First Day

Today is my first day of work experience. It did of course start of with much nerves and I wasn't entirely sure what I should be doing during the first few minutes but that passed ever so quickly. Hatch's eleventh grade class were very friendly, quiet and clearly knew what they were doing. Since I had a fresh perspective having not followed their project from the beginning as Ms Hatch put it I could go around and see if I could tell if their project objectives were presented with clarity on their worksheets. As I said before these students clearly knew what they were doing so the project objective were quite clear. I was able to give a few pieces of advice here and there; artists they could look at (namely Giacomo Balla who fitted perfectly with two students projects because of his dynamic studies), techniques they could use and etc.

Then there was Ms.Curtains 8th grade class. A very big contrast to the eleventh graders being very loud and rather rowdy but not difficult to handle. Now Ms Curtain was having a class in print making which I could already tell was going to be daunting. Personally I have no talent with printmaking and find it a media which all sorts of problems can arise when teaching it to a class. I will make a note now that I did notice there was one girl whom the other students seemed to focus on. Negatively. She ended up in the center of a lot of bickering. Personally I suspect she provoked other subtly but it's possible she might've also been a center for bullying. Of course another possibility is that I read too much into the whole thing. All in all I ended up being in charge of supplying damp print paper so Ms Curtain had time to supervise the actual printing, inking and press. I could tell right away it could get out of hand and sure enough I could barely keep up despite using a few tricks like drying four at a time! Honestly I don't know how Ms. Curtain would've managed without help. I think she would've somehow found the time to prepare it before class (though she had to be somewhere else before class) but she knew I would be there.

-LUNCH BREAK-

Note: Everyday I will have one or two periods for lunch so I'll be using the time to write up my experience. This will be the format I will write these blog posts.

So after lunch there was Jackie Hatch's 7th grade class which I was then told was one of the worst classes they had ever had in terms of discipline which I'm sure was an exaggeration but none-the-less made note of the warning. From the very beginning she was very strict with them and unrelenting in telling them to keep silent in order for them to concentrate. And I did see right away they were a very very talkative group, being very gossipy especially in terms of relationships and competitive endeavors which was indeed a problem. Sometimes a little discussion is fine esp if it's to do with the class but unfortunately the group was very easy distracted from their work. This was of course because many were not into the project (I did notice a good number did definitely seem to be enjoying the project-having indulged in more colors and completed more or being generally more enthusiastic). As Hatch pointed out, they were used to the primary way of completing a work in a day and needed to learn how to commit more to a single piece. Looking back I realize that was actually not the experience I had had having spent what felt like forever day after day on a duplication of the Mona Lisa in charcoal after the other students had finished theirs which was encouraged by my teacher- something I was actually grateful for in the end...

As I said the group was very easily distracted so the of course unfortunately immediately took a great in who I was. I say unfortunately because I was now a factor that would distract them from work. Philip and Karim were two boys Hatch ended up sending outside for being talkative so I decided to follow them outside in order to make sure they did work. Now that I think about it that might have been a mistake since as I said I was the distraction and they did continue to ask questions but they did make the effort to work on their pieces while talking with a little encouragement so I'm not sure.

One thing I worry about is that I know my subject and believe i can teach it but I think one of my biggest weaknesses at the moment is knowing how to be firm and how to enforce discipline. This is something I'm focusing a little attetion on.

And lastly Boyd had another class of seventh graders which he was teaching pottery. Not an incredibly eventful lesson. I simply helped students where I could. One thing I did notice was the need to get the lesson started as soon as possible since it was a single period and there was barely any time between after they had found their piece and when they had to pack everything away.

Now I've written the days event up and I'm looking forward to tomorrow. and this time I'll be prepared with a camera.