A moment of reflection

Tomorrow is my last day of my first student teaching placement.

How is that even possible? I swear just yesterday I was panicking about what my first day might bring.

I've been bad about blogging. Not because there was nothing to say - TRUST ME there's been plenty. It's just these last weeks have been so busy and so intense that my ability to sit with it, and come to some sort of conclusion has been compromised.

Now that I'm in my last week I'm beginning to digest, and I have lots of lessons and images to share, so in the coming weeks I will be posting more. I promise. In fact I'm finally getting a break so I can start getting some of this info up and out there to share, which was part of the reason to do this in the first place.

First graders illustrating their "Sky Color" projects - based on the book Sky Color by Peter Reynolds.

While I am sure many more things will come to me in the coming days and weeks, a few observations have come to light that I thought might be worth sharing.

For anyone just tuning in, I am currently working in an urban public K-8 school that serves a population heavily dominated by immigrants from war torn countries. A very large percentage of my students speak little or no english and the majority of them live in severe poverty and/or less than ideal family situations (which is me being incredibly generous). The issues facing the teachers in my school are too many to name.

A lot of my kids have seen unspeakable things happen, in their home countries or the homes they have here. It only follows that many of them also have serious discipline issues. 

First grade "Sky Color" project - based on the book Sky Color by Peter Reynolds. 

My favorite part is the "Ha Ha I'm hungry!

My kids are "at risk" in every way possible. They resist authority every chance they get, and listening to the teacher is consider totally "uncool." So it should come as no surprise that I have heard "I don't give a #%&! what you think" more than once.

In point of fact a sixth grade girl, in response to me telling her to quit messing around and line up with the rest of her class, said to me "Who do you think you are? Come out of nowhere and try to tell me what to do?!"

At first, and for awhile, I was pretty ticked off about it. 

Now that I'm leaving I've seen a very different side of the story. These kids expect to be left, they always have been, so why would I be any different?

I know, that I really care about these kids, and I know, that if I could I wouldn't leave them. But how does she know that? She knows I'm only there for 8 weeks, and then I'll be gone. So while her behavior is not acceptable - it can still be understood. 

This week has been all about goodbyes for me. Many of them broke my heart, but there were of course are a few kids I'm not so sad to no longer have responsibility for. In particular there is a 5th grade group that has been nothing but trouble since day one. 

So, I wasn't feeling so sad as they left class today. Until a couple of girls came up to me after class to ask me why I was leaving. I explained that in order to get the "piece of paper" that says I can work with kids their age, I have to go work at two different schools. One of them widened her eyes and said "can't you just quit so you can stay here?!"

So, I guess the moral of this story is to not let these things get to you - or at least don't let it show. It seldom ever is about you at all.

A Day in the Life

This week it occurred to me that most people don't understand the day to day life of a teacher. Least of all the art teacher.

People tend to approach it with this "Oh, how fun you get to play with kids all day!" attitude, and while yes, it can be fun and to some degree we can play - it is however, generally, completely draining and utterly exhausting.

In this case it can be exacerbated by the schedule my co-op has. This school is a K-8 and she's the only art teacher. Right now the 8th graders are taking music not art, so I am working with K-7 students.

1st graders learning to mix colors with their fingers.

Most grades have 3 sections, but not all. In total I am working with 17 individual groups of students, most have an average of at least 25 students. I'll let you do the math.

To make things more complicated each grade level doesn't necessarily have art for the same amount of time each week. The school has a A-F calendar. Kindergarten, 2 sections, comes once every 6 days for 30 minutes (an amount of time that guarantees you can't accomplish anything). Frist grade, 1 section, comes twice every 6 days, once for 30 minutes, once for 45. 30 minutes essentially means that as soon as you get the kids settled and explain what we're going to do, you have about 15 minutes to do it before you have to clean up.

Second grade is where things get really interesting, there are 3 sections of second grade. One group comes twice every 6 days, once for 30 minutes and once for 45. The second section comes once every 6 days for 45 minutes, the other comes once every 6 days for 30 minutes. Third grade, two sections, one comes twice every 6 days for 45 minutes and the other once for 45 minutes.

I imagine just reading that you feel turned around and confused - imagine what its like to plan for that! And I didn't even discuss the 4-7 schedule. On average I teach 6 groups a day, with 3 minutes in between and 30 minutes for lunch (which is generally absorbed by clean up for the previous class/prep for the next). There's also a 45 minute prep period thrown in at various times which is sort of useful.

The 3 minutes between classes is however, a dream. Most teachers either bring their kids early, or come late to pick them up which eats up any fraction of a second you have to switch gears. It's no ones fault, just the nature of the art teachers life.

The basic idea of lesson planning is that each grade level is working on the same project at the same time, within a day or two of each other, which means that you as the teacher can reasonably organize his or her week. But given the above schedule its really hard to keep kids on the same page. One group is inevitably ahead of the other by at least a week. And given the 3 minutes between classes its very difficult to work on the projects kids like best - the messy ones - because its so hard to keep things organized and clean. Particularly given that the room we're in right now has next to no storage.

I could go on but I think you get the picture. I should be clear though, this is insanely hard, but I love it. I especially love the little kids. I think I'd be very happy in a K-4. But every grade level has its benefits. Ultimately I'd just like to have a limited number of groups to work with, or at least a more structured schedule - you know, just to keep things a little simple...

Time will tell!