possibilities and finite answers

As I approach the second semester, with both optimism and realism, I feel much of the same hope I had before the limitations stopped me in my tracks. The limitations created such a horrible environment to work in - a horrible environment to learn and teach in. I should be really happy that my students have shown real learning and growth. They have demonstrated use of critical thinking as well as imagination and creativity (not that those are by any means exclusive of the other). I am really happy that they have learned. Maybe I just got lucky - or maybe I did something right.

The community continues to call in with requests for projects to be completed by the students. I feel confident in asking many of my Photo students to complete these service learning opportunities, but I must be really blunt in saying that I just don't trust my Graphics students with any responsibility. 

I'm going to have to return to the old format of individual projects that focus on skill building. My advanced students will be bored - and I'm afraid I will also. I love to infuse meaning and real-life connections in my teaching. I love when students use what I show them, and then take it a step beyond even their own expectations. 

While this class represents the typical bell curve of achievement and critical thinking skills: (25% advanced, 50% average, 25% below average) I am struggling to find the happy-medium to best meet their learning. I am tempted to break up the groups by ability : Red Readers, Blue Whatevers, Green Something-or-Others. I have no difficulty in differentiating learning and teaching to meet all the IEP's - but I think that the differentiated groups in a heavily tech-based class will require so much more work. I'm afraid it will be much more work than the two levels (and five periods) of Photo. If only tech support were worth a damn at my district. If only I could just get what is needed (and what was promised) to do my job right. I'd be happy enough just to get decent lighting in the cave, uh... I mean classroom, or the trash removed almost every day.

I must sound like every single first-year teacher. In some ways it helps to keep in mind that my struggles in this particular site are not very unique. That helps when I remember my colleagues (and miss my home)... 

Since I'm surrounded by so much negativity, I think I need to create lessons that help ME feel like I'm doing some good. Selfish, no? Project-based learning allows the educator periods of grading when projects are complete - or at checkpoints along the way. I have felt the most pride in my students when I've been able to grade their works - and that's not necessarily that often.

There's such a chasm between my intentions and the possibilities - and the finite answers, or the reality of the situation. I want to do a fabulous job, and I need the equipment to be up and running well. I would love to be able to do all my own equipment maintenance - but I don't want to have to get another degree to learn how to do it. Besides, no matter how many times I ask - I won't get the help I need. I will be (have been) met with resistance each step of the way - and even though it would make it easier for all involved: the people causing resistance won't just get out of my way and let me do what needs to be done.

home from being home

The holiday trip to California was just what we all needed. It was incredible to see with a new perspective what 'home' actually is to me. I rarely get the feeling of 'home' anymore - it's an odd feeling to a person who has moved so many times in my life.

I felt a little bit 'home' on Christmas Eve at the mass services. Explaining customs, rites, and rituals to my dh surprised me that something so traditional and regimented was still such a part of me. Maybe the mass has been just such a routine for so long, that it was like reciting a fallow prayer. But at Christmas Eve, in mass, with my fragmented little family in the church, it felt a little 'home'.

I am who I am - though. A trip to the MoLAA in its recent rebirthed glory made me feel 'home'. I always get more of a connection feeling in a museum or gallery than I do in church. I was surrounded by people who accepted me - people that have learned to live with and celebrate each other in all the beautiful differences we display. What a contrast that was to what I have returned to here. Here truly is a desert.

A few brief visits with friends and colleagues have proved fruitful for the future - but mostly for the soul. It was great to be 'home'. 

holiday break

I keep telling myself - you can make it to Friday.

My self says 'self - YOU make it to Friday, I'm on my way home.'

the dirt path detour

I got my VW Bus back from the mechanic with a new engine requiring a break-in of 500 miles. On Sunday, after dropping off homework to a sick student, I saw a sign for a road I had never taken before. It was a 12 mile 'short-cut' that I thought would bring me to the vicinity of where I needed to be.

The first mile or so on the 618 road from the 260 to Beaver Creek was barren, rocky, littered every few hundred feet with discarded beer cans. There was very little to see, and I considered turning around. My little one had just fallen into a nap a few minutes prior, so I figured - why not?

The next few miles were an opportunity for discovery, and it got better with each hill and horizon. I passed hunting grounds, creeks and caverns, campsites, more dirt paths, RV villages, red rocks carved by ice and creeks, the Coconino forest, ranches, mountains, snow, lush pastures right next to desert scrub.

As I travelled the road, the colors of the dirt changed from a beige to blue and purple, then to the bright red of the surrounding rocks. There were stripes of white, and grey that seemed to create a natural lane divider on a one-lane road. As the road continued and the 5, 6, 7 mile mark passed me by, the terrain evolved and changed along with each passing tree.

I arrived to a familiar spot connecting to a paved road I knew. It was not where I intended to end up, but I knew how to get to where I needed to be. I felt optimistic and revived. My son slept through the entire bumpy ordeal. The dirt and rock roller coaster had been refreshing for me, even a physical metaphor of my path in life right now.

I really don't know where I'm going, or if I made the right turn to come down this road, but for the next few miles, I'll enjoy the ride.

same stuff, only nuttier?

In trying to make sense of chaos, I'm trying to figure out if our move this year was a step forward - or a leap backwards.

There was as much "poop" at the inner city environment as there is here - it was just of a different variety. However, a few observations: A victory in the city was meaningful. It changed the way the student saw themselves within their own environment, maybe inspired them to try a little harder, to open their minds to the possibilities, gave them a little more of a sense of worth. A victory in the country town is a minor ripple in the pond - and fizzles out quickly. No one is inspired to try any harder, no one sees possibilities, no one will allow themselves any more self-worth than their raising allows.

In the inner city, students dropped out to get jobs because there were six brothers and sisters to feed, the parents were addicts, and the student was the only dependable one who would bring in a steady income - or because there were other very big distractions: babies, drugs, gangs.

In the country town, students drop out because hunting season is more important than an education - AND "my dad makes three times what you do as a truck driver - he never graduated - so why should I get a diploma?" The community seems to agree.

It's really difficult to cling on to the kids who are interested in college, or to find them at all. Wanting an education for yourself or your family carries quite a stigma in this little country town. Wanting to own your own business, to work for yourself, or to do anything that doesn't require mastering the images on the register and the phrase "do you want fries with that?" is an oddity.

It's not that I cling to the naive notion that all kids should go to college, or have any ambition or drive for their own future, or know what they want to do for themselves while still in high school. I didn't know, I was just as unsure as they are now...

But I knew I had options, and I could follow certain paths if I wanted to. I was able to go beyond my own physical and personal boundaries to find my own path. The mountain ridges that surround this place begin to feel like jagged prison walls that keep in those born here, and keep out anyone else. The opportunities and dreams dry up fast here, and the gene pool is becoming very shallow.

Some of the same leavings - only a nuttier variety.

A lesson backfire

As part of the CTE standards, career exploration and research is integral. I have touched upon it before - but without corresponding projects and an understanding of what a graphic designer or creative project traffic coordinator actually does, the information in research is lost upon the students. Besides, I am an advocate for the arts - and many of my students have never realized a real living can be made from the creative fields.

A visit to a California company's website (www.creativegroup.com) to research temp and freelance creative jobs sparked a lesson on digital portfolios, career opportunities, applications, resumes and CV's, etc. After a day of furious research on the part of the students, every period ended with a question posed to me. The question was the same in every circumstance:

"Mrs. B, why are you here?"

It was followed with "you can do all this stuff" or "you can make three times more money there" or even the stinging bite of "with all your experience and qualifications, it's stupid that you'd be a teacher."

ouch! from my own students! My feeble response is the standby: "who would you rather have as a teacher?"

Then the double-whammy came on: the bills, the cancelled holiday visit to friends, the reduction of the gifts budget, and the reminder that my net paycheck is exactly the same as when I was a part-time cocktail waitress. It's been decided in our household that I will be returning home and obtaining temp work over the summer. I can't afford not to.