Toppers

My top 3 for the week...

1. One of my Kindergartners gave me a drawing she did; she used markers on purple paper. The next day, one of my 2nd graders came to me in the morning and told me he'd like to show me a drawing he's been working on at home.

2. Another Kindergartner grabbed the principal's butt this week.

3. A faculty member asked me if he spelled "Christmas" correctly; he had spelled it as "C-h-r-i-s-t-m-a-x".

And now I'm going to bed. Here's to the weekend!

List

Today has been full of a few revelations, some new, some revised. They are as follows:

1. Apparently, our school is in the 5th yr. of some 4yr. improvement plan for FCAT scores and whatnot. If things do not improve as of the end of this school year, the school will be re-vamped. In other words, every teacher will have to re-apply for his/her job. So I hear.

2. You can pump as much money as possible into a school, but if that family unit is not intact, supporting and reinforcing the child's study habits, it is not going to make one bit of difference for the students' academic performance. Ah yes, the decline of the family: probably one of the most awful atrocities of our society. The government surely can't hold families accountable for part of their children's education, so the responsibility is transferred to the public school system (and other organizations too). Programs upon programs, acronyms upon acronyms, standards upon standards are implemented to measure what they know, or measure what they don't know, or point fingers in circles. In some cases, teachers are let go if their class performs poorly on the FCAT. For this is accountability, dammit! They must not have been teaching at all!!

When you blow past all the tests and data and fancy-pants organizations, it leads back to the sad truth that what is lacking is parent responsibility. Parent responsibility is lacking for a number of reasons, such as education, their own upbringing, poverty, immaturity, etc. Their children are exposed to the same thing, and so on and so forth. Where is the bar set?

3. In relation to no. 2, our school only has 6 parents who are considered "active" in the school. "Active" means they consistently attend school functions and parent meetings. Please note, we have 500+ students at our elementary school.

4. I feel better when I exercise. I sleep better too.

5. My roommate adopted a cat a couple months ago which has confirmed my notion that I don't really like them. As my cousin said, "When cats look at you, you never know if they are going to cuddle with you or claw your eyes out". Very true.

6. I love living on the Westside. There are ancient oak trees, old Florida neighborhoods, people who greet you, and it's right near the river.

7. I get paid tomorrow :)

8. I am proud of my sister for taking a risk with leaving her job. Right now, everything is a big question mark, and I admire that she put her personal happiness as her no. 1 priority.

That's all for tonight. C'mon, fRiDaY!

Exposure

I introduced Andy Warhol to Grades 3-5 and Marc Chagall to Grades K-2 for their next projects. They seem fairly excited; naturally, the Kindergarten students were ooo-ing and ahhh-ing at the large pictures from the projector. It is fun to see them get so excited for a couple reasons: 1) they are engaged and 2) I wish I had been exposed to different artists at that age. It is also interesting to see their reactions to different genres of art: realism, impressionism, surrealism, pop, etc---because more often than not, they think that "good" art is realistic, i.e., if you cannot draw or paint photo-realistically, then you are not an artist. It's great to realize otherwise.

Other than school...

I've decided to start exercising again (please note, I decided this yesterday and I'm on a 2 day streak so far) and I am determined to keep up with it. There's nothing worse (for me) than resorting to television as a relaxation method. While I was out, I met my next-door neighbor (Morah) who is very sweet, and we shared our concerns about the woman who lives above Megan and me. Our upstairs neighbor is a single mom with 2 (or 3, we are not sure) kids: 9yrs. old, 5 yrs. old, and an infant. She never acknowledges us and the only thing I ever hear coming out of her mouth is the "F" word which is always aimed at her own children. Now, I can't lie; the "F" word is one that I use too often along with other expletives. But there is a time and a place. Telling your kids to "Get in the f-ing car and shut the f up" every single morning just isn't right. I won't go into too much detail, but I can say that this woman is emotionally, physically, and verbally abusive to her children, which angers me to the nth degree. Morah and I decided to research and see if we can do anything about it since she can hear the mom yelling as well. Grrr. ..people.

I'm not sure how I went from exercising to the F word.

And I'm sorry my blog is kind of depressing, thus far.

Poles

The past couple days at school have been much better than the disasters that characterized last week. We have tomorrow off, as well as Friday. I am excited to go home, visit my parents, visit my sister and new brother-in-law, eat great food, and meditate on all that has happened over the past 3 months or so.

I was talking to Lauren (my best friend from high school) last night on the phone. She teaches at an inner-city school in St. Louis. We both feel somewhat disheartened and discouraged. Teaching at these schools is odd---your moodswings are out of control; you feel determined one minute and hopeless the next; you feel obligated to be committed to these children but also want to abandon the situation; you feel like it is your responsibility to teach them EVERYTHING but then resent the homes from which they come for not providing "basic training" to function in life. It is an interesting dichotomy of extremes. I think I have yet to find a middleground, and perhaps there isn't one other than feeling nonplussed at times. No matter what, I think we are holding on to the hope that things will improve, even if it is for a class period. I begin to wonder: am I getting anything out of this? Are they getting anything out of this? Am I being selfish? Do I like the person I am becoming? Would I be happy without such a challenge?

The 1/2 Year Holiday

I went to Target today and all the oranges and browns have been changed to reds and greens. After that, it will be pinks and reds for Valentine's Day, and then pastels for Easter. The Starbucks monster has promptly adjusted their coffee cups, coozies, ads, mugs, flavors, blends, etc. The consumerist calendar is quite impressive, and also kind of sickening. As one of my professors said a couple years ago, humans are just big, dumb animals attracted to sparkling things and the color red. Target's brilliant team of advertisers and marketers picked a no-brainer when they decided to make their stores and ads predominantly red (which makes me kind of uncomfortable...what about you?). And as we all know, it's insanely convenient that all the new toys (for adults and children) happen to be released around this time of year. For example (one of my personal, outrageous favorites), the FurReal Friends Pony-Butterscotch. For $249.99, this pony can be yours! Crazy. What a crock. Try explaining that to a 7yr. old, though.

On a brighter note, there are four days of school this week, followed by 2 days next week, and then, Thanksgiving with the family! I cannot wait :)

Happy Veteran's Day to all those who have served our country.

Trains

Although this weekend had a rough start, it is turning out to be one of the most relaxing in a long time. I would like to thank the European Street Cafe in Riverside for their hummus and pita which inflicted food poisoning on Friday evening. Since then, things have picked up.

Last night, Dylan and I saw Wes Anderson's new film, The Darjeeling Limited, which I really enjoyed. Check out the link if you are interested. This was followed by frozen pizza, ice cream sandwiches, and playing Super Mario on the Wii. Awesome. This morning, we went on a bike ride from Riverside to downtown. The weather has been gorgeous over the past few days. We sat and watched the train draw-bridge go down. No matter where you live in Jacksonville (except for the beaches) you can hear the trains---especially between the hours of 2am-5am. I am convinced that the conductors lay on the horn during those hours just for shits and giggles. Whenever I see the trains, all I can think of is Z from Wolfson, and now, my two students who also seem to have a fixation with them...always asking me if we are drawing trains for the day's project. I say no, but they draw them regardless---impressive trains, at that.

School on Friday went surprisingly well, considering that Fridays are usually loaded with some of my most challenging students/classes. The only bad thing about this past Friday was when a fifth grader asked for help with his drawing. I sat down and advised him to look at the big shapes in the still-life. He didn't seem to understand, so I turned over his paper to the back side to do a demo. As I was showing him, he told me to stop because my drawing was messing up his paper. "Uhhh, that's so ugly! What are you doing to my paper?!". In the meantime, his friend was calling me a white cracker. It is moments like that that make me want to a) laugh at how ridiculous the situation is and b) kick them out of my class for the remainder of the semester and c) I shouldn't say.

Anyways, enough of that. I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning, going for another bike ride, getting some work done, etc.

Ciao.
ps-you should really see The Darjeeling Limited.

New Books

Today, I received the November and December books of the month. The December book is entitled Our Gracie Aunt by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by John J. Muth (gorgeous illustrations!!). It is a story about 2 children who are taken in by their aunt because their mother neglects them. I am excited to share this book with the kids and make an art connection, especially with the illustration aspect of it. One of DCPS's goals for visual arts K-12 this year is connecting art and writing: having the students create the piece of art and then be able to write and/or talk about it by using critical thinking skills. This seems like a great opportunity.

Several students are showing up to school without jackets or warm clothes despite the sudden cold snap here; in the mornings, it's in the lower 50s. A common question runs through my head when I encounter situations like this: who/what decides the environment into which we are born? I asked myself this same question while working at Wolfson with Z, in particular. Z is a four year old child who had been subject to awful, awful forms of child abuse. It makes my stomach turn just thinking back on it. Anyways, I know that I have no control over the homes in which these children are raised, just like Z. And I know there really isn't an answer to that question stated above; one could drive him/herself made trying to figure that one out. Still, it's not fair. Grrr. I know that I have control over my actions, and it only makes sense to do things for the greater good, no matter how hopeless it may feel at times.

Blah.

Referral No. ?

I am waiting for the day when I am reprimanded by the administration for writing too many referrals; I've lost count. I wrote two today for students who continuously yelled during the lesson and bullied others. If there is one thing I cannot stand, it is bullying. As a child, it would make me so angry when teachers would not do anything about it. Respecting each other seems to be one of the hardest things for my students to learn. Now, I know, in general, kids can just be plain-old ugly to each other...and I don't expect them all to like one another, but there does need to be a level of decency.

I am finding that this "level of decency" is also lacking from teacher-to-student and teacher-to-teacher. If we aren't setting good examples, who will? Calling kids "hard-headed", "girly", "cheaters", and "liars" or threatening to smack them around OR telling their parents to beat them isn't helping. Unfortunately, it has become one of the only things the students respond to.

On a more positive note, Ms. H's class has really come around. I am eager for them to do their Social Realism project in a few weeks.

Fresh Start

I have decided to actually use this blog for a few reasons:

1) for myself
2) for the sake of being responsible to write on a regular basis
3) for other people, like family and friends


I would love feedback whenever you feel the need to do so. I predict that most of what I write will be about my new job as an art teacher. It is a way for me to keep track of daily occurrences and emotions.

Happy reading....