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Wednesday, 31 January 2007 Today I tried out another one of my lessons for my first graders. The lesson involves layering drawing and images of dinosaurs in a (prehistoric?) landscape. The first step of the project I demonstrated was the landscape, where the students would draw, with oil pastels, the outline of the landscape, the tall trees (for long neck), mountains, volcanoes, the land, the water, the sky, and even the asteroid – from one student's suggestion. But after teaching the lesson and then seeing the progress of the landscape outlines I think next time will be different in that children often make mistakes in their drawings that, using oil pastels, won't be able to make changes. But I think if I demonstrate that they should use their pencil first, they can then erase any mistakes, and then after they are done sketching the landscape they can trace it with the oil pastels. Next time I will also not show them the "final product" of what we are starting today, and then finally achieve. When I was demonstrating the tea bowls or clay rattles I found it necessary to show the finished product, what it looked like, how it was different, and as a tool to tell concepts about pottery: its function and its rules (reasoning). But after I showed them my version of how I thought the final products might look, I got many suggestions of drawing other small dinosaurs (running from or being eaten by the larger dinosaur), pterodactyls flying in the background, or other elements not typically found in a landscape. I think they just got too excited in seeing my example and because then they knew the reason the cooperating teacher and I had them practice sketching dinosaurs in their sketchbooks was because they would be drawing them in their next project. They would actually use the skills they were practicing and use the knowledge they learned in the future. But all in time. I need them to just slow down and take one step at a time. We will worry about the dinosaurs after we finish learning about landscapes and horizon lines. Perhaps I will also work from a picture(s) when demonstrating drawing different elements of the (prehistoric) landscapes. There is a picture file containing images of palm trees, volcanoes, mountains, and grasslands that the students can refer to and emulate in their own drawings. We also have a picture file for the dinosaurs. Most of the students used these images as a guide for practicing their drawings of dinosaurs in their sketchbooks. Before I gave the demonstration I was talking individually with students who were working on their sketches. I would show them how to draw T. rex, the mammoth, or the pterodactyl by referencing the image and drawing shapes and separate body parts (and how other shapes and parts related to the others) from the dinosaur. This method seemed to work well; the drawings directed the students and gave them confidence in not having to solely rely on their memory and immagination to recreate a dinosaur. By showing the students they can reference images I can also point to the horizon line or other distinct lines and shapes of each of the reference images. Sunday, 28 January 2007 So I have found out that I will be teaching in Manchester, England – at a Catholic High School no less! It looks as though I will have to 'buck up' (in fact a British colloquialism from the nineteenth, derived from those bucks or dandies who were regarded as the height of snappy dressing in the Regency period. In its dandified sense 'buck up' first meant to dress smartly, for a man to get out of those comfortable old clothes), and brush up on my Christian roots. I think I will be comfortable in the private school setting as I went to a Parochical school from 1-8 grades (albeit Lutheran, but not a problem). Coincidentally, I will also be presenting a paper (that I am still working on) on 'Saints in a Postmodern/Multicultural Age' at the National Art Education Association convention in New York (14-18 March, right before heading to England). Although I have not been any further north in England than Cambridge or Stratford, and despite my original hesitations for heading away from London, I am looking forward to Manchester. I have been researching the city in travel guides and online (l think Wikipedia is just short of amazing, that is quick, easy, convenient, and free). I've found that Manchester is one of the major cities in the UK, and has a population of over 2.5 million (big city=good). The city used to have a reputation for being a dirty and boring city, but it looks as though, through reading, things have dramatically changed in the last decade and it is now is a hotbed of liberal politics and ‘centre’ of the arts, the media, higher education and commerce, one of the most multicultural cities in Europe, and is considered by many to be England's second city. Saturday, 27 January 2007 After my first only sort-of successful attempt at the tea bowl lesson I went at it again with my other two sections of the class. The second time went much better because I was able to give instruction on how to avoid the problems the second graders had in making the tea bowls. I also brought in my tea bowl from my former ceramics professor, Ried, in order to show the students an example of what I hoped the final products might look like. I think what I was so happy about in teaching the lesson the second time is not only that the students' projects turned out great (which is hopefully an indication of good instruction and even better listening on their part), but that the principal decided to drop in unexpectedly and observe the lesson. Thank god that the lesson went well! Now if only I could remember to review the clean-up procedure. And in yet another comical(?) happening at the elementary school a class of my first grade students were making paper cell phones. The cell phones were cut from construction paper, numbers were written on the top half, and the bottoms were folded to meet the tops to create flip phones even thinner than the razor. Wow. It is only slightly disturbing that FIRST graders, SIX and SEVEN year-olds want cell phones (or maybe it is the aura of a class of people who own cell phones – even more distrubing). Both my cooperating teacher and I had to tell the students in a serious (but seriously comical) way that they had to put away their "cell phones" before walking down the halls back to their regular classroom. The only sigh of relief is that their paper cell phones will last only as long as any other paper worksheet that has been in the desk and backpack of an elementary student. Thursday, 25 January 2007 Also in news Microsoft has been busted for offering to start PAYING a blogger to make edits to its Wikipedia entries. Ironic considering that Wikipedia is trying to be a leader in that FREE-culture movement. Microsoft has admitted that it violated the Wikipedia terms and conditions but claims that is HAD to correct those errors somehow. It looks as though Microsoft didn’t get the memo from Colbert about wikiality. Back in July Stephen Colbert defined wikiality as "truth by consensus," rather than fact, modeled after the collaborative format of Wikipedia. To Microsoft: this is Wikipedia: a 21st century democratic project in progress; the majority vote has the final wørd (like America?). The new rules of truth will have to be learned. Even if truth and reality are now defined by consensus, I admire Wikipedia's volunteer culture, its democratic approach to sharing knowledge. At least under this format knowledge is not influenced by individuals because they hold power (and dollars). Rather knowledge is shared based on the free decision and ambition to do so. Intellect, in this regard, is above the influence of power and money. Instead it is on the level of genuine interest and passion for both the subject and, perhaps more importantly, in sharing the information with the world. I was 'glad' (read resentful) to find out today that the British pound had risen above $1.99 on currency exchanges. Lovely considering I will be living there for a few months starting 19 March. Indeed, my dollars will buy even less pounds or euros than before, making goods in European stores much more expensive for me! Tuesday, 23 January 2007 Today I taught my first 'real' lesson I created as a professional, even if it went less than swimmingly. I taught a lesson on pinch pot cups, with a connection to the Japanese tea bowl tradition. The lesson started well with students setting up and instruction about the different parts of a pot (foot, body, lip). The students became squealed with excitement when they learned that they would actally be able to use the cup when it was finished - imagine that: art that has a concrete function. At the early elementary ages the students are such concrete learners, if they can see it, relate it to what they can experience physically, then it becomes alive. Children's drawings and paintings have their value, but in a way that is different, more abstract. Their pictures have intrinsic function based on merit, but the pinched cups/tea bowl have a utilitarian function, one outside the students' minds. And they squealed with excitement. But instruction on my part could have been better in explaining how to make a pinched form that would better serve as a cup, rather than a wider, bowl-like form by pinching up, not out. When I teach this lesson to my other sections of second grade I will also need to better emphasize the uniformity of thickness throughout the cup; the students' cups dried out as they worked more on the lip of the pot, while forgetting about the thicker bottom. This was corrected though, by regrouping and talking about how we could fix these problems we ran into. But I totally neglected talking about clean-up until my cooperating teacher reminded me. Which figures, if you take a look at my bedroom, which rarely is presentable to others and sometimes barely livable for me. Messes and seeming disorganization rarely bother me. But the classroom is not my living space, and learning to clean up after ourselves is probably a good lesson (obviously one that never caught on for me). But in the end, I went over the clean-up procedure, even if it felt like a day late and a dollar short. Overall, I do not in any way consider this lesson a failure. The results, for the most part, turned out well. I was satisfied and the students seemed happy. I think children's artwork is a symbol of the ideas behind After Fighting for Hours. If one understands how children understand the world their drawings are so insightful. They are drawing exactly what they are thinking: image and thought are one. Versus in much of the work done by university students where there seems to be more problems in fine tuning the visual details of the art object in order to connect it more accurately to their ideas and thoughts. And even though children's art often feels rough on the edges for adults (that is, it doesn't conform to how the adult feels it should) we, as adults – especially educators, need to be comfortable with these imperfections. Why spend time fixing the "errors"? Spending your own time on turning their work into something that is no longer theirs, in turn makes their work inauthentic, and gives a less true picture of them as individuals. Rather we can only be comfortable with the imperfections, at least the imperfections are real. One last item for today: a drawing from one of my students. I think it will help illustrate the point I was talking about above about children's drawings being exactly connected to their thoughts. This drawing is of the student and myself playing videogames (inside of a house, on a nice day), and we are fighting each other in the video game we are playing. Monday, 22 January 2007 So I told everyone I would post about my favorite TV series, Brothers and Sisters - despite my original intent that this blog would not be about me. [Yet, this blog doesn't have a mind of its own, it has a creator: someone behind it; and no one can take themselves out of their work. It is their statement about how they percieve the world to be. (It goes back to Pliny – everything is connected – whose excursuses on Roman life and manners, a draw no clear line between report and comment.)] So back to how Brothers and Sisters resonates with my own life. I think I get into this show so much is because I am starting to be a brother of many siblings in adulthood (much like the characters in the show). My siblings and I are no longer the seven and ten year olds running around the yard playing soccer or riding our bikes to grandmothers on lazy summer afternoons. Now I am soon to be an uncle, my step-brother, Jake, is having a son, my step-sister, Tasia, is for all practical purposes engaged. My stepsister Sarah is graduating college and lives in Nebraska, step-sister Meagan is even out of the house in her first year of collge, and my sister Megan is studying and living in Spain for an extended time. We rarely are home to see one another; except for Christmas, a birthday, or the incidental run in while visiting our parents, all the while each of our lives keep moving on with problems and idiosycracies of their own. Saturday, 20 January 2007 Last week I started student teaching at two elementary schools in Oshkosh. Elementary students never cease to keep my mind turning, and on Monday I was talking individually with a student about their image. The student was looking for a background color for an Egyptian montage project. Two girl classmates overheard us discussing this decision and offered him their suggestion of purple. I then heard nothing new, that purple (and pink for the matter) are 'girl' colors. Let's hope not. For years, pink has been off limits to males. If you wore pink, you were immediately labeling yourself as a a sissy, or worse, gay. So a moment arose to address such strict gender typing. The last thing the sexes need is a further misconception of the other; Mars and Venus are already in a long distance relationship. I asked the student why he thought pink and purple are designated as 'girl' colors and proceeded to offer that I don't mind wearing pink or purple. What about men who also enjoy wearing a bit of pink or purple? The need by our society to limit people to gender identity based on almost arbitrary color judgements reduces us to living in a materialistic worldview, and thus appearances and gender must necessarily dominate our thinking and values. Does not color have more insightful meaning outside of the gender paradigm? I should note that I did not address the student the way I went about this post, the seriousness of the post only reflects the urgency I felt in responding and challenging the student to thinking about color in a different way, so that he doesn't have to be pigeonholed into thinking a particular way, to keep him from living in a flat world. Don't those who only see the world through a single lense essentially live in a flat world? On a lighter note, I recieved my first drawings from my students to put up on my refrigerator on Friday. One student asked me what my favorite kind of dog was. I told him a Terrier so he drew me one. I love medium sized dogs and one day I will own one, but for now this drawing is alright. Thursday, 18 January 2007 I think the ideas that will influence this blog have their roots in an experience I had about a year and a half ago. I was passing through Switzerland enroute to Berlin from Rome. I was with my friend Stacy and we had decided to spend a day in Basel so that we could say that we have at least seen Switzerland, as though a day’s time will give a true insight into the culture. So we checked into a hostel and in the mess of situating ourselves in our new room (the first was not suitable) I realized I had left my journal in the previous room. The journal with my passport and train tickets. So I went back to the room but could not find it despite having been in that room for moments only five minutes ago. I asked a shifty looking guy who was occupying a nearby bunk if he had seen the leather journal. He feigned ignorance and because of my lack of knowledge with Italian and his, English I came to the conclusion I must have misplaced it elsewhere. I went back to our room and shuffled frantically through my bags. Nothing. In frustration I decided I needed to take my mind away from this disaster so Stacy and I went out for dinner. The restaurant wasn’t even authentic in any way to Swiss culture: it was their version of TGI Fridays. This comes with its own problems and critiques, but that is for another post. I suppose this was a way of finding some sort of comfort in a foreign place, with a crude knowledge of the language, and without your passport or train tickets. The next morning I wake up at 6AM to make reward poster for the return of my lost items. They read: Reward: 200ChF or €100 Fifteen minutes later there is a knock at my door. I open it only to find the sketchy Italian with my journal in his hand. I ask him if he would like the reward, and he says yes. I tell him I will have to retrieve the money from the ATM and that I will leave it with the hostel owners if he leaves my journal with them. I return with the 200 ChF and give it to the hostel owner. And I think this is the crux of the story. The owner says to me that what I did was very Buddhist of me. I accept the compliment and explain that my resignation to this obvious thievery did not bother me: nothing was lost in my forfeiture of the money reward. More important were the thoughts recorded in my journal and the fact that I could carry on with my business without any further hassle, like buying new train tickets or trying to get hold of a new passport. But would only a Buddhist respond in this matter-of-fact way? Wouldn’t any Hindu, Christian, or Muslim do the same? First, there is nothing one can do to change the fact that a sketchy individual stole my journal, passport, and train tickets. Why complain about an event that already happened, or about a thief who is not worth any more of your time? You can’t change the past, all you have left is the future. We can either loathe our predicament and become caught up in it, or pass it off as insignificant. Insignificant as something less than we are, something trivial and not worth our time, nothing is lost in the 200 ChF paid to a thief, someone below any standards that deems them of worth my time. And to make the best of the future you might have to disregard the tragic past and make things work, because they have to. And so in true existential fashion After Fighting for Hours is born, named in honor of a poem by Kate Gleason and written like Pliny, the ancient author, did. |
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