1st DAY AT IS183!!!!

Reflection from First Week (*First Day Thoughts)- 7/9

STUDENT ART WORK EXAMPLES TO FOLLOW, AT THE END OF THE WEEK (SO YOU CAN SEE WHAT "MY" KIDS DID!)  :)

I thought about waiting until the end of the week to write this, but I have so many thoughts from my first day! I didn’t want them to escape…

I am learning about many different mediums that are not second nature to me- paper mache, ceramics (I’m 2d mainly: illustration)! It brings such a wonderful realization to the saying, “I teach what is pressing to me,” or “teach what you do not know.” It means I am also a student while I am teaching, and I am staying engaged with the students.

I also discovered today that the quietest students sometimes (I identify with that a bit, being somewhat of a shy student growing up) – if you take them away from the group they may talk a mile a minute! While M. and I waited for her mom to pick her up, I found out that she is involved in SO much art in her life- poetry, visual arts, performance… her family is BIG into art, and many are artists of different types. I also found out a lot about what she doesn’t like about art class and writing classes in school: “It’s just drawing- no clay or anything like today…” or “They want me to write essays that are like, ‘tell me three things about this, or this… It’s boring.” Hopefully our wonderful and revealing chat (I found myself sharing my (possibly more, but possibly not much more!) mature, personal opinions about art and creative writing. It was such a neat feeling to know that she “got” me) will make her more comfy with me tomorrow and the rest of the week!

(Speaking of that, it will be so neat to see how comfortable our group of kids will be with each other and with us as teachers by the end of the week!)

I am also seeing multicultural education “in action,” and trying my hand at is as well, as there are 3 French girls in our class: one who doesn’t understand much English at all yet, one who understands some (keywords), and yet another who understands almost all of it; she is bilingual at age 9 and can function nearly as well as a professional translator! It is so incredible to watch her take charge in helping her friends/sisters in their learning, and it is so neat to watch her learning enhance because of her ability to help them.

At our first class tonight (Thematic Inspiration), it was so nice to see techniques I have learned from Lesley University also being used out here: movement, visual art making, music all being used to facilitate lessons of any type (whether it be math, science, or history). Lots of Angel’s lesson examples have different artistic elements combined in the same aim of providing the best learning experience possible: writing, visual art, music, and movement are all employed. It comforts me to see that all the stuff at Lesley that feels sort of extreme/progressive (albeit, certainly, “effective” and “right”) is finding homes: usable and successful in cultivating the joy of art… the “movement” is spreading!