Sometimes I actually find the time to sit down and produce some art. I whipped this baby out the other night in about an hour. I was fueled up with coffee, Sharpie in hand and creativity in mind!
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
In My Opinion...
The problem with teachers isn't the teachers, it's the higher ed institutes that allow them to become teachers.
Seriously, let's stop pointing the finger at teachers and accusing them of being at fault for being bad teachers and point the finger at the institutes that neglected to tell them they weren't cut out for the job. Young adults are encouraged everyday to believe that they can be whatever they want to be! Do whatever they want to do! Yay! The world is yours! I call B.S. Let's be realistic folks, not everyone is cut out to be a doctor or a musician or a carpenter or a teacher. Everyone has their limitations; I am exposed to those limitations every day I go to work.
I work as a graduate assistant in an art education department at a state university, and part of my job description is to keep the portfolios of the art ed undergrad students up-to-date (snooze). This means I file away their "best" papers, lesson plans and whatever else is deemed important enough to go into this oh-so-selective portfolio (note the sarcasm). I am appalled by the quality of a majority of the work, or more fittingly, lack thereof. Whatever happened to high standards? We're sending teachers out into the world who don't even know how to write a simple sentence!?! Really!?! I could continue for days discussing the extent of my disgust over the level of work college professors accept from their students, but I won't. Instead, I offer a suggestion that would help us to weed out the bad teachers before they even enter a classroom: BE HONEST!
Whoa! What a concept! (Hey, if it works for House...) But seriously, it will work (and a good psych evaluation couldn't hurt either, but I digress). I think we have become a soft and whiny society that expects everything to be sugar-coated and wrapped in pink fluffy fluff. Let's start telling people what we honestly think. For example, "I think your writing skills are equivalent to those of a second grader" or "I think you're too dumb to find your way out of a closet even if I stood you in front of the door and put your hand on the doorknob" or how about this one "I don't think you're cut out for teaching. Maybe you should choose a different career." * That last one isn't nearly as humorous as the first two, but I believe it's not being said enough, if it's being said at all. When students are encouraged to become teachers, or more frighteningly, merely pushed through the process of becoming teachers, when they clearly lack the natural skills and competence to do so, they are being set-up to inevitably fail. Not only does this hurt them, but it also hurts their future students. We've all heard the phrase "stupidity breeds stupidity" well, "the incompetent teach incompetently."
_________________________________________________________________________________
*These phrases could be applied to at least three future teachers that I know. In fact, I used the third phrase on a girl I live with. The girl thanked me for being the first person to be honest with her, expressed that she was having doubts about becoming a teacher, and has since decided to become a dental hygienist. She'll make a damn good dental hygienist too.
Seriously, let's stop pointing the finger at teachers and accusing them of being at fault for being bad teachers and point the finger at the institutes that neglected to tell them they weren't cut out for the job. Young adults are encouraged everyday to believe that they can be whatever they want to be! Do whatever they want to do! Yay! The world is yours! I call B.S. Let's be realistic folks, not everyone is cut out to be a doctor or a musician or a carpenter or a teacher. Everyone has their limitations; I am exposed to those limitations every day I go to work.
I work as a graduate assistant in an art education department at a state university, and part of my job description is to keep the portfolios of the art ed undergrad students up-to-date (snooze). This means I file away their "best" papers, lesson plans and whatever else is deemed important enough to go into this oh-so-selective portfolio (note the sarcasm). I am appalled by the quality of a majority of the work, or more fittingly, lack thereof. Whatever happened to high standards? We're sending teachers out into the world who don't even know how to write a simple sentence!?! Really!?! I could continue for days discussing the extent of my disgust over the level of work college professors accept from their students, but I won't. Instead, I offer a suggestion that would help us to weed out the bad teachers before they even enter a classroom: BE HONEST!
Whoa! What a concept! (Hey, if it works for House...) But seriously, it will work (and a good psych evaluation couldn't hurt either, but I digress). I think we have become a soft and whiny society that expects everything to be sugar-coated and wrapped in pink fluffy fluff. Let's start telling people what we honestly think. For example, "I think your writing skills are equivalent to those of a second grader" or "I think you're too dumb to find your way out of a closet even if I stood you in front of the door and put your hand on the doorknob" or how about this one "I don't think you're cut out for teaching. Maybe you should choose a different career." * That last one isn't nearly as humorous as the first two, but I believe it's not being said enough, if it's being said at all. When students are encouraged to become teachers, or more frighteningly, merely pushed through the process of becoming teachers, when they clearly lack the natural skills and competence to do so, they are being set-up to inevitably fail. Not only does this hurt them, but it also hurts their future students. We've all heard the phrase "stupidity breeds stupidity" well, "the incompetent teach incompetently."
_________________________________________________________________________________
*These phrases could be applied to at least three future teachers that I know. In fact, I used the third phrase on a girl I live with. The girl thanked me for being the first person to be honest with her, expressed that she was having doubts about becoming a teacher, and has since decided to become a dental hygienist. She'll make a damn good dental hygienist too.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Student Art Work
Kindergarten- Contrast Collages
2nd Grade- Recycled Bottle Fish
1st Grade- Matisse Inspired Cut-Paper Collages
6th Grade- Prehistoric Cave Drawings
Kindergarten- Van Gogh Inspired Sponge Painted Sunflowers
(Lesson plans for these projects will be posted at a later date)
Where I Am Today
My first post; oh, what to write, what to write? Well, I guess that's easy enough. I'll tell you about my current situation in life. What a great starting off point!
I am currently finishing up my Masters degree in Visual Arts Education. It's been a long and trying two years, but I'm so excited it's almost over. Right now I am working on a research study for my thesis, Exploring art educators’ attitudes towards the elements and principles of art and design and the contemporizing of foundational art education (Oh, good lord, if that isn't ever a mouthful). I'll basically be interviewing pre-service and in-service teachers about their experiences and opinions about foundational art education. And then I get to transcribe all that info, analyze it, identify trends, draw conclusions and then tie it all together in a nice, neat little 100-page package. Yay.
I'm not currently employed as an art teacher (sob) which is my own fault since I quit my job last spring to move to Virginia, but we won't get into that right now. I'm temporarily back in NY (again, let's not get into this) and working as a graduate assistant in the art education department at the state university I attend. It's a part time position and while it doesn't pay squat, it does provide me with health insurance (which is more than I can say for my last job). I also have a great opportunity to work with art ed undergrads. A good chunk of my job requires me to arrange observational field experience opportunities in area pre-K and special needs classrooms. And I get to file stuff. Yippee. I'm having horrible luck trying to break into the world of subbing in this part of the state (something we'll explore at a later date). Seeing as how I'll most likely be moving back to Virginia in May or June, I've decided to focus my attention on job hunting down there (ugh! Again, something we'll explore at a later date).
So, that's about where I'm at in life right now. I feel like I'm on hold until I get this graduate school nonsense out of the way. For your entertainment, I'm including images of some of the pottery I made in my graduate ceramics classes. Please try to contain your excitement.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)