I thought that it would look like this (this dog was actually real nice, but didn’t show). . .
Instead this first part of the year looked more like this!
With a set of grades entered, but not posted to report cards, as I was closed out exactly at 1. Whatever, up at six, I will get on for the seconds. I should be grading, but sometimes a little time for my own head. Had my kids in the Art Club in Thursday, working their magic and mouths with papier mâchè. Overslept the first time on Friday, out of the house in a whiz. The first quarter done, without much fanfare, which is great.
I had more fun Friday, than an art teacher should have. First time coil pots with fifth, the clay is strange, does not roll a coil well, you need a certain pressure. Fourth doing the Mondrian thing, again well done, understood concepts of parallel, perpendicular to a good extent. Like the Mondrian video (really they loved One O’clock Jump several times), and they kind of got the assymmetry thing. Third did the organic thing a là Matisse, and they did symmetry somewhat.
Kindergarten excited about masks, used lines to design after cutting. First after we got over the quilt square thing went onto masks, too. Then papier mâchè and so much talking, so much excitement, except for the few who feel like they have to wash their hands. Hm. Dave came in and saw the mess, with kind of a. . .oh, no. This is what it is, at the end of the day.
I am already collecting stuff for value, and will be doing Kollwitz and maybe Cartier-Bresson. Will work with paint and charcoal for four and five. Maybe let third grade do photos in b/w and critique. Carol, our wonderful science teacher does a unit on light and dark, for the younger kids, will check with her. We can use the printer in school, so I won’t have to think too much about the technical and the cost. Wonder what kinda software we have?
Will probably do Valentines in December! I’ll be like the stores who do Xmas before Halloween!!!
Whether you broke or rich you gotta get this havin’ money is not everything. Not havin’ it is.
-Kanye West, Good Life
There are so many things to say about the Kanye West video, aside from the good music with T-Pain. Visually interesting with the main characters (West, T-Pain and the girl) shot in black and white, with bits of color animation thrown in (the roller coaster and the early part when he throws his hands out and blue bubble like things come out, especially). It also combines lettering well. There is a wonderful scene where West and T-Pain hold up a frame and become color animations, while outside they remain black and white cinematography. I like the look of the long shots which work as well as Calabria Destination Unknown and Chris Brown’s Transform Ya (which openly borrows from West’s video).
Shirley Maclaine in the ’70 said she once lectured, and she was trying to get across, to this group of Democratic women, that materialism isn’t everything. I thought to myself then, how funny. You got everything, but you are trying to tell somebody who wants what you have, to stick to nothing. West puts it best in the lyric above. Having it isn’t everything, not having it is. Which brings me back to my favorite thing: schools.
I was listening how wonderful some corporation is for “donating” money to schools (probably of their choices). Perhaps they would do better to get their corporate lobbyists, to promote equity in the corporate tax structure, so schools (and especially teachers) through “grants,” wouldn’t have to pass around the cup! People like Bill Gates, ought to be ashamed of himself, after providing to schools for years, at a big licensing fee junk, sub rate operating systems (exception XP). When I think of 95, and that other horror story, Vista, he should have given everyone that every used Microsoft a free operating system. Oprah is supposedly giving away tons to a charter school. This from the woman who shook down car dealers, to give away free cars.
The only thing better than s still life by Cezanne, is an unfinished Cezanne. Still Life with Apples at the MoMA is one of those pleasures in life, you can spend hours looking at. Are we studying shape or form here?
We have started to move into shape or form in the elements, and it is an interesting transition. I don’t know why I picked up on either Mondrian or Matisse, but both seemed to have components which fit in well with that ppt I had started. Matisse is interesting for almost anything (color, form, drawing, painting, sculpture, collage), and gave me a good excuse to get rid of scrap paper for collage. The third grade had fun cutting organic shapes, some were quite interesting, and it brought me full face to why there was so many weird things in the ’50s with furniture and house design.
This is a store front in Long Island City. It is a take off on those bad old 1950s shapes, common as architectural embellishment and furniture design.
Since I liked the boldness of using intersection of line to create shape, Mondrian kind of popped out. (No, I am not one of those teachers that has kids just copy paintings). Mondrian really is the master of balance, especially asymmetrical, it was fun to have to try to get kids to use his example. A few actual did in this first session. It was hard for them not to use diagonals and partial lines, but a few did beautifully. I found out that the ones who produced better work for that class, were actually good math students. That is not uncommon, when I have taught certain things (geometry, perspective and mobiles) all require mathematical heads.
When I knew I was having the Mondrian class the following day, I came home and put this together fast. Like I have said, I am a night owl. So between 11 and 2:30, it was good enuf to put together to present.
I am so happy I did. I presented to the extra class I was doing that day, and I loved the results of the sketches Anthony and Chrissie came up with!!!!
Good music to play in your head, while getting grades together, when the ProgressBook closes you out after 1. What I like about this band is they are so eclectic. Beat of My Heart reminds me of first album Blondie. This one has the same fun element that Whitney Houston had over 25 years ago in How will I Know? The silver lamé 40s bathing suit could be straight out of the Robbie Nevil’s C’Est la Vie video. The crotch shot reminiscence of Josephine Baker and her banana get-up.
What a great period for videos, the 80s were. Like a window it opened up everything forever. The funny part is, music videos were already being done for those music shows like the Murray the K presentations and some of the summer shows for youth in the mid-sixties. I remember a thing with Martha and the Vandellas doing Heatwave (probably the inspiration for Move in Dreamgirls). Shingdig and Hullabaloo touched on the stuff, but they were I think, only one season. They stemmed back in turn from the American, Dick Lester’s movies with the Beatles, Hard Day’s Night and Help. America always had it in them, because the stuff streamed back from Busby Berkeley.
If you can live through the horrible singing of Ruby Keeler (and Dick Powell) and hold off from turning the thing off before the end of soft shoe hokum of the tap dance, you catch glimmers of what will become the music video 50 years later. The thing goes on and on, including a stabbing, typical movie racism/sexism of the period, too. But the thing keeps moving on and on. . . .
Think a little of Pat Benatar’s Love is a Battlefield, which starts in a dance hall and ends on the street. Reminiscent, too, of that enclosure thing in Bergman’s Sawdust and Tinsel, between the two drunk men in the dark caravan, which opens into light open space. It is not that undifferent. This is what I try to get across to my kids. These elements of culture that knit us together. Sometimes in strange ways, which seem like invisible threads, but they are really not invisible at all, when you change your perspective.
This is what holds my sanity together, as I sit with other teachers in a 14 session ESOL class. You know the 300 hours all teachers will have to take to be in compliance with the Court Decree, set down years ago, when Florida Ed was sued for being biased to Hispanics and Haitians, and anyone else of the second language speakers in our state. You don’t really get anything for it, except you don’t get a threatening letter telling you, you will be let go, if you don’t. There never has been an extra pay for teachers who teaching in ESOL classes. Even though, they did the 300 hours years ago, before. They never got extra pay, but just more paperwork.
So as we sit on a Tuesday night, from 5-8. Retraining. Doing it for free. Someone alluded to the fact that the state may start charging us for this! Image working a job, where you have to retrain. You are not going to get the training on company time, and they might even charge it to you. That is, because your state was not in compliance with the law and made a deal, rather than lose a lawsuit, that never should have come to pass. Talk about punitive. They stopped corporeal punishment for students years ago, so why not for teachers?
This year gets more complicated. Things find their own sense, develop their own rhythm. The kids are moving into clay in fifth. I am trying to keep my perspective on how to cram things into such short sessions. The Activision board becomes my moving bulletin board, but everything is dependent on time. Ask your local teacher about how they manage time. How many hours work they put in at home? Keep playing the music in your head, education has a strange way of ensnaring the curious in interesting ways. Do it yourself, don’t upset the rhythm, if you dare.
“Sometimes we start over, just go solo, no metaphors are needed. . .”
-Shoniwa, Smith and Morrison
I pulled the blurb ppt together, so it wasn’t so —wha?. Even did a short ppt on Matisse and his late collages to put something together for third, which the class I got first was so duh. Couldn’t believe they did not know symmetry at all!
I didn’t make the same mistake with the second third grade class. We view the material again, but the ppt on Matisse, too. We played, cutting out organic shapes and it was great fun. I did a hands on with symmetry and the work that class produced was wonderful. I will have to post some up. First grade was so impressed! They have a wonderful freedom, but still structured.
I had six new sheets in my box. Most were from the nurse. We have dozens of kids with severe allergies, asthma and all kinds of new stuff (cycle cell anemia, leukemia, diabetes). The new lists included “must go to bathroom when requested.” This in addition to about 20 IEP from grades 3-5, the other ESE teacher has not given us any input yet. This is the school of 70 classes, so you know it is next to impossible to remember each kid’s medical data, since some of our students you may not be able to remember their name. Last year I had one class with 3 students, a girl who is extremely gluten intolerant; a boy with extremely severe allergies and one autistic student. We are currently in litigation with the later student, which means we must document behavior and sit through meetings sometime. This is stuff the dumb press and the dumber politicos, never tell you about, as they live in their own private Idaho.
Week 7 was a happy, productive week. We got back the Kindergarten teacher on leave, who will be our #13 Kindergarten teacher. The second grade also got #13, who cleared her paperwork, fingerprinting and drug tests. Everyone knows there are a large group of felons, who are dying to work for low wages in elementary school. Remember on the drug tests some lab makes nice money. And the fingerprinting, which is held by the FBI, seems to almost always be done, with an extra 25-50 buck fee somewhere.
I had left the county a few years ago, and came back in 7 months to sub. I had to go through a drug test and fingerprinting again. You had to do your business in the cup, while a “trained” professional stood outside an ajar door, while men and women sat in the next room. They could have checked me out with the CIA, whom I was cleared to apply for a job back in the 80s. Recently all recertified teachers, who pay by the way, $56 out of their own pocket every 5 years after getting a threatening letter, were also going to have to go through a fingerprint and drug screening for another $75 (don’t hold me to the exact amount). So much for those “overly aggressive” unions!
As I am trying to get back to my classroom this morning at 9:15, a parent is asking me what security company do we use? I, at first, am so dense, I am telling her about the police. Then, I begin to realize she is like talking Wackenhut or something. Lady, I thought to myself, did you hear we got robbed of over 40 grand of new technology last year, when someone forgot to turn Sonotrol on!?
“Stay with the beat and move your feet, And do it ’til you feel the heat. . .”
-Wild Thing
One of my favorite recent old films is Something Wild. Like Desperately Seeking Susan it starts off at one place and kind of drops you off at another. I liked the end of the later with the real Susan and her boyfriend watching a movie in the theater that Aidan Quinn character works. The former ends above with Sister Carol, and the rolling credits. Six weeks later seems to end a little like that.
I begin to find a rhythm to work with this year. It is a cumbersome one, but it seems to work with the kids. The board is more useful, although I developed a funky ppt on shape/form, which I am not quite sure about, and keep going back and revising. I only think I will be able to use it with fifth. The first class watched it and were polite, but silent, except for one student who was amazed, or something. The other class watched less, but clapped to the sound cues, although they are of something else.
I don’t want it to be all reading, but I want to stay away from narration. Too much reading, so I have gone back and edited it, also had set in a review before we started. I used Open Office Draw, Frames, Camstudio (from a bit filmed from Google, not present here), Illustrator, Photoshop, and special effects from Powerpoint itself. An exercise in techniques. It is part of an entire board presentation, so I can pick and choose with classes other than fifth grade. Since fifth is on its own schedule, I was still working with line, on the first (6 to 7 weeks).
Monday I see the second week of the second cycle of fifth; the first week of of the second cycle Kindergarten and third; and the last week of the first cycle for second and fourth. Now this is going to be very interesting with everything. Music has been forced to teach two classes at once, but they are on separate schedules, so Dave never sees the same two classes at once, I think. That is because Media could not handle two classes in the library at once, with kids also coming in to check out books! She had a para, once upon a time, but that went out the window last year. This is what happens when you let politicians handle funding.
Principals only get so much money, and they have to make due. This is called on-site management, a little ditty introduced during the late Bush I/Clinton phase. Should the state not like something, the county is doing, they can fine them. The principal, who is the one who gets holding the bag, must turn around and “pay” the fine. Two years ago, our principal did away with substitute teachers for almost the entire year. We split classes up when a teacher was out, rather than pay for a substitute. Our principal had been caught holding the bag, and her fine was roughly $40,000. This would have meant firing a teacher. So she did not say anything, but stopped almost completely hiring subs. When one of the Special area teachers made a doctor’s appointment (doctors rarely see patients after four, and never on Saturday), they divided her class of 20+ among three of us. That day I had for one class 10 extra students! Six were from the Special area teacher, and four from one or two other classroom teachers on that grade level!
During the Obama phase, we have the “merit” phase, and you should talk to your local teacher on this one. Gee, wouldn’t it be great if we tried it out on the President, his cabinet and Congress, first. We would give them a base salary of $39,300 and their “merit” would be tied to, say, the national debt. As they lowered the debt, they could get more merit money. As we checked over a five year period, we might apply the model to education. Say, I think, wouldn’t it be great if teachers could vote themselves a raise like Congress does. Especially, the Republican one, about 7 years ago, who voted themselves one at 1 am?
The Wire took a good hard look at education several years ago. Anyone ever teaching in a Title I school can understand and relate to the non-exaggeration. One might consider speaking to teachers who have taught under the failing school takeovers under No Child Left Behind. Merit pay will supposedly apply a “scientific” model to unstructuring failure. Probably one that will be as thin as air on policy, but thick as thieves on punitive measures. I hope the people who devise this policy, try it out first on unstructuring failure of politicians to control Federal debt!
I thought that it would look like this (this dog was actually real nice, but didn’t show). . .
