As a teacher, it is my job to impart a variety of knowledge.
As an art teacher, it is also my job to manage a dozen situations at one time, trying to oversee students working on projects, manage the clock, implement cleanup procedures. There is often a lot going on at the same time, especially the last 5 minutes of class. Taking in to account that there are only 2 minutes between each class, the outgoing class MUST reset the room for the incoming class. Trash must be collected and swept up. Artwork must be put away, and students HAVE to stop working when they are given the signal. The last 5 minutes are CLEAN UP time. With each new material, clean up procedures change dramatically. When using chalk, students need ample time to wash hands and tables. When using watercolors, students need to make sure that their artwork gets put into the correct place on the drying rack. When drawing in sketchbooks, the sketchbooks need to get put into the correct clip, which must get placed in the correct bin. When using markers, the lids must be put on tightly, the markers placed in baskets and the baskets placed on the correct shelf. Since we frequently change materials, clean up procedures change each day. Even though the same stuff might go in the same spots each day, the students don't necessarily use the same supplies from week to week, and they often forget where things go. One would think that painting would be something that is done quite often in art. Especially tempera or acrylic painting. But honestly, if you ask any art teacher in the area, I am sure they would agree with me, that using this type of paint is so beautiful, but SO stressful to implement. Most teachers only brave a tempera painting project once or twice a year. It leaves a mess on the tables that MUST be cleaned between classes. After painting on a project, this paint needs ample time to dry, maybe even several hours as it is quite thick and can smear or stick to another paper if you stack it before it is dry. It is also exhausting, the work to keep the paint prepped and the brushes washed between classes is intense. It is so much more work than other materials. And something about painting makes the kids wild. They are more likely to have a spill and lose their minds with excitement, than they would be if they were just drawing. This means that at any given moment, an eruption of giggles or gasps or screams might ensue from a corner of the room, which was otherwise engaged. One smudge of paint on the neck might turn into paint on everyone's face or neck or hands. Anarchy might break out at any given moment, forcing the teacher to be on edge, watching like a hawk, enforcing procedures like a drill sergeant. YOU NEED A COVER SHEET! YOU NEED A PAPER TOWEL? WHY ARE YOU MIXING EVERY COLOR TOGETHER......DON'T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH WORK THAT MAKES FOR ME TO CLEAN OUT THE PALLET BETWEEN CLASSES??? Yesterday, during clean up time, as I was making sure that water containers were dumped out, paper towels were thrown away, paint was placed back on the counter, hands were getting washed, spills were getting cleaned up, and students were working together (not just standing around talking), a boy approached me asked a very serious and thoughtful question: "Mrs. Mitchell, under slavery, why is it that most slaves escaped to the North via the underground railroad where they could be captured and sent back to their owners instead of just going to Mexico?" As an educator, I know that this was a poignant moment. His question was so authentic and it was clear that he was really thinking about something and wanted true knowledge. This is the pinnacle of learning. This is exactly what we want students in classrooms to do. This is exactly the type of question we want them to ask, to examine events and weigh the pros and cons of various decisions and their implications for future generations. But at that moment, chaos was circling around us. I had a choice to make, I could either give his question the thoughtful discussion it deserved, or escape to a beach in Mexico. Not really. I could've barked to someone skipping by to "slow down, you are carrying a liter of water that could spill at any moment!!!" I tried to do both. I tried to manage the clean up procedures AND have a serious discussion about the civil war. It wasn't my best performance. I can't even remember what I told the kid. Something about the fact that in the north, slaves had a chance to become citizens, but in Mexico they would have been there illegally. Honestly, at that moment, I couldn't think about anything BUT the fact that in 3 minutes, the next class would be waiting in the hall and we HAD to reset the room in preparation for them. It was a missed opportunity, and bad timing for sure. Tune in tomorrow to learn what life lesson I had to impart the very next hour.
2 Comments
“When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.” ― Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life My goal last year was to really 'get into reading' again.
In 2015, I had set a goal to read 20 books. I actually read 25. In 2016, I set a goal to read 30 books and I actually read 38. My goal this year is to read 40 books. I've only read 5 books so far, and goodreads says that I am 2 books behind schedule. I blame the fact that two of the books I have already read were SUPER long (hello Pride and Prejudice!). I am currently reading How Proust Can Change Your Life. There are already so many great little quotes that relate to this Slice of Life writing challenge. Proust embraced the idea of diving in deep to the mundane trivialities of every day life. In his novel In Search Of Lost time, he ruminates for 30 pages about falling asleep. He loves to expand on the mundane minutiae of the every day details. Last year, I read 5 of the 7 parts in his immense novel. I am hoping to finish the other two parts this year, especially now that I am reading Alain de Botton's ode to Proust. Reading, writing, puzzles, hiking. It is the simple things that make a happy life. Do you love to read or hear stories about scary things that go bump in the night? I mentioned recently that I love audio books and podcasts. Today I want to tell you about my 2nd favorite podcast.: Lore. Last summer, on the very last day of school, I drove to Fayetteville and hopped in the car with my friend Kelsey. She was on her way to Georgia for her friend Kelly's graduation from Law School. The drive to Atlanta is about 12 hours and we did not leave until almost 8:00 p.m. Kelsey likes to drive at night. She did all the driving and I did all the riding. I can't even say that I navigated because she has done the drive many times before so she stops that the same gas stations and rest rooms all along the way. She had the route mapped out in her head before we even left. Luckily we didn't hit much traffic because we were driving at night. The most memorable part of the drive was listening to the Lore podcast. Kelsey had listened to it all before, but since we had 12 hours ahead of us, she started it from the beginning. It was so engaging, that I managed to stay awake the entire trip as we played episode after episode. Lore is written and produced by Aaron Manke. He researches local folk stories and puts them together in a creepy, thought provoking way. When I got back from the trip to Georgia, I was pretty obsessed with the podcast. I could not wait to share it with my friends. I arrived home to Joplin on a Thursday morning, Kelsey driving all night and the two of us switching between music and more Lore podcast to keep us entertained and awake. That night, after a nap, I loaded up my car with my sister, her daughter and husband and my own husband. We set off for a Memorial Day weekend road trip to San Antonio. The drive to San Antonio is about 12 hours and we did not leave until after 10:00 p.m. My husband likes to drive at night. Since we had 4 adults, everyone took turns (except for me, I didn't have to drive!). I can't even say that I navigated much because most of the trip everyone helped with that. The most memorable part of the drive was listening to the Lore podcast. Again. I had just listened to it all before, but since we had a 12 hours ahead of us, I started it from the beginning. It was so engaging that I managed to stay awake the entire trip as we played episode after episode. Lore is such a great podcast that I listened to it twice in a two week period from beginning to end. It is a good listen for families and children. Now, if we are on a short trip to Fayetteville or Tulsa, we usually play one or two of the new episodes to keep us entertained. Here are a few of my favorite episodes: Rope and Railing The Castle Half-Hanged Do you have any favorite podcasts? I'm sort of an audio book addict. I have an audible account and I love to listen to books. Especially on the weekends, when I wake up earlier than my husband and I don't want to make any noise, or turn on the lights. I can pop in my headphones and listen to a classic story. I've just finished Great Expectations by Charles Dickins and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. But sometimes, my husband and I want to listen to something together. Especially for road trips. Occasionally, we will listen to a book together, but we have a few favorite podcasts that we enjoy. A podcast is great because it has new episodes regularly and it is like a movie for your ears. You can immerse yourself with while still taking on the scenery. I like audiobooks and podcasts because I can give my eyes a rest. Sometimes my eyes are so tired after watching TV or reading that they water and burn. With a podcast or an audio book, I can go for a walk and I'm not tethered to an armchair. I have two favorite podcasts that I would recommend. My husband and I also like Serial, but it hasn't had any new episodes for a while. Today I want to tell you about one of my favorites. Tune in tomorrow to hear about my other favorite podcast. On Being with Krista Tippett--- This is one of those podcasts that I found by accident. Someone I follow on Instagram posted about an episode so I decided to check that one episode out. It was an interview with a poet. Once I dug a little deeper and listened to more episodes, I appreciated to depth and scope of the subject matter. Krista Tippett interviews authors, poets, musicians, scientists, and spiritual people. Her interviews are relevant, poignant, and meaningful in ways that impact the human condition. She talks with civil rights activists and actors, but not in a late night talk show host sort of way. She gets into smart conversations that make you THINK. Krista does a lot of research before her interviews, so she asks people to delve into their ideas and expand on their experiences. Usually, her questions make me ask questions and I find myself wanting to seek out the source. Since I've started regularly listening to her podcasts, I've bought books, listened to contemporary banjo playlists, and signed up for the Brain Pickings weekly newsletter. Not because the show suggested that I should, the way a commercial or a plug tells you to go out and buy something, but because I sincerely wanted to learn something or find out more. It has opened up a whole world of knowledge and it is a regular source of intelligent, thought provoking ideas. Here are a few of my favorite episodes: Listening to the World Your Life is a Poem Choosing Curiosity Over Fear Cartographer of Meaning in a Digital Age What have you been watching lately?
Abstract: The Art of Design-- Wow. This is such a great show!! It highlights so many influential people. From Tinker Hatfield at Nike to Bjarke Ingels the world renown architect. I love seeing into the life and ideas behind so many interesting people. 60s and 70s--- Produced by Tom Hanks, this series had 5 stars for good reason. From the very first episode, I was hooked. Each episode of the show highlights an idea all the way through the decade. From the British Invasion, to Watergate, it pulls news clips and commentary from people who lived and experienced America. It is a unique perspective on history, that wasn't really taught in school. It is a compelling show, I would encourage anyone to give it a watch. Minimalism-- This documentary will make you want to clean out your entire house and get rid of all the clutter. It is a unique way of thinking and I love the simplicity of it. My house is currently stuffed so full of chachkies and keepsakes, that its like an 80 year old grandma has been living here for 50 years. I love the idea of refining down your belongings to just what is necessary in order to find peace and calm. Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds--This was an amazing series. It highlights the brilliance of 3 cities in three exceptional years, focusing on the minds of artists, writers, musicians and thinkers responsible for earth shattering discoveries. I kind of want to watch it again, and I hope they make another season. The Little Prince--This was recommended by a student. She told me she watched it 3 times in one weekend. It was so sweet and a beautiful animation. I watched it with my husband and my niece and they both loved it too!! The 13th-- Gosh. This is an enlightening documentary on the U. S. prison system. As much as I want a safe place to live and we've been bred to believe that 'lock up' is the best solution for crime....I wonder if some people are imprisoned unfairly. Best place to see a concert? Best live show you've ever seen? I would not say that I am very knowledgeable about music, albums, or concerts in general. I enjoy all types of music. From country to rock, folk and alternative. Last year, I had the opportunity to see more live music than ever. Partially, that's because I went to the country music festival in Nashville. The festival was a fantastic way to see a lot of great music in a short time span. Even though I don't listen to a lot of contemporary country music, there were a lot of old favorites to watch. It was such a fun weekend to hop from show to show. We watched the Oakridge Boys at a big out door amphitheater, and our entire group got blasted on the jumbotron! It was quite memorable! I probably saw a few local shows in 2015, but I can only really remember going to two. One of my favorite music experiences, was watching Lowland Hum at a local house concert. The band doesn't play big venues, nor should they. It is a husband and wife. When the wife sang, and the husband played, the entire living room was filled with angelic folk music. It was a very spiritual experience. Quite the opposite of seeing yourself cheering and dancing on a jumbotron, but much more real. This year, I only have tickets to three concerts. All three are in huge amphitheater arenas. Not my favorite. I much prefer seeing a band at an outdoor spot like the Starlight in KC, or even the Amphitheater at Downstream. In January, we saw the Red Hot Chilli Peppers at the BOK in Tulsa. We had a great view of the light show, and the music was fabulous but it wasn't my favorite concert experience. 2015 Live Music September: Lowland Hum @ a House Concert November: Modest Mouse @ Cain's 2016 Live Music January: Primus and Tool @ BOK in Tulsa May: Ben Folds @ Gillioz in Springfield June: Country Music Festival in Nashville
September: Alabama @Downstream August: The Band Perry @ Downstream October: Get The Led Out in KC @ the Voodoo Lounge 2017 Live Music January: Red Hot Chilli Peppers @BOK in Tulsa April: A Perfect Circle @BOK in Tulsa December: Lady Gaga @ Chesapeake Arena in OKC This weekend is the National Art Education conference. Thousands of art educators from all over the country have assembled in New York City to discuss all things art teacher.
My Instagram and Facebook feed has been consumed with images of art teachers at the MOMA, eating pizza, roaming around Central Park and Times Square. Posing with the Starry Night, posing with other art teachers that are well known in online art communities, and posing with the giant LOVE sculpture. I can hardly contain my jealousy at the onslaught of images of skylines, architecture, and famous art. I've only been to NYC once, but it was for the very same convention in 2012. I traveled with a friend/colleague who used to live in New York, so she was a valuable asset when it came to navigating the subway and getting around. She basically let me make a list of everywhere I wanted to go and we went there. We did a lot of walking, and we stayed in a hostel in Brooklyn, but it was absolutely incredible. Leaving the city on that final morning, we had a glimpse of the skyline from the taxi, and as the plane took off, we could see the skyscrapers jutting out across the landscape. The Statue of Liberty sent us off with a little farewell wave as we ascended over thousands of taxis, millions of people making their way to work along the sidewalks, and below ground in the subways. When my plane descended in northwest Arkansas, I stared out the window at the short stacks of hay bales, the groupings of diary cows in green pastures, and the crawl of a lonely car on a two lane highway. Wearing my I {HEART} NYC hoodie, I disembarked the aircraft with tears in my eyes. The next morning, I stood in the cafeteria at my tiny kindergarten center, wearing plastic food safe gloves, opening milk cartons and cutting waffles with tears in my eyes. The New York trip sparked something inside me. While I don't long of living in a big city, I fell in love with my experience. Thinking about all the big cities I have visited: Vancouver (another top favorite), Portland, Seattle (okay I love this one too), Dallas, Sydney, Rome, London, Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Philadelphia, Auckland, none of them can really compare to the feeling that I had in New York. It was a passionately 'American' feeling. Writing this post makes me really want to go back......(looking at flights now) Have you ever been to New York? In 1998, I was a sophomore in high school. I learned 'keyboarding' on an electric typewriter.
We had a workbook, and each day we would feed the paper into the machine, and type rows and rows of glad glad glad glad glad glad glad glad or yours yours yours your yours. I am pretty fast typer now, and I know it is because of the typing class and the workbook. If we ever had 'free' typing sessions, I would use that time to type notes to my friends. I still have a few poems and notes that I received from my buddies in my old scrapbooks from high school. Our high school also offered a class in shorthand, which I never took, but might be completely obsolete by now. In 2000, I was a senior in high school. I took a computer class on a Dell computer. We learned the basics of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. In class, I sat beside a friend of mine (who now works in an IT department), and we would create posters to each other and send them over to the 'presses'. Hot and fresh out of the color printer, Brad would lift the white paper up to reveal an ad for hot dogs or smell machines or barf buckets, with his name in comic sans endorsing the product. I was quite clever with my attempts to humiliate without actually offending him. In retaliation, he would make equally borderline inappropriate propaganda and affix my name to it. We had a lot of fun, but we also learned a lot about graphic designs and the programs we were supposed to be learning. When I saw the first iPhone in 2007, I was in awe. It was an incredibly new idea, NO KEYBOARD! Very few buttons, you could interact with everything on the phone by touching the screen. Now, smartphones are commonplace, but when my friend first showed us his phone, there was no doubt in my mind that it would change the world. In 2010, I had been the proud owner of a MacBook for over 5 years. It was issued to me in my first teaching job and I was tethered to it. Using it mostly for researching, writing, editing photos., I spent my Saturday mornings, evenings and school day squinting into the little screen, clacking away at the keys. For Christmas, my husband surprised me with an Apple Watch. It counts my steps, tracks my 'stand goal for the day, and monitors my texts. It knows the temperature, can navigate while I'm driving, and the voice commands are amazingly well received. Sometimes, I look down at the face on my wrist because I feel the haptic alert and I am awe that less than 20 years ago, I was typing glad glad glad glad glad on an old electric type writer. Favorite Chores Washing dishes (sometimes) Vacuuming Cooking New Favorite Chore Matching Socks I used to loathe matching the socks. Between the two of us, my husband and I had 800 different pairs of black socks. Each one had a different texture/pattern, but they were so similar that it took forever to match them up. One of my friends had an idea for fixing that problem. He got rid of ALL of his socks, went to Wal-Mart and bought a dozen pairs of black socks, the same brand. It made matching his socks 100% easier and he could wear them with everything he owned. If he ever lost a sock, he could save it back for the next time he lost a sock and the missing one always had a match. That is great for him. But every year, my mother in law stocks our stocking with new stockings. New black socks. Sometimes they are so similar, that they are difficult to tell if they are men's or women's. Sometimes I would get my husband's socks in my drawer and vice versa. Inevitably one would end up missing, and I would wind up with that lonely guy, with no match. A single tall black boot sock with no mate. Last fall, my husband went shopping for some new work clothes. He picked up some new socks in the men's section. They weren't black. Instead, they were striped. And patterned and brightly colored!!! For Christmas this year, I specifically asked for 'Fine Art Socks'. Now my socks are adorned with famous paintings like the Mona Lisa and the Starry Night. Having such a beautiful assortment of socks between the two of us, has made matching the socks and folding the laundry so much more fun. Don't get me wrong, I still have some black socks. And so does my husband. You can't wear these crazy socks with everything you own. *Teacher Tip* I did find a great idea for what to do with those lonely black socks. I took them to school, and we use them as erasers for our dry erase boards. They are easy to wash and since they are black, they are great for wiping away the dry erase marker ink on the small boards. Last year, I had an obsession with getting some flower boxes to hang below my back windows. I had a fantasy that I would have visions of Tuscany whilst I sipped tea and coffee in my breakfast nook. As promised, my husband built them and hung them for me and I enjoyed them all year long!!
The flower boxes were quite beautiful. I am very happy with how they turned out. I documented them throughout the year so I could share the update here since I was so obsessed with how beautiful they would turn out. Hanging the flower boxes actually made us take the storm windows off and wash the windows. It also made us figure out we could take the screen off from the inside, and water the flowers from inside the house....as using the water hose extension sometimes got my car all wet and didn't truly water the one that was farthest away. The unseasonably spring weather is making me very anxious and excited to get the flowers planted so I can enjoy them every day! The pictures below are SPRING, right after planting). SUMMER, full bloom! FALL, the mums were added and haven't bloomed quite yet in this picture. |
Mrs. Mitchell
This is my 'slice of life' blog. Archives
March 2020
My Art Teacher Blog:
This Little Class of Mine CategoriesOther Slice Blogs:
For Good I Like Big Books Life is a Slice The Cardinal Way KochUnaSlice YouWannaPieceofMeBlog Dr. Zornes' Slice of Life Sunshine Rays Two Writing Teachers Favorite Everyday Writer: Reesie Writes |