A New Friend

Gabe has a new friend. His name is "Mr. Sharkey Fish" and he is a red betta. Gabe chose him while we were at Petco buying Rosco's dogfood. He has been wanting fish for a long time, and I think that a betta is a good introduction to being a fish owner.
Gabe chose a betta tank from an endcap featuring betta products and betta fish. He took his time selecting the right betta, and found "Mr. Sharkey Fish" on a separate stack of fish a little way away from the endcap. Then he selected a little crocodile statue to be his new friend's buddy in the tank. We came directly home from Petco and I was instructed to get the new addition into his tank as soon as possible. Gabe helped rinse and set up the little plant, rocks, glass shells, and the crocodile. He then fed Mr. Sharkey Fish, watched him eat, and has been watching him swim around for more than an hour.
Gabe is really happy with his new little friend and I hope that Mr. Sharkey Fish will have a long, happy life here with us. I will post photos as soon as I get my camera back from Mike. He took it with him on his trip to Germany.

Photos... Phinally!

So, I promised to post some photos from my new art rooms, and now I am making good on that promise. Understand that we are under a lot of restrictions at the new school, so I cannot hang stuff on the walls. I have had to get kind of creative so I can still have posters and stuff, and that is taking more time than just hanging posters using tape, poster putty, or hot glue. I have adopted the practice of using paper clips to hang everything! That takes more time, especially since I have to hijack a ladder to do that, and that is not always easy to do!

Anyway, I will post more at a later date. I have finally unpacked my three Brent Model C wheels, but in the photos they are still in boxes. And I have arranged my tables in my second classroom, though I am waiting for three "extra" tables to go to their new homes (If you are a teacher, can you imagine that? EXTRA really nice tables? It sure beats my old recycled tables with holes or the old split cafeteria tables I had at my school in Rio Rico!).

The sinks and cabinets in the rear of my room. The door on the left leads to my outside patio space and the door in the center of the image leads to my second classroom!

One of my students put up the bulletin board to show off our fun trip to Italy and Spain this summer.

Taken from in front of my store room facing the front of my room. I have great tables!

You have to love the color scheme! It is so me!! The cabinets are all custom and hold so much stuff! It is such a change from my room at the old junior high!

Facing the front. You can see my SmartBoard front and center (yay!).

This is a (not very good) shot of my patio.

This is facing the area I designed for the wheels. I didn't really want cabinets back here, but I am not about to complain! They are really nice cabinets (all custom, again), and I think that they will be easy to clean.

My kiln. Oh how I love thee!

One of my two storage rooms. I have two 8-roll racks of butcher paper, but I don't have any bulletin boards... go figure.

A view of my kiln room. There are also shelves to the left that I couldn't get in the photo.

A Wonderful Video

If you are at all interested in education or creativity you might like this video. This gentleman speaks about the problem with modern education and how we approach creativity (and stifle creativity) in modern education.
Anyway... enjoy.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Oh Happy Day

So, not only is my new art department awesome, structurally, what with the amazing space, great storage, SmartBoard in each room, two storage rooms, and a kiln room complete with a front-loading high-fire kiln, but...

Today I received three Brent Model B potter's wheels! YES! I am very excited about these wonderful little additions to my course, as now I can offer a more complete array of ceramics for my kids. Sure, I have three for classes with numbers upwards of 25, but... I have three! I have not had potter's wheels since I was in Vegas, and there I was not able to make decent use of them because I had two for classes of 30.

I know that I promised photos, and I will get some uploaded soon, but I am waiting until I have fewer boxes littering my rooms. I am still in the process of unpacking and organizing. I need hanging files so that I can empty out more than eight boxes of files and Scholastic Art Magazines, so that is a huge chunk of stuff on my beautiful floor. And I need to organize my paper storage and stuff. Soon.... soon. I also want to buy a few hanging plants, as I think that they are nice to have and dead useful in a pinch when a drawing subject is needed!

New School

Next month I will start teaching in the new Junior High building. Today I spent about four hours sorting through my 200-odd boxes, unpacking and trying to get a handle on how I want to organize my room.
First of all, my new rooms are amazing! (Not a typo... I have two rooms!) Well, technically I have one, but there is not another art teacher, so... I have two. In my room I have orange and red (kinda burgundy) custom cabinets that are really nice. They seem well-constructed and are able to withstand the hefty weight of my large paper storage. I have three really tall (probably 7-8') cabinets; two of which have doors. One is open, and that will be my paper storage because I am using the two with doors to store student work. Then there are six double door smaller cabinets (three of these are well over 2' deep), and 18 drawers! (this is all in one section of cabinets! I have another section...) There are two sections of counter here as well.
On the front wall I have a SmartBoard. (Yay!!!!!) I have been waiting for my SmartBoard for three years! Finally... and I am really looking forward to using the technology to maximize instruction. I can't wait to start designing lessons utilizing this new "toy"!
On the back wall I have two double door cabinets with a counter and four drawers. Then I have an island with 3 sinks, two double door cabinets, and, like, 12 drawers, or something!
AND I have a storage room AND a kiln room. Each room has separate storage, so I have TWO storage rooms.
Am I excited? You better believe it! Oh, and I have four big windows (so I pretty much can leave the lights off) and a patio off of my room!!
So, I am sorry if I bored you with this post. I am so excited that I want to tell everyone about it. I am so looking forward to teaching in my new space. The room I have had for three years was depressing at best. And the room I had before that had carpet and no sink. SO... Now I have a great space and I cannot wait to post photos! I will do that as soon as I have my boxes unpacked and the room looking sorta like I want it to. Until then... use your imagination.

Europe with Teenagers

Last summer I took a small group of teens and adults to Paris, France for six days. It was fun. This summer I took a group of thirteen teens and three adults (four, if you count me) to Italy and Spain for ten days. It was amazing!

I am a teacher, for those who don't know that. I teach at the junior high level (though I would love to secure a high school position); my content area is Art. I have my BFA in sculpture/ceramics/jewelry-metals and a BS in Art Education. But that doesn't really explain my love of art and kids. I really love both, and teaching just came naturally to me. So, now along with my regular responsibilitues as an art teacher at the local junior high school, I lead international trips with a co-worker of mine. It has been an incredible experience thus far, and I think we have started something that is truly amazing for the kids in our district.

We returned to the Memphis area on July 20th after traveling to Rome, Barcelona, and Madrid. Neither the other teacher nor I speak any Italian at all, and my Spanish is more comprehension than anything else (I can understand some, but not too much). While traveling with students to a country where one cannot communicate very well may sound unappealing to many, Crystal and I seem to thrive! Of course, we travel with EF Tours, so we have a Tour Director with us much of the time, but not all of the time.

The kids who have traveled with us have almost without exception matured on the trips. This summer we had a terrific group, and I think that everyone really loved the experience and grew a lot from it. We visited some of the oldest structures on land, and walked the streets where many historic figures traveled before us. It was like walking through history, and it was truly fantastic.

Of course, we also did some serious shopping and spent time at the beach, so there was a very nice balance for everyone! I have posted many photos on Facebook, for those who are my friends there, but I will also post many of my more than 5600 photos on a Picasa album soon. Once I do that I will link to it. For now I will add a few images for you to see some of the amazing places we visited.

Ciao!

Park Guell in Barcelona, Spain. I really love Antoni Gaudi, so this was perhaps the best day of the trip for me!

Coming into Barcelona on the ferry from Rome.

Two of the girls on an overlook in Castel Gandolfo.

Leaving the hotel in Rome. It was a really cool place.

In Zaragoza, Spain

Two of our kids with a fellow traveler in Park Guell

Me in Park Guell

Most of the large group we were a part of, Park Guell

Me and several of our kids in Park Guell

Two of my girls in Park Guell

One Week...

In one week Mike will be home! I am looking forward to having him back here. I know that Gabe will be happy to see him again, too. Then, six days later, I will flying off to Rome with a group of students to travel around Rome, Barcelona, and Madrid for 10 days. As much as I am excited for this trip, I am looking forward to being home after it. This has been a rather tiring summer already. It has been incredibly hot and humid, I have been busy with Gabe and travel, and there have been some major upheavals at work (though I have the summer off).
I am not really looking forward to returning to work at all. We have a new principal at the school where I work (in the form of the former assistant principal) and I am not very excited about the prospects that holds. Without getting too much into it, I do not think that he is my biggest fan, and I am certainly not his. I really loved working for the former principal, who is now retired, but the person taking his place has treated me poorly at times, and has been downright rude at other times. I fear that he is too much of a "yes man" to the district assistant superintendent, and will not work for the best interests of the students or faculty/staff. He seems, to me, to be a politician in that he wants the "people who matter" to be happy with him; members of the First Baptist Church here, for starters. He has failed to engender feelings of strength and the faith in him that the teachers should have. We all (with the exception of a select few, I think) feel like we are in for a rough year, and many are already speaking of leaving the school (me included).
I had a decent job offer in Oakland, but not one that would allow me to rent a place, pay for daycare, and afford to eat, so I turned that down. I spoke with the former principal before doing that (turning the job down) and he assured me that he was staying on for another year. So, I also turned down a really well-paying job (which required many additional hours and a Saturday a month) because of his assurance. And now... well I am stuck. I have applied elsewhere (Berkley, near my brother) but I doubt I get a call. I mean, what art teacher wouldn't love to teach in Berkley, Ca?
Well... at the start of this post I was excited about seeing Mike in a week. Now I am anxious about starting next school year. Oh well!