Today, which getting hours for class.
Here's an entry from an online class journal we have. I decided to post it here as well.
Today I spent a few hours at a local middle school to get some practicum hours. Needless to say, I didn't have the greatest experience.
To start, Jackie had emailed the teacher in advanced to let her know we were coming. Perhaps I should have emailed for myself as well, but I figured it would be fine considering she clearly included me (an Anne) in the email and repeatedly stated "we". She sent a second email asking the teacher when an appropriate and convenient time would be and the teacher never responded. So we showed up around 9:30am.
When we arrived she first of all seemed to have no clue who we were and was surprised that I was even there with Jackie. She snooted us and sent us to the back of the classroom to sit with kids, not even introducing us. Which to me is a big part of creating an environment of respect. Not that I demand some power in her classroom or any kind of authority, it's just a common courtesy. It allows the kids to be comfortable with me as a classroom observer and perhaps open up about their projects, rather than just some weirdo who is sitting in the back of the class room in one of their chairs.
I would have also liked to be included in the art lesson as well. She was teaching still lifes. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to have incorporated us in the lesson some how, if she was uncomfortable with us taking any form of authoritative position. So we could get a more in-depth understanding of how to teach this particular lesson if we chose to use it some day. But she didn't ask. Perhaps that was another thing I could have changed, me asking her about us doing the lesson, but I felt to alienated to really feel comfortable doing so.
During class there were discipline issues all over the place. One boy in front of Jackie and I was apparently pounding chalk on his still-life (which I didn't hear or see). The teacher shouted at him in front of the entire class and said she needed to speak with him outside. She entirely took all the attention from the class project and placed the focus on this boy. As he was walking out, she sternly said that we are going to call your father. Is that really appropriate for the entire class to know that the boy's father is going to be called? Especially for something as minor as he had done. Perhaps the boy had earlier discipline issues and this issue had just crossed the line, but still.
It's sad that it was more important to her to discipline this child and take the focus off of art and the classroom than it was to maintain the structure and discuss it with him later. There were many more appropriate ways it could have been handled. It's also important to know the emotional and physical changes these kids are going through. Ego plays a large part of pre-teens lives. Drawing attention like this could either severely scar a child or create a dependence on attention from it. I know Pam (my teacher) has given examples of how she hates math and is scarred from experiences she's had as a child, why would this art teacher be okay with possibly creating this same fear in children about art?
Why? Because she doesn't know. She doesn't take enough time to look deeply with in herself to she what is valuable and how her actions affect this. Tis' a shame. Because looking deeply within myself and finding the value of art in society is the main reason I am here. Because I really feel that you can teach anything through and with art. Abstract thinking (philosophy, etc) is a skill that isn't taught in any other subject. Hindering the capability of students to think abstractly by planting fear into their learning process severely goes against that. Now I just can't understand why one would be in a profession that clearly holds high values for art and distort that. Just boggles my mind.
Teaching kids to question their environment (abstract thought) is a skill that is essential to our society. We don't have much of this here in the states. Hence why our media has run so rampant, not to many people have the common sense to decipher it from real life. Because they aren't taught to. They aren't taught to think outside of the box. We don't value knowledge that may not have an answer. Why? Probably because in the long run it doesn't make money.
Now I don't necessarily hold it entirely against this teacher that she wasn't fulfilling her job requirements, because like I said in the previous paragraph... she wasn't taught to. It's a vicious cycle. So I'll repeat a line that I've heard for sometime now... change agents. lol. I feel so official.
In the end she made us cut paper for her year book class and sit in the corner. While she showed every student's artwork to the class except the three special needs kids. They asked where their art work was and if it could be shown. She dug through the pile and brought it out. I felt sad for these kids. It was a pretty depressing situation.
Today I spent a few hours at a local middle school to get some practicum hours. Needless to say, I didn't have the greatest experience.
To start, Jackie had emailed the teacher in advanced to let her know we were coming. Perhaps I should have emailed for myself as well, but I figured it would be fine considering she clearly included me (an Anne) in the email and repeatedly stated "we". She sent a second email asking the teacher when an appropriate and convenient time would be and the teacher never responded. So we showed up around 9:30am.
When we arrived she first of all seemed to have no clue who we were and was surprised that I was even there with Jackie. She snooted us and sent us to the back of the classroom to sit with kids, not even introducing us. Which to me is a big part of creating an environment of respect. Not that I demand some power in her classroom or any kind of authority, it's just a common courtesy. It allows the kids to be comfortable with me as a classroom observer and perhaps open up about their projects, rather than just some weirdo who is sitting in the back of the class room in one of their chairs.
I would have also liked to be included in the art lesson as well. She was teaching still lifes. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to have incorporated us in the lesson some how, if she was uncomfortable with us taking any form of authoritative position. So we could get a more in-depth understanding of how to teach this particular lesson if we chose to use it some day. But she didn't ask. Perhaps that was another thing I could have changed, me asking her about us doing the lesson, but I felt to alienated to really feel comfortable doing so.
During class there were discipline issues all over the place. One boy in front of Jackie and I was apparently pounding chalk on his still-life (which I didn't hear or see). The teacher shouted at him in front of the entire class and said she needed to speak with him outside. She entirely took all the attention from the class project and placed the focus on this boy. As he was walking out, she sternly said that we are going to call your father. Is that really appropriate for the entire class to know that the boy's father is going to be called? Especially for something as minor as he had done. Perhaps the boy had earlier discipline issues and this issue had just crossed the line, but still.
It's sad that it was more important to her to discipline this child and take the focus off of art and the classroom than it was to maintain the structure and discuss it with him later. There were many more appropriate ways it could have been handled. It's also important to know the emotional and physical changes these kids are going through. Ego plays a large part of pre-teens lives. Drawing attention like this could either severely scar a child or create a dependence on attention from it. I know Pam (my teacher) has given examples of how she hates math and is scarred from experiences she's had as a child, why would this art teacher be okay with possibly creating this same fear in children about art?
Why? Because she doesn't know. She doesn't take enough time to look deeply with in herself to she what is valuable and how her actions affect this. Tis' a shame. Because looking deeply within myself and finding the value of art in society is the main reason I am here. Because I really feel that you can teach anything through and with art. Abstract thinking (philosophy, etc) is a skill that isn't taught in any other subject. Hindering the capability of students to think abstractly by planting fear into their learning process severely goes against that. Now I just can't understand why one would be in a profession that clearly holds high values for art and distort that. Just boggles my mind.
Teaching kids to question their environment (abstract thought) is a skill that is essential to our society. We don't have much of this here in the states. Hence why our media has run so rampant, not to many people have the common sense to decipher it from real life. Because they aren't taught to. They aren't taught to think outside of the box. We don't value knowledge that may not have an answer. Why? Probably because in the long run it doesn't make money.
Now I don't necessarily hold it entirely against this teacher that she wasn't fulfilling her job requirements, because like I said in the previous paragraph... she wasn't taught to. It's a vicious cycle. So I'll repeat a line that I've heard for sometime now... change agents. lol. I feel so official.
In the end she made us cut paper for her year book class and sit in the corner. While she showed every student's artwork to the class except the three special needs kids. They asked where their art work was and if it could be shown. She dug through the pile and brought it out. I felt sad for these kids. It was a pretty depressing situation.