In my animation, it depicts a rose growing in concrete. This metaphor is an extremely important part of my goals for my future teaching career. As I mentioned when previously discussing my future classroom, I am planning to join the Peace Corps initially after graduating and then when I return, I am hoping to work with under-repressented youth in an inner-city area.
I first heard the metaphor of a rose growing in concrete when I was in elementary school and heard 2pac's song, "The Rose That Grew from Concrete," (you can listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFsQRm3Udo4). When I first heard the song, I was in elementary school, I think it was released when I was in either first or second grade. At this time, I didn't understand the metaphor, I thought the song was just about a flower. As I got older, and heard the song again when the radio played throwbacks, I started to understand the song better and thought it was about 2pac's background growing up in a bad area but somehow he still made it and became famous. I now understand that this song is applicable to the lives of a large majority of children who have forces, like concrete, working against them.
I revisited the theme of a rose growing from concrete once again while I was volunteering in South Africa. During the day, I taught students from a background of extreme poverty. In the evening the volunteers had discussion groups and one night we watched a lecture (very similar to a TED talk) given at chapmen university by Jeff Duncan-Andrade called "Note to Educators: Hope is Required When Growing Roses in Concrete." I highly recommend watching it to everyone, even if you are not planning to be a teacher, it is an extremely powerful speech (it's a little long but it's worth it).
(The link to watch the speech can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7ftSDiILbI)
Duncan made references to 2pac's song when discussing the metaphor but the part that really stuck with me was when he brought it into an educational context. He talks a lot about the background that some of our students are coming from; a student who's father is abusive to his mother and this makes it difficult for him to study at home, the student starts to fall behind in his classes, after school tutoring is offered but if the student stayed, he'd have to walk home, alone, through gang territory because the school bus was his only ride. The student might not be eating properly, or maybe the student has an older sibling who got involved with a gang and was killed. You, as the teacher, can't understand this, because you don't live in a concrete jungle, you drive home to your house in the suburbs in your nice Subaru.
Duncan talks about ways in which teachers can be aware of and attentive to the needs of the students who might be that rose growing in concrete. My goal as an educator is to help that rose growing from concrete, to make sure that they don't get swept up by all of the gang activity and crime. I want to make sure that these students make it to graduation, and hopefully even college.
inspire hope in my students and make sure they know that they can make it in the world and should never give up on their dreams and goals. It was beautiful to see how this was accomplished at the school I volunteered at in South Africa, and I hope to be able to do that for my students in my future classroom, no matter where I end up.
As far as technology goes, it obviously won't be as readily available to students if I am working in a third world country or even a poorly funded, inner-city school, as I hope to do in the future. With that being said, any technology that is available, I want to make sure that my students have access to. I want my students, especially the ones who don't have access to technology at home, be able to fully understand how it works at what they can do with it because in this day and age, being able to work with technology is a necessary skill.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Thursday, September 24, 2015
My classroom ten years into the future.
It is difficult for me to try to picture where in the world my classroom will be. When I graduate I plan to join the Peace Corps and teach abroad in a third world country. It is difficult to tell now if/when I would return to the United States to teach, or continue to serve with the Peace Corps. To make the availability of technology in my classroom reasonable, I will talk about my future teaching career in the United States, even though that may not be where I end up.
The year is 2025 and I am just about to begin the school year teaching middle school students in southern California. I work with students at an inner city school. Although the school is in the middle of the city, I try to get the students to incorporate aspects of nature into their works in the classroom. I have a really amazing setup and my classroom is attached to an enclosed school courtyard. In the courtyard we have a fire pit (for Raku fired ceramic pieces) as well as a garden full of various plants and berries the students use to explore creating their own paints.
Inside the classroom, it is divided into several sections. I have electric, sliding room dividers that can be closed off to separate the room into different sections or I can leave it opened as one big space. I normally like to leave all of the sliding walls opened because I like to encourage students to explore different mediums, be able to interact with other students, see what their classmates are working on, and use each other as sources of inspiration and creativity should anyone experience 'artists block.' When the wall divider are in use, the classroom can be divided into three different sections,
The ceramics side of the room includes ten throwing wheels, splash guards, a new state of the art electric extruder with a touch screen that allows students to extrude coils of many widths, lengths, shapes, and textures easily. There also are two tables covered in canvas so the clay won't stuck to the table. On the side of the room, there are three bins including different types of clay (stoneware, porcelin, and earthenware). Each student has a shelf to keep their tools and in-progress work. We recently aquired many bell jars in various sizes for students to keep their in-progress work in so it will not dry out. The bell-jars are electronic and are linked to the student's iPhone so the student can adjust the humidity in the jar, or if a student is absent from school they are able to turn the mist function on to ensure that their piece will not dry out before they return. Another function of the bell jars is they have a slow dry setting. Letting ceramic pieces air dry can sometimes cause cracking. This function ensures that their piece will dry at a reasonable rate without any breakage.
On the painting side of the room, we recently acquired 20 new desks. These desks are really great because they have wheels so students can take their work outside if they want to, the height is also adjustable as well as the angle the desk sits at. These desks can easily be converted into an easel. My favorite part of the desk is the new paint technology. Each desk has a tablet where students can select and mix colors and then once they are finished, they can send their colors to the paint machine in the corner of the room and it will squirt their colors on the pallet for them to retrieve. Of course students still are able to mix colors the old fashioned way if they would like, but this new technology is great because often times mixing paint colors as a beginner can result in a lot of excess paint that gets wasted as students continue adding colors trying to get to the color they want. Using the electronic paint mixer teaches students how much of certain colors they need to mix together to get their desired result without wasting materials.
In my classroom I also have a large supply closet. When you enter the closet, on the let hand side, the shelves are stocked with art supplies ordered by medium. All of the shelves are neatly labled to make it as easy as possibly for students to locate what they are looking for and return it when they are finished. On the opposite wall, there is a glass case filled with various technologies, computers, cameras, etc. Each item has it's own glass door to access it. In order to keep track of who is using these technologies in case anything is damaged, students are required to swipe their student id card to open the glass door and retrieve the technology they would like to use. Upon swiping their id card, students will be prompted to select if they would like to sign the item out for the class period, for the day, or the week. This allows students who may not have access to technology at home, still be able to explore creatively with it at their own pace.
One of my favorite pieces of technology in the supply closet is the Textureizer 2.0. It is brand new this year and I can't wait to see what my students will do with is. It is a paint-brush shaped scanner that scans texture when you brush it across a surface. Then when you plug it into the computer you can 3D print the texture. Say I am making something out of ceramics, I can press my textured piece of plastic into the clay and make class with the texture of carpet, or print a special paint brush and paint grass, that is actually the texture of grass. The possibilities are endless, I cannot wait to see what my students create with this.
The single most important thing I hope my students learn from my class is to always treat each other with kindness and respect and to work together and learn from each other by embracing their differences. I never want a student to feel as though they are ostracized by their peers or falling behind in my class, or any other classes, because of something that is going on outside of school or at home.
The year is 2025 and I am just about to begin the school year teaching middle school students in southern California. I work with students at an inner city school. Although the school is in the middle of the city, I try to get the students to incorporate aspects of nature into their works in the classroom. I have a really amazing setup and my classroom is attached to an enclosed school courtyard. In the courtyard we have a fire pit (for Raku fired ceramic pieces) as well as a garden full of various plants and berries the students use to explore creating their own paints.
Inside the classroom, it is divided into several sections. I have electric, sliding room dividers that can be closed off to separate the room into different sections or I can leave it opened as one big space. I normally like to leave all of the sliding walls opened because I like to encourage students to explore different mediums, be able to interact with other students, see what their classmates are working on, and use each other as sources of inspiration and creativity should anyone experience 'artists block.' When the wall divider are in use, the classroom can be divided into three different sections,
The ceramics side of the room includes ten throwing wheels, splash guards, a new state of the art electric extruder with a touch screen that allows students to extrude coils of many widths, lengths, shapes, and textures easily. There also are two tables covered in canvas so the clay won't stuck to the table. On the side of the room, there are three bins including different types of clay (stoneware, porcelin, and earthenware). Each student has a shelf to keep their tools and in-progress work. We recently aquired many bell jars in various sizes for students to keep their in-progress work in so it will not dry out. The bell-jars are electronic and are linked to the student's iPhone so the student can adjust the humidity in the jar, or if a student is absent from school they are able to turn the mist function on to ensure that their piece will not dry out before they return. Another function of the bell jars is they have a slow dry setting. Letting ceramic pieces air dry can sometimes cause cracking. This function ensures that their piece will dry at a reasonable rate without any breakage.
On the painting side of the room, we recently acquired 20 new desks. These desks are really great because they have wheels so students can take their work outside if they want to, the height is also adjustable as well as the angle the desk sits at. These desks can easily be converted into an easel. My favorite part of the desk is the new paint technology. Each desk has a tablet where students can select and mix colors and then once they are finished, they can send their colors to the paint machine in the corner of the room and it will squirt their colors on the pallet for them to retrieve. Of course students still are able to mix colors the old fashioned way if they would like, but this new technology is great because often times mixing paint colors as a beginner can result in a lot of excess paint that gets wasted as students continue adding colors trying to get to the color they want. Using the electronic paint mixer teaches students how much of certain colors they need to mix together to get their desired result without wasting materials.
In my classroom I also have a large supply closet. When you enter the closet, on the let hand side, the shelves are stocked with art supplies ordered by medium. All of the shelves are neatly labled to make it as easy as possibly for students to locate what they are looking for and return it when they are finished. On the opposite wall, there is a glass case filled with various technologies, computers, cameras, etc. Each item has it's own glass door to access it. In order to keep track of who is using these technologies in case anything is damaged, students are required to swipe their student id card to open the glass door and retrieve the technology they would like to use. Upon swiping their id card, students will be prompted to select if they would like to sign the item out for the class period, for the day, or the week. This allows students who may not have access to technology at home, still be able to explore creatively with it at their own pace.
One of my favorite pieces of technology in the supply closet is the Textureizer 2.0. It is brand new this year and I can't wait to see what my students will do with is. It is a paint-brush shaped scanner that scans texture when you brush it across a surface. Then when you plug it into the computer you can 3D print the texture. Say I am making something out of ceramics, I can press my textured piece of plastic into the clay and make class with the texture of carpet, or print a special paint brush and paint grass, that is actually the texture of grass. The possibilities are endless, I cannot wait to see what my students create with this.
The single most important thing I hope my students learn from my class is to always treat each other with kindness and respect and to work together and learn from each other by embracing their differences. I never want a student to feel as though they are ostracized by their peers or falling behind in my class, or any other classes, because of something that is going on outside of school or at home.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Articles
Both of the articles that I originally selected were only available for 24hours for free. I did not realize that so here are the two new articles I selected:
How Do Pre-Collegiate Academic Outreach Programs Impact College-Going among Underrepresented Students?
Underrepresentation of Culturally Different Students in Gifted Education: Reflections About Current Problems and Recommendations for the Future
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Text About the Concept of Privilege in Art Education
Preparing Teachers for Culturally Diverse Schools: Research and the Overwhelming Presence of Whiteness
http://jte.sagepub.com/content/52/2/94.full.pdf+html
Beyond a Test Score: Explaining Opportunity Gaps in Educational Practice
http://jbs.sagepub.com/content/43/6/693.full.pdf+html
http://jte.sagepub.com/content/52/2/94.full.pdf+html
Beyond a Test Score: Explaining Opportunity Gaps in Educational Practice
http://jbs.sagepub.com/content/43/6/693.full.pdf+html
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Sources of Power in My Daily Life
Sources of power in my Daily life:
Privilege
Visual Culture
Parents
Career Goals
The Media
- Privilege
As a white woman who lives in the United States, I obviously don't have as much power as a white man, but I have a lot more power over what I can and cannot do in life than for example my sister (she's black) or someone in another country. I am able to go to college, get a quality education, and get a job in whatever field I choose, which is not an option for many women in other cultures. I also have the privilege to marry whoever I want, even though many states, including PA, don't have any job protection laws in place so I could be fired for my sexual orientation but in comparison to other countries where same-sex couples get death sentences, I have it pretty good. My privilege plays a powerful role in determining how I live life and how others view and interact with me.
- Visual Culture
Visual culture surrounds everyone at all times during the day. It plays a huge part in how people perceive themselves and what we wear, how we style our hair. We even talk about things in visual culture. I didn't watch the VMA's but now I feel left out whenever all my friends talk about it. I'm very curious how visual culture can intersect with the art classroom and can talk about real issues in visual culture such as police brutality and racism and sexual orientation. I also would like to explore what is/isn't appropriate topics to discuss in the classroom with certain age groups, how one might determine that, and how to get all parents on board when discussing certain topics.
- Parents
My Mom has power over my daily life even when I don't realize it because everything I've ever learned how to do, like brushing my teeth, or getting dressed, whether or not to bring an umbrella when the weather is calling for rain, was all taught to me by my mom. I might not notice on a daily basis that she has power over my life, but if I had a different mother, I probably would go about my days and life quite differently than I currently do.
- My Career goals
My goal is to be a teacher so, that means I can't get a bunch of facial piercings and tattoos. I also am motivated by goals, so I might choose to skip the party to do my homework.
- The Media
The media plays a very powerful role in many people's lives and how they perceive themselves. I look to the media to inform me about many things including my body image
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