cycles

so i almost feel like i am going through the stages of grief, or some-such nonsense. i was so angry last week... now i feel like i am back to accepting my job and trying to think of creative ways to work through the challenges i have.

art club has helped that. hugs help that. feeling like my job is not insignificant helps A LOT.

i am pretty behind on grading and a bit behind on planning. i have a lot to do tonight. i need to get an after work cup of coffee...

things i feel i am getting better at:

-management, slowly but surely
-knowing how long a projeact will take and pacing instruction
-modeling each individual step

things i still need to improve at:
-connecting curriculum
-highlighting vocabulary
-integrating art history and model art works
-being more organized in general


on an unrelated note, i'm wearing stretch-pants-as-pants today. gloriously comfortable but kinda risque for school. oh well. comfort over all.

Art Club, A tale of two environments, projects we are working on

So at my 1 day a week school I am hosting art club. (My 4 day a week school doesn't have ANY clubs... for whatever reason) Yesterday was our first meeting and it was total lunacy. There were over 30 kids there. I don't think I could have been more unprepared. LUCKILY it was our principals birthday so we made birthday cards for her. Thank goodness for that.

My 1D (one day) school is amazing. It is a very similar student population between both of my sites (80% hispanic, 95% free/reduced meals) but at this school I have:
-a classroom
-supportive staff and administration
-an environment that is not plagued by fear of doing/saying the wrong thing
When I am there I feel like I belong there. When I am at the 4D school... I feel like I am someone that the administration and other staff actively tries to hide away. Now my office/closet is being used almost every day all day for testing, so I am not even allowed access to my own supplies. I came back this morning to discover teachers had taken almost half of my only stack of drawing paper.

I have to keep telling myself-- this is not about me, it's about these kids. It's not about me. It's not about me. They can take everything from me, give me nothing, no space to work in, no supplies, it doesnt matter. I will find a way to teach art and it will be amazing and I will still be a great teacher.

Some projects we are working on:
Kindergarten is going rainbow hair portraits. 1st grade is doing Wassily Kadinsky style shape drawings. Since I can't use paint, I am using markers to color our pictures and then "painting" the marker areas with water to get a nice watercolor look to our pictures. 2nd and 3rd grade are working on 3D cityscape monoprints that we did with marker/water as well. 4th grade is working on self portraits and basic drawing techniques. 5th & 6th grade is learning drawing/shading and going to start their first still life.

I am 4 weeks behind in grading.

Sigh.

It's not about me. It's about the kids.

Anger

Right now at my primary school, the elevator is broken with no fix date in sight. This is the school where I do not have a classroom and teach from a cart. I do have an awesome cart--- but it's basically unusable without the elevator as it is about 100 pounds when empty and there is no way I would be able to cart it up and down the four flights of stairs present in the school. My lessons have suffered greatly because of this. I am limited to using whatever supplies I can carry, and that is not much. Crayons, markers, and printer paper are now the primary things I use to teach art. I hate it. I have shed so many tears over how unfair it is that I don't have the resources or ability to do better for my students. It depresses me and makes me hateful/fearful for each week knowing that I have to work around dragging many pounds of supplies around to different classrooms. I feel like I get zero support from any teacher or administrator, who view my time as an intrusion into their classroom space. There is an empty classroom at this school which recently opened because our enrollment was too low to support 20 classes. This room is now being used as a "data room" instead of being used by me or any of the other support staff that teach from bags or carts or with no space of our own save closets or corners. This data room is a function of the GREAT TESTING ESCAPADE that goes on at this school, where every free moment and second is used to test and push evaluation and data gathering on these students in efforts to boost our MAP scores. It disgusts me and infuriates me that testing has become the centerpiece of teaching. I understand the value of data and to an extent support the push to gather data on student learning-- but only as a tool to inform instruction.

The basic attitude in this district is that I must just soldier on, so I do. But underneath the surface, I am mad. I am seething. I want more for these kids and I hate that they are being used as test subjects. Oh, and make no mistake, I do firmly believe that they are being used.

I must persevere, I must be better than this cycle of anger, bitterness, and cynicism that eats teachers alive... but its so difficult right now.