative arts, I can understand where he is coming from, and yes, it is just as rewarding. Maybe even more so, because you know it matters. Songs are great, and I love nothing more than being told by a complete stranger that my music affected them on a deep level, but what fills me with happiness now is to see a student discover a love for art, or if I'm lucky, discover that they have a valid, even important voice.
That's why I take B's comments as a challenge, and one that I'm ready to win.
The project was Hand Drawings, wherein students practice and apply skills for drawing from life and observation - accurate shading and detail are preferred. Though seemingly simple, it is exactly the kind of project that causes a student like B to shut down. Drawing the human body, especially something as complex as the hand, requires a fair amount of skill and, because of the familiarity of the subject, leaves little room for error. Everyone is familiar with what their hand looks like (it's not like the back of their hand, it IS the back of their hand!), so for a student who feels like she can't draw, it is like being asked to speak Russian or breathe underwater. Most often, a student who doesn't understand will reject the project by either shutting down or becoming defiant. B was feeling defiant.
"Let's take it one step at a time. Now, how do you begin drawing hands?" I say. I had shown them some techniques whereby the artist simplifies an object into geometric shapes.
"I don't care, it's stupid!". She is looking away from me. But I'm still there.
"Well, can I see what you've done so far?"
"I didn't do anything. It's not good, I'm not an artist. God, can't I change classes? Can't I take Creative Writing or music instead?"
She has drawn something, in fact, and I move it closer. She is still looking away, and is very poor at hiding her annoyance with me.
It is a rudimentary mitten-shape hand - the first step in the process of observational drawing through geometric reduction. There are still three steps to go: contour lines for the shape of the fingers and hand, details in the wrinkles and lines, and finally shading.
"OK, well this is actually a good start," I encourage.
"No it's not, it's dumb. God."
"Look, you've only just started. Right, it's not beautiful now - I wouldn't buy this and put it in a frame and hang it on the wall - but you're on the right track. You just have to keep going."
She is looking at the drawing now, not looking away. She is quiet.
"It's like cooking. Do you cook? Well let's say you're making a soup. You melted some butter in a pan, cut up some onions, and then you push the pan away saying, 'I can't make soup'. Well you haven't made soup yet! You're only getting started! Wait til you make the soup and taste it, then you can decide if you can make soup or not. OK?"
She is still looking at the drawing. She has picked up her pencil, and is kind of tickling the paper with her pencil. I move away and keep my distance for the remainder of class, but I keep my eye on her. She will work on her drawing for the rest of period.
At the end of class, she comes up to me with a finished drawing of a hand like her own, holding a pencil. It is crude and simple, but she is beaming.
"Look, what do you think?" she gushes. I praise enthusiastically, it is the freaking Mona Lisa. I give her a verbal pat on the back, saying that I always knew she could do it.
She takes the drawing with her, and will come back periodically throughout the day to show me her progress on the drawing. A little detail added to the knuckles. A change in design to a baby hand holding a rattle, and oh yes, how do you draw a rattle? Some color, some shadow. How do you get the right skin tone?
She hasn't asked to drop my class since.
Friday, February 9, 2007
Foreign tongues
Like much of the southeast, my city is experiencing a explosion in the immigrant population - primarily of Hispanic (especially Mexican) background. As such, I have an influx of students of varying English competency. Last semester these students were all on very high levels, nearly fluent, and required little modification. This semester is a different story. In my second period class there are two boys who speak extremely limited English, to be generous. Their English is worse than my Spanish, which despite my 6 years of study is limited to Mexican restaurant menus, bathroom requests and a Sesame Street guy-in-the-desert vocabulary.
These kids are typically among my hardest working students, not only because they want to learn the material and fulfil their academic responsibility (the strongest work ethics in the building, if I may generalize), but they are also struggling to overcome a tough language barrier. It is not classified as such, but it is nothing other than a disability - an impediment to learning more dramatic than dyslexia. Fortunately, my job is easier than other teachers because mine is essentially a visual discipline, and I routinely model techniques and processes before students ever begin. An ELL (English language learner) student can follow along with my demonstrations to understand concepts. I couldn't imagine being a chemistry teacher and putting volatile chemicals into the hands of a student who can't understand a verbal warning (I picture chemistry teachers miming explosions with big hand gestures, saying "Boom!").
In second period, I am explaining my techniques to the whole class - in English, of course - with clear demonstrations, then I will take the ELL students aside and ask, "Do you understand?... um, Comprenedes?". They will nod politely, but it is clear they haven't the foggiest notion what to do. I've started bringing a Spanish/English dictionary to school, and I will slog through a clumsy translation of the assignment, flipping pages as I go: "Um, Dibujar... la (objects, what's the word for...) que es la palabra para "objects"... objetas, objetos con su lapiz, y... dibujar... la... (shadows, shadows... here it is) sombra. Dibujar la sombra. Si?" They nod, correct my pronunciation a bit, and continue to draw according to my visual demonstration.
I need to develop a basic Spanish proficiency if I am to properly serve this growing population, but I also need to discern when it is helpful to speak their native tongue, and when it is necessary to help them speak English. My projects, though visual art projects, often have written responses that ask students to reflect on their challenges and successes. Is it good to encourage these students to write a more sophisticated response in their native tongue (which I can have another student or teacher translate for me), or is it better to make them struggle with the foreign tongue? Does it promote or enforce some sort of assimilation for a student who may only be in the United States temporarily? When does adaptation end and assimilation begin? Is it my responsibility to know the difference? Is this overthinking for a high-school art teacher? Are there ways for us to incorporate their culture into our artwork so that we may learn from them without exploiting/exoticizing their experience? We are told to do so in our teacher education programs, but rarely shown how.
One of my most talented students - the one and only student in the school's new IB Visual Art program (a point of pride for a later post) - is also in this classroom at the same time. She is quite proficient in high school Spanish, has noticed these students struggling and has begun translating for me during instruction. I have been impressed with her ability to identify the need and attempt to help without being asked or made to oblige. She has done so because she can, and I know that she respects the ELL students and especially admires their culture, because I can see its influence in her artwork.
Not surprisingly, they have taken notice of her, too. I happened to notice that she wrote them a note explaining the assignment in Spanish, which she passed to them so they could understand what they were asked to do. The note came back with the following response:
"Tienes boyfrent?"
These kids are typically among my hardest working students, not only because they want to learn the material and fulfil their academic responsibility (the strongest work ethics in the building, if I may generalize), but they are also struggling to overcome a tough language barrier. It is not classified as such, but it is nothing other than a disability - an impediment to learning more dramatic than dyslexia. Fortunately, my job is easier than other teachers because mine is essentially a visual discipline, and I routinely model techniques and processes before students ever begin. An ELL (English language learner) student can follow along with my demonstrations to understand concepts. I couldn't imagine being a chemistry teacher and putting volatile chemicals into the hands of a student who can't understand a verbal warning (I picture chemistry teachers miming explosions with big hand gestures, saying "Boom!").
In second period, I am explaining my techniques to the whole class - in English, of course - with clear demonstrations, then I will take the ELL students aside and ask, "Do you understand?... um, Comprenedes?". They will nod politely, but it is clear they haven't the foggiest notion what to do. I've started bringing a Spanish/English dictionary to school, and I will slog through a clumsy translation of the assignment, flipping pages as I go: "Um, Dibujar... la (objects, what's the word for...) que es la palabra para "objects"... objetas, objetos con su lapiz, y... dibujar... la... (shadows, shadows... here it is) sombra. Dibujar la sombra. Si?" They nod, correct my pronunciation a bit, and continue to draw according to my visual demonstration.
I need to develop a basic Spanish proficiency if I am to properly serve this growing population, but I also need to discern when it is helpful to speak their native tongue, and when it is necessary to help them speak English. My projects, though visual art projects, often have written responses that ask students to reflect on their challenges and successes. Is it good to encourage these students to write a more sophisticated response in their native tongue (which I can have another student or teacher translate for me), or is it better to make them struggle with the foreign tongue? Does it promote or enforce some sort of assimilation for a student who may only be in the United States temporarily? When does adaptation end and assimilation begin? Is it my responsibility to know the difference? Is this overthinking for a high-school art teacher? Are there ways for us to incorporate their culture into our artwork so that we may learn from them without exploiting/exoticizing their experience? We are told to do so in our teacher education programs, but rarely shown how.
One of my most talented students - the one and only student in the school's new IB Visual Art program (a point of pride for a later post) - is also in this classroom at the same time. She is quite proficient in high school Spanish, has noticed these students struggling and has begun translating for me during instruction. I have been impressed with her ability to identify the need and attempt to help without being asked or made to oblige. She has done so because she can, and I know that she respects the ELL students and especially admires their culture, because I can see its influence in her artwork.
Not surprisingly, they have taken notice of her, too. I happened to notice that she wrote them a note explaining the assignment in Spanish, which she passed to them so they could understand what they were asked to do. The note came back with the following response:
"Tienes boyfrent?"
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
A little guidance
I learned quite a bit about the inner-workings of our school in the past weeks. I spent some time with our guidance counselors to discuss the issues raised in my last entry - namely, that students are placed in my class against their will ("dumped", a reactionary teacher would say) when a different placement may suit them better. The issue is more complicated than that, naturally. It seems there are across-the-board problems with the master schedule involving a sort of bottle-necking of students during 2nd and 3rd period. Classes are overcrowded throughout the building, and available electives are few. Students with gaps in their schedule may only have a choice between Art and ROTC (which would you choose?). And typically there are students who don't know where they want to be when they're signing up for classes - until they get there and realize that ain't it.
Still, I had a few students who were defiantly opposed to learning anything about art (?) and were desperate to switch classes. I went to guidance and advocated for a different placement for these students, expecting to be politely shown the door. On the contrary, the counselors were understanding and immediately accommodating. They actually changed two student schedules while I was there. This sort of thing is completely unprecedented - "Don't even bother going to guidance", other teachers warned me, "That won't get you anywhere." These teachers would probably be the types to storm in and slap their roster down on a counselor's desk demanding satisfaction. Instead, I approached them in a friendly way, as colleagues, and got immediate results. I was even able to express concerns about class size and shoot the breeze about the value of art education in general. This is not to say that my challenges expressed earlier are solved - I am still working to promote engagement and quell the drift toward entropy, always will - but it's nice to know that the powers that be are at least nominally sympathetic.
So it's hard to be a guidance counselor, I suppose. Especially at a school with the organizational horrors of ours. And hokey as it sounds, it seems people are just plain ol' people if you treat them nice. The saying about flies and the vinegar and honey may be true.
Now, what to do with those students who weren't able to change my class? (And there's quite a few of them!). Should I grade them on their ability to ignore me and sleep, or can you make a semester out of hand turkeys?
Still, I had a few students who were defiantly opposed to learning anything about art (?) and were desperate to switch classes. I went to guidance and advocated for a different placement for these students, expecting to be politely shown the door. On the contrary, the counselors were understanding and immediately accommodating. They actually changed two student schedules while I was there. This sort of thing is completely unprecedented - "Don't even bother going to guidance", other teachers warned me, "That won't get you anywhere." These teachers would probably be the types to storm in and slap their roster down on a counselor's desk demanding satisfaction. Instead, I approached them in a friendly way, as colleagues, and got immediate results. I was even able to express concerns about class size and shoot the breeze about the value of art education in general. This is not to say that my challenges expressed earlier are solved - I am still working to promote engagement and quell the drift toward entropy, always will - but it's nice to know that the powers that be are at least nominally sympathetic.
So it's hard to be a guidance counselor, I suppose. Especially at a school with the organizational horrors of ours. And hokey as it sounds, it seems people are just plain ol' people if you treat them nice. The saying about flies and the vinegar and honey may be true.
Now, what to do with those students who weren't able to change my class? (And there's quite a few of them!). Should I grade them on their ability to ignore me and sleep, or can you make a semester out of hand turkeys?
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