Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.
29.11.09
28.11.09
When all you have left to say is, "I'm sorry."
Finding myself at Thanksgiving and receiving the pleasure of at least two extra full days with which I am able to fill with the ever-so weighty list of things to accomplish, I finally got around to looking over the finished assignments from my students at the high school and the 100 accompanying evaluations filled out regarding my teaching at the school. I made it through approximately 60 of the pages filled with a a smattering of both scathing and kind remarks. I sat there at the kitchen table, head in my hands, stunned, although not overly surprised. Although I did not know quite how strongly some of the students felt, their responses to my solicitation for opinion put many of the unspoken feelings about my experience there into words, as difficult as they are to read. Reading what the students had to say really brought me back to the deep sense of failure and lostness I felt there.
I've debated about being so bold as to reveal my poor reviews here for you to see, but over the last day or so, I find the inability to escape pain-inducing recollections of what I read just yesterday and I feel the need to sort out the emotions and find a footing upon which to walk forward. Honestly, I am still trying to figure out what happened to me there, where I got off track, how I seem to have so badly missed the point.
Reading over the selection of evaluations left me with the sense that somehow I had missed really seeing the students I was supposed to be teaching. I felt overwhelmed. I felt lost. I felt insecure. and I felt threatened and abused by many of the students. I was writing a reflection on one of my lessons from the high school the other day and realized the answer to the question: "What went wrong," to be somehow and somewhere answered in the fact that I let the students walk all over me. One of the more compassionate evaluations actually read, "You shouldn't let students walk all over you. You are the authority in the class." Sage advice from a student that I don't think I know how to apply.
Maybe if I'd had more time there, I could have continued to grow. I do not know. I found myself sitting there yesterday, wishing that I could crawl down into the heater vents where I could hear the mice scratching around. I sat there, thinking, "I wish I could just go back there and say 'I am so sorry.' "
My heart breaks at the thought that I hurt some students, that I left them feeling unimportant, inadequate, or disrespected. I wish I could have found space to just see them before everything else.
I am remembering thoughts shared by experienced teachers about the fact that they learned everything about writing lessons and their content in school, but were not taught the most important thing-- relationships. And thinking of that gives me a bit of hope that perhaps I am not as doomed as I feel, that although the learning curve is steep, that perhaps there is hope for me yet. That somehow I will touch more students with love and compassion than those that leave my classroom feeling hurt. And I find myself hoping and longing that there is forgiveness out there somewhere for me. Maybe even if it only comes from me.
In the midst of all of this, I find myself searching for some sort of footing in terms of classification of blame, causes, and responses. I keep thinking of this phrase that I heard over and over in jr. high and high school: You must rise to the occassion. I've been thinking of this often, about how regardless of the reasons, regardless of what I am up against, regardless of how close student teaching is to being a real teacher, I have to rise to the occassion. I can only meet the challenges with integrity and courage, doing my best to do what I know to be the best.
Much of this semester, especially the first part of this journey, left me with a sense of flail-- I imagine myself treading water. Unfortunately, the stack of evaluations sitting at home on my desk are reminders of the students that I had there in the water with me.
Thier evaluations have shown me again that the essential thing in teaching has little to do with what I teach and much to do with how I am treating, seeing, and loving the group of students I have been placed around. The difficulty, I think, with being a student teacher and being a young teacher, is making the transition between doing the thing you've been taught to be able to do in school and seeing the real people you have chosen to serve with this training and knowledge.
When I was at the school, my mentor teacher tried to tell me that the choices I make about how I actually teach, the learning experience I set up for my students has a reciprocal relationship with the personal connections I have with students. My instructional strategies should be rooted in compassion and a personal and genuine connection with the students for which that instruction is prepared. How I use the time I have in my classroom does actually communicate how I feel about students-- it isn't just about what I say.
Respect is a funny thing. As a young teacher, I am still tyring to navigate my personal identity. I am navigating what it means to be an authority and to gain proper respect. Something I do remember thinking a lot about during my first placement was the issue of posturing. I worked through the tendency to put on a "teacher face," and grew a great deal in learning how to relax and be personal in the classroom. I think I did come a long way, but it is going to take a while to really learn it. I think I get caught up in feeling like I need to figure out what the model of teacher-persona is and then put on that costume, become the expected image. I am starting to see that the difference is in simply seeing my role as a person who is placed in the classroom to serve the young people that enter its door. My role is a person who is able to love my class as a whole and therefore make decisions based not on how I feel about individual students or how they treat me, but simply, manage this little world as a whole, making sure each student is held to the same standard of work, respect, and self-pride. How that works itself out beyond theory is a difficult question, but at least it is an idea with which to work.
As painful as it is to read about my mistakes and failures from the very hands of those I have failed, there is also something about it that drives me to try again. It poses a challenge for growth that is essential for a vibrant life. It is an opportunity to learn how to serve students better in the future because I now can see a little more what really hurts them and what really matters most. Working through the difficulties and messes that define relationships are the very catalysts that teach us to love better, even though it is frightening. Even if the thought of it still makes me sick to my stomache.
So what am I to do with all of this? The truth is that I am fresh, I am green, and I have been trusted with an unbelieveable number of young people even though the expectation for my failure and mistakes is quite high. The truth is that I am broken. I am humbled. I am repentant and I hope that someday all of those kids who saw my evaluations as an opportunity to unleash the eight weeks of pain and frustration I put them through will find it in thier hearts to forgive me. I hope that they will someday find grace for failures and shortcomings that they did not seem to recieve from me.
There is something refreshing and exhiliarting in the prospect of a second chance at loving people. There is something I find so deeply touching in the idea that even when I've so impossibly wronged someone, there is always a chance tomorrow to make it right. There is always a chance to start again, to stop and remember how much better things are when I choose compassion before my own sense of obligation or responsiblity. It is that painful sense of growth that comes from pruning.
And I am happy to know that there is hope for forgiveness and grace for my failures, even when I feel like I belong somewhere near the bottom of the foodchain.
I've debated about being so bold as to reveal my poor reviews here for you to see, but over the last day or so, I find the inability to escape pain-inducing recollections of what I read just yesterday and I feel the need to sort out the emotions and find a footing upon which to walk forward. Honestly, I am still trying to figure out what happened to me there, where I got off track, how I seem to have so badly missed the point.
Reading over the selection of evaluations left me with the sense that somehow I had missed really seeing the students I was supposed to be teaching. I felt overwhelmed. I felt lost. I felt insecure. and I felt threatened and abused by many of the students. I was writing a reflection on one of my lessons from the high school the other day and realized the answer to the question: "What went wrong," to be somehow and somewhere answered in the fact that I let the students walk all over me. One of the more compassionate evaluations actually read, "You shouldn't let students walk all over you. You are the authority in the class." Sage advice from a student that I don't think I know how to apply.
Maybe if I'd had more time there, I could have continued to grow. I do not know. I found myself sitting there yesterday, wishing that I could crawl down into the heater vents where I could hear the mice scratching around. I sat there, thinking, "I wish I could just go back there and say 'I am so sorry.' "
My heart breaks at the thought that I hurt some students, that I left them feeling unimportant, inadequate, or disrespected. I wish I could have found space to just see them before everything else.
I am remembering thoughts shared by experienced teachers about the fact that they learned everything about writing lessons and their content in school, but were not taught the most important thing-- relationships. And thinking of that gives me a bit of hope that perhaps I am not as doomed as I feel, that although the learning curve is steep, that perhaps there is hope for me yet. That somehow I will touch more students with love and compassion than those that leave my classroom feeling hurt. And I find myself hoping and longing that there is forgiveness out there somewhere for me. Maybe even if it only comes from me.
In the midst of all of this, I find myself searching for some sort of footing in terms of classification of blame, causes, and responses. I keep thinking of this phrase that I heard over and over in jr. high and high school: You must rise to the occassion. I've been thinking of this often, about how regardless of the reasons, regardless of what I am up against, regardless of how close student teaching is to being a real teacher, I have to rise to the occassion. I can only meet the challenges with integrity and courage, doing my best to do what I know to be the best.
Much of this semester, especially the first part of this journey, left me with a sense of flail-- I imagine myself treading water. Unfortunately, the stack of evaluations sitting at home on my desk are reminders of the students that I had there in the water with me.
Thier evaluations have shown me again that the essential thing in teaching has little to do with what I teach and much to do with how I am treating, seeing, and loving the group of students I have been placed around. The difficulty, I think, with being a student teacher and being a young teacher, is making the transition between doing the thing you've been taught to be able to do in school and seeing the real people you have chosen to serve with this training and knowledge.
When I was at the school, my mentor teacher tried to tell me that the choices I make about how I actually teach, the learning experience I set up for my students has a reciprocal relationship with the personal connections I have with students. My instructional strategies should be rooted in compassion and a personal and genuine connection with the students for which that instruction is prepared. How I use the time I have in my classroom does actually communicate how I feel about students-- it isn't just about what I say.
Respect is a funny thing. As a young teacher, I am still tyring to navigate my personal identity. I am navigating what it means to be an authority and to gain proper respect. Something I do remember thinking a lot about during my first placement was the issue of posturing. I worked through the tendency to put on a "teacher face," and grew a great deal in learning how to relax and be personal in the classroom. I think I did come a long way, but it is going to take a while to really learn it. I think I get caught up in feeling like I need to figure out what the model of teacher-persona is and then put on that costume, become the expected image. I am starting to see that the difference is in simply seeing my role as a person who is placed in the classroom to serve the young people that enter its door. My role is a person who is able to love my class as a whole and therefore make decisions based not on how I feel about individual students or how they treat me, but simply, manage this little world as a whole, making sure each student is held to the same standard of work, respect, and self-pride. How that works itself out beyond theory is a difficult question, but at least it is an idea with which to work.
As painful as it is to read about my mistakes and failures from the very hands of those I have failed, there is also something about it that drives me to try again. It poses a challenge for growth that is essential for a vibrant life. It is an opportunity to learn how to serve students better in the future because I now can see a little more what really hurts them and what really matters most. Working through the difficulties and messes that define relationships are the very catalysts that teach us to love better, even though it is frightening. Even if the thought of it still makes me sick to my stomache.
So what am I to do with all of this? The truth is that I am fresh, I am green, and I have been trusted with an unbelieveable number of young people even though the expectation for my failure and mistakes is quite high. The truth is that I am broken. I am humbled. I am repentant and I hope that someday all of those kids who saw my evaluations as an opportunity to unleash the eight weeks of pain and frustration I put them through will find it in thier hearts to forgive me. I hope that they will someday find grace for failures and shortcomings that they did not seem to recieve from me.
There is something refreshing and exhiliarting in the prospect of a second chance at loving people. There is something I find so deeply touching in the idea that even when I've so impossibly wronged someone, there is always a chance tomorrow to make it right. There is always a chance to start again, to stop and remember how much better things are when I choose compassion before my own sense of obligation or responsiblity. It is that painful sense of growth that comes from pruning.
And I am happy to know that there is hope for forgiveness and grace for my failures, even when I feel like I belong somewhere near the bottom of the foodchain.
9.11.09
COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop)
Something that really gets me excited about using technology in the classroom is the ability to show students so many creative and artful videos like this one. Today I began a lesson with fifth graders on actual and implied movement and was able to share with them the video on Kinetic Sculpture that I posted here a while back. It was so exciting to be able to see them get so excited over this great video. I simply asked them to tell me a few things that they observed in the video and the complexity of their thoughts and level of interest and intrigue blew me away.
This was a really good day for me. The lessons that I taught today were all "day 2"s for my original lessons and it was really exciting to see how much the kids had learned based both on their memories from last week and also in their continued engagement in the assignments. Today was also the first day that the students started using "real clay," which is a opportunity that makes them feel very grown up and artisticallly "official," if you will. There is something instantly gratifying in seeing students genuinely enjoying and doing well at an activity that you have poured so much of yourself into preparing. And it is exciting to see my own ideas being given new life through the creative genius of children. Somehow, the more I work with children, the more I am amazed at what they come up with. Just watching 24 six-year old decorate tiles shaped like houses today reminded me of how much creative potential lies in one person and how unique each person's vision is.
I think as I teach more, I seeing that perhaps the thing that I enjoy most about teaching art is that I get to look at great art all day long. I just adore walking around the classroom and seeing what the students come up with in response to a single prompt or idea. I love looking at so many different kinds of art, and what could be better than looking at over 100 pieces of brand new art being created each day? It is truly a wonderful thing.
8.11.09
Sunday afternoon physics
It is getting on towards Sunday afternoon and I find myself contemplating heat, calories, and projectile motion. I've been sitting at a new coffee shop, looking out at the faces of Boulder walking down the street outside the large plate-glass window for nearly three hours and am rummaging around inside my body and brain for the energy and perseverance to keep going. I need an activity for fifth graders tomorrow that will help them understand the concept of movement in a work of art. I have a large stack of lesson plans, essays, rubrics, assessment tables, and analysis to do and I am looking outside wondering if it would be okay for me to get up and take a break, to go to Bliss, one of my favorite stores and look at all the creative, artistic gifts and things that they lay out for me to admire.
I am on the downward slope of this journey. The acceleration is increasing exponentially each day and I am coming to that point where many of those loose pieces are falling into place. Things are making more sense and my desire to do well is becoming more and more pervasive. I am beginning to see how I can, in this strange season, take charge of the sort of teacher I want to be and move towards it.
A month or so ago, I remember sitting at my kitchen table on a Sunday much like this one, feeling angry about the seven hours spent pouring over books and completing the tedium that is the "Art Content Lesson Plan Format." I wanted to be outside, making myself a well-rounded person, engaging in the rest that gives me the right to claim my own humanity. The next few days brought a well of tears and a reminder to be myself, to be personal, to move my teaching out of my head, out of Microsoft Word formatting, into my arms, my voice, my stories. And although this was an important step, I was still missing the balance between intentional planning and hard and fast commitment to something that is still all-consuming.
Something about my new placement at the elementary level, maybe my mid-term evaluation, maybe a simple progression towards a more "grown up" perspective, I am more resigned to putting in the work that it takes to be a really great teacher. A lot of days earlier in this semester left me feeling far from the teacher I want to be for reasons I am still sorting out. But I feel now that I've had more time to organize my thoughts, more of a space that gives me a conceptual grounding of what I am about, that I can set down these goals and follow the path towards realizing them.
I want to be a great teacher. I want students to come away with deep thoughts, substantial changes in their view of learning and life. I want to be intentional about the activity that takes place in my classroom and I want students to walk away with a grasp of the concepts about art and the world that make me see my life as a journey towards the center of the earth. And I want to do the work today that will make me that teacher.
It is easy for me to complain, to say "it isn't fair," or get upseet that the constructs of our over-busy society are doing damage to my personal life. I can say that college is perpetuating a society that is overworked and overly committed to success as a result of production. And although these things may be true at the end of the day, I am being called to a race at this moment that demands everything. This week, my cooperating teacher reminded me that this trial, this last step is a process that is intended to put me through the paces so that when the greater challenges come and I am outside this support system, I will have the muscles to lift it all. And yes, I will have a great deal to learn for the duration of my life as a teacher, but the intention here is truly to benefit the students under my care. And although, mid-stream, it is easy to say that those in authority over me lack perspective or they have failed to see me, I have to remember that thier goals may be different, their perspective is coming from a place other than mine and I must trust that thier motives are pure and right.
It is this strange place between submission and self-realization. It is this moment in which I am being told, "you must be a teacher like this," and it is also a landscape in which I must daily ask myself, "What kind of teacher do I ultimately want to be and what am I willing to submit to in orde to get there?"
Some parts of me wish that perhaps I could go back to the beginning, knowing what I know now, and try things again with more of the end in mind. I wish I had set out first with this question of "how do I want to grow as a teacher" and go back in the environment of support and mentorship that I had earlier in the semester and try it again. But I think this is the thing that time, learning, and perspective provides-- the ability to move forward knowing that the opportunity is still mine. Perhaps this is the beauty of living the life of a teacher-- there are always opportunities to build upon our own learning. There is never an expectation of mastery, but always an expectation of openness to the voids that must be filled in our understanding of what it means to teach.
And so, this afternoon, as the sun streams is across my dusty glasses and I long to get up and leave, I will persevere yet. I will finish this race set before me and work on remembering that the reward of seeing myself as a teacher who lives well will be greater than the momentary rewards of a free weekend of afternoon of less meaningful fulfillment.
I will finish this race and I will continue to run it well.
I am on the downward slope of this journey. The acceleration is increasing exponentially each day and I am coming to that point where many of those loose pieces are falling into place. Things are making more sense and my desire to do well is becoming more and more pervasive. I am beginning to see how I can, in this strange season, take charge of the sort of teacher I want to be and move towards it.
A month or so ago, I remember sitting at my kitchen table on a Sunday much like this one, feeling angry about the seven hours spent pouring over books and completing the tedium that is the "Art Content Lesson Plan Format." I wanted to be outside, making myself a well-rounded person, engaging in the rest that gives me the right to claim my own humanity. The next few days brought a well of tears and a reminder to be myself, to be personal, to move my teaching out of my head, out of Microsoft Word formatting, into my arms, my voice, my stories. And although this was an important step, I was still missing the balance between intentional planning and hard and fast commitment to something that is still all-consuming.
Something about my new placement at the elementary level, maybe my mid-term evaluation, maybe a simple progression towards a more "grown up" perspective, I am more resigned to putting in the work that it takes to be a really great teacher. A lot of days earlier in this semester left me feeling far from the teacher I want to be for reasons I am still sorting out. But I feel now that I've had more time to organize my thoughts, more of a space that gives me a conceptual grounding of what I am about, that I can set down these goals and follow the path towards realizing them.
I want to be a great teacher. I want students to come away with deep thoughts, substantial changes in their view of learning and life. I want to be intentional about the activity that takes place in my classroom and I want students to walk away with a grasp of the concepts about art and the world that make me see my life as a journey towards the center of the earth. And I want to do the work today that will make me that teacher.
It is easy for me to complain, to say "it isn't fair," or get upseet that the constructs of our over-busy society are doing damage to my personal life. I can say that college is perpetuating a society that is overworked and overly committed to success as a result of production. And although these things may be true at the end of the day, I am being called to a race at this moment that demands everything. This week, my cooperating teacher reminded me that this trial, this last step is a process that is intended to put me through the paces so that when the greater challenges come and I am outside this support system, I will have the muscles to lift it all. And yes, I will have a great deal to learn for the duration of my life as a teacher, but the intention here is truly to benefit the students under my care. And although, mid-stream, it is easy to say that those in authority over me lack perspective or they have failed to see me, I have to remember that thier goals may be different, their perspective is coming from a place other than mine and I must trust that thier motives are pure and right.
It is this strange place between submission and self-realization. It is this moment in which I am being told, "you must be a teacher like this," and it is also a landscape in which I must daily ask myself, "What kind of teacher do I ultimately want to be and what am I willing to submit to in orde to get there?"
Some parts of me wish that perhaps I could go back to the beginning, knowing what I know now, and try things again with more of the end in mind. I wish I had set out first with this question of "how do I want to grow as a teacher" and go back in the environment of support and mentorship that I had earlier in the semester and try it again. But I think this is the thing that time, learning, and perspective provides-- the ability to move forward knowing that the opportunity is still mine. Perhaps this is the beauty of living the life of a teacher-- there are always opportunities to build upon our own learning. There is never an expectation of mastery, but always an expectation of openness to the voids that must be filled in our understanding of what it means to teach.
And so, this afternoon, as the sun streams is across my dusty glasses and I long to get up and leave, I will persevere yet. I will finish this race set before me and work on remembering that the reward of seeing myself as a teacher who lives well will be greater than the momentary rewards of a free weekend of afternoon of less meaningful fulfillment.
I will finish this race and I will continue to run it well.
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