... and two more in behind those pots... and one more if you have time before the bell rings.
A few simple simple steps I added in the second week of my drawing classes this semester, which tuned out to be critical missing links in the teaching process that have improved my student art work by 300% over all my student work in semesters past.
There were other elements in the process: crayons instead of pens (because my order of pens hadn't yet arrived), big news print paper form old sketchbooks (because my sketchbooks hadn't arrived either), and the following day having my students stand back 15 feet to draw still-life compositions, layering in the forms of the items in the arrangements (again with crayons and again on news print paper, stalling because my supplies hadn't yet arrived).
When I have a few more minutes to write I'll add in the explanations of how all these little elements have had such magnificent ramifications, and how they have continued to escalate the success of my classes as the sophistication of their works have grown. But for the moment I'm just relishing in the fact that my supplies were late and that I realized while it was happening that I was on to something. And now there is the joy of watching it play out, and wondering while it does what other critical links I might be missing in my teaching.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Monday, December 21, 2009
Halloween Jokes, Draconian Pick-up Lines, and The Difference Between Fire Alarms and Smoke Alarms
The following is an November 2, 2009 entry from my http://www.thinkdavid.blogspot.com/ blog.
First of all, my new life, or better stated renewed life, as Mr. Bates rocks (at least from my perspective - students, parents and administrators may argue otherwise, but I'm loving my teaching job - now I just hope I can keep it.)
Last Friday (Oct. 30th) the day before Halloween, with half the school dressed in costumes and with my English students coming to my class straight off a Thriller pep assembly, I decided to make a quick judgement call... switch plans for writing paragraphs on the Holocaust in the writing lab to Halloween Jokes and Draconian Pick-up lines in my classroom. After all, if our language isn't to help us laugh and woo and find love, then what a waste of a language. I'm big on atmosphere, so I killed the lights, shut the windows, got some music pumping thru my surround sound, and found and old flickery black and white Frankenstein movie on YouTube to project on my wall.
I happened to have our industrial strength smoke machine in the car and thought - why not?
I greeted students with music blaring, smoke billowing and me bellowing through my classroom mic, "Whaahhhhh hahhhh ha hahhhh... Welcome to English helllllllll! Whaahhhhhh hahhhhh ha hahhhhhh... I had students (and a few teachers) from all over the English wing sticking their heads in to see what was going on.
The bell rang, I toned down the music and started into my spiel on the language of laughter and wooing ...We started talking about the craft of joke writing and I was working down my list of 21 duck jokes I wrote for my daughter, Piper. Each time I told a new joke I'd hit the smoke button as a sort of ba-dum-bum after the punchlines. I got to number seventeen, "Why shouldn't you ever tell a duck a secret?" By this point the fog was so thick that students had opened the windows and door, and smoke was pouring out into the parking lot and hallway. There was so much smoke you could barely see across the classroom. Still I couldn't resist... When I hit the punchline, "Because they always quack under pressure," I hit the smoke button and as expected more smoke and droll laughter poured into the building.
Then came the unexpected: a heart-stopping shrill-pitched pulse and flashing red light cut through the mists of darkness and froze the entire room. In fact, for an instant the entire student body and school community froze. 1500 mouths stopped moving and hearts stopped beating. With a punch line, a puff of smoke and an invisible trigger, I had inadvertently silenced them all. It was a perfectly pregnant pause.
From my precarious position of the incident's epicenter I'm fairly certain I was the first to breathe, and when I did I expired with two syllables that set the whole Logan High universe spinning into chaos..."Oh, sh....t!"
An explosion of laughter roared out of my classroom, out the windows and down the hall, and in an instant adrenaline and bedlam raced through the hallowed halls of the school! In a flash I was thru my students and out my door.
The scene in the hallways was like a disaster film. Silhouettes of high schoolers racing in all directions through a dusty fog of smoke. Befuddled teachers misdirecting their students from one wrong exit to the other.
I was in deep sh...moke!
In my enthusiasm for my cheeky punchlines and the untapped potential of laughter and love in the English language, I had filled the entire English wing with smoke. As students poured out around me, I choked back into the eye of the storm and dove for my desk phone. I followed my shaky finger down the emergency phone list taped to my file cabinet and punched in the office extension. Someone on the other end picked up and instantly I began blubbering out my explanation about smoke and laughter and love, oh yeah, and the fire alarm that might actually be a false alarm that might just trace back to my room and a "malfunctioning" smoke machine... and I hung up as quickly as possible.
As the smoke settled and students returned to their classes, and I did my best to settle my class back to order and get on with the serious business of the day... writing Halloween jokes and Draconian pick-up lines, the reports started trickling in. One of my students had been in the lunch room, "They shut the whole place down. They put down the iron curtains and stopped serving food; even the lunch ladies in their funky hats were out on the patio." From a student passing through the lobby, "The special ed kids were all going crazy..." From the administration... nothing, so far.
Inside my head, two syllables are still echoing, "Oh, SH...!"
A aside: It's Monday morning as I'm writing this and mid-entry the fire inspector came into my room looking for a fire alarm that was tripped on Friday... I haven't yet heard from the administration, but I'm guessing they won't be far behind the fire inspector.
In defence I'm going to send them back to my job application packet where I spell out my philosophy on education (which is featured earlier in this blog) and remind them that it's not my fault they didn't see the smoke coming - after all, as the old saying goes, "Where's there's smoke, there's fire." Only in this case, there was really only smoke that wasn't even really smoke.
First of all, my new life, or better stated renewed life, as Mr. Bates rocks (at least from my perspective - students, parents and administrators may argue otherwise, but I'm loving my teaching job - now I just hope I can keep it.)
Last Friday (Oct. 30th) the day before Halloween, with half the school dressed in costumes and with my English students coming to my class straight off a Thriller pep assembly, I decided to make a quick judgement call... switch plans for writing paragraphs on the Holocaust in the writing lab to Halloween Jokes and Draconian Pick-up lines in my classroom. After all, if our language isn't to help us laugh and woo and find love, then what a waste of a language. I'm big on atmosphere, so I killed the lights, shut the windows, got some music pumping thru my surround sound, and found and old flickery black and white Frankenstein movie on YouTube to project on my wall.
I happened to have our industrial strength smoke machine in the car and thought - why not?
I greeted students with music blaring, smoke billowing and me bellowing through my classroom mic, "Whaahhhhh hahhhh ha hahhhh... Welcome to English helllllllll! Whaahhhhhh hahhhhh ha hahhhhhh... I had students (and a few teachers) from all over the English wing sticking their heads in to see what was going on.
The bell rang, I toned down the music and started into my spiel on the language of laughter and wooing ...We started talking about the craft of joke writing and I was working down my list of 21 duck jokes I wrote for my daughter, Piper. Each time I told a new joke I'd hit the smoke button as a sort of ba-dum-bum after the punchlines. I got to number seventeen, "Why shouldn't you ever tell a duck a secret?" By this point the fog was so thick that students had opened the windows and door, and smoke was pouring out into the parking lot and hallway. There was so much smoke you could barely see across the classroom. Still I couldn't resist... When I hit the punchline, "Because they always quack under pressure," I hit the smoke button and as expected more smoke and droll laughter poured into the building.
Then came the unexpected: a heart-stopping shrill-pitched pulse and flashing red light cut through the mists of darkness and froze the entire room. In fact, for an instant the entire student body and school community froze. 1500 mouths stopped moving and hearts stopped beating. With a punch line, a puff of smoke and an invisible trigger, I had inadvertently silenced them all. It was a perfectly pregnant pause.
From my precarious position of the incident's epicenter I'm fairly certain I was the first to breathe, and when I did I expired with two syllables that set the whole Logan High universe spinning into chaos..."Oh, sh....t!"
An explosion of laughter roared out of my classroom, out the windows and down the hall, and in an instant adrenaline and bedlam raced through the hallowed halls of the school! In a flash I was thru my students and out my door.
The scene in the hallways was like a disaster film. Silhouettes of high schoolers racing in all directions through a dusty fog of smoke. Befuddled teachers misdirecting their students from one wrong exit to the other.
I was in deep sh...moke!
In my enthusiasm for my cheeky punchlines and the untapped potential of laughter and love in the English language, I had filled the entire English wing with smoke. As students poured out around me, I choked back into the eye of the storm and dove for my desk phone. I followed my shaky finger down the emergency phone list taped to my file cabinet and punched in the office extension. Someone on the other end picked up and instantly I began blubbering out my explanation about smoke and laughter and love, oh yeah, and the fire alarm that might actually be a false alarm that might just trace back to my room and a "malfunctioning" smoke machine... and I hung up as quickly as possible.
As the smoke settled and students returned to their classes, and I did my best to settle my class back to order and get on with the serious business of the day... writing Halloween jokes and Draconian pick-up lines, the reports started trickling in. One of my students had been in the lunch room, "They shut the whole place down. They put down the iron curtains and stopped serving food; even the lunch ladies in their funky hats were out on the patio." From a student passing through the lobby, "The special ed kids were all going crazy..." From the administration... nothing, so far.
Inside my head, two syllables are still echoing, "Oh, SH...!"
A aside: It's Monday morning as I'm writing this and mid-entry the fire inspector came into my room looking for a fire alarm that was tripped on Friday... I haven't yet heard from the administration, but I'm guessing they won't be far behind the fire inspector.
In defence I'm going to send them back to my job application packet where I spell out my philosophy on education (which is featured earlier in this blog) and remind them that it's not my fault they didn't see the smoke coming - after all, as the old saying goes, "Where's there's smoke, there's fire." Only in this case, there was really only smoke that wasn't even really smoke.
Like Moths to Hamlet - My Philosophy On Education
Christmas Vacation - Time to catch my breath and paste in a few education related enteries from my other blogs. This one's from Sept. 7, 2008 on www.thinkdavid.blogspot.com.
I recently spent a few days spreading applications to school districts in hopes that some unsuspecting Principal might unwittingly make me Mr. Bates again and uncage me with the minds of his students.
What is your philosophy on education? (CVSD Certified Personnel Application, p. 2)
My answer: To me education is using the subject matter to build a fire so bright and warm and inviting that students and their friends and their parents gather round because they can’t resist the fire’s draw. And once they’re in close and mesmerized and comfortable they’ll pick up sticks and start poking at the flames and writing their names with smoking embers and melting everything not bolted down. And then they’ll take their burning sticks and wander off into the darkness to explore, and then they’ll wander back because they love the illumination of the fire and the camaraderie of their mates. Eventually, they’ll break out food and start to sing and play music and tell jokes and burn their shoes and stay up all night talking about love and death and Hamlet.
I recently spent a few days spreading applications to school districts in hopes that some unsuspecting Principal might unwittingly make me Mr. Bates again and uncage me with the minds of his students.
What is your philosophy on education? (CVSD Certified Personnel Application, p. 2)
My answer: To me education is using the subject matter to build a fire so bright and warm and inviting that students and their friends and their parents gather round because they can’t resist the fire’s draw. And once they’re in close and mesmerized and comfortable they’ll pick up sticks and start poking at the flames and writing their names with smoking embers and melting everything not bolted down. And then they’ll take their burning sticks and wander off into the darkness to explore, and then they’ll wander back because they love the illumination of the fire and the camaraderie of their mates. Eventually, they’ll break out food and start to sing and play music and tell jokes and burn their shoes and stay up all night talking about love and death and Hamlet.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
I Teach Therefore I Am... But What Is I Am?
The gray matter of youth is the clay with which I am intrepidly trusted to shape the Adams and Eves our ever evolving world, a world that is forever yet to come, and, as such, an ever new world.
I teach, therefore, I am... But what is I am? Could it be that as "teacher" I am by default a peopler of new worlds? "In the beginning God created..." and subsequently took a rest, which, by default, has left me as a substitute (a sub-sub of the Great Creator) with dominion over my own little garden. Logical? Not really. But possible?
Today my classroom is Eden, and I am the god of this world, and in my classroom-garden-world everything is possible.
Okay, so maybe that's a bit grandiose. Maybe I'm just a splash of the dreggs of the liberally arts educated masses that's willing to show up daily by 7:35 a.m. to take the stage before 150 students, and turn off the lights after they all go home for a measly $2,761 in monthly take home.
Whatever the case, in the words of Popeye, "I ams what I ams." So for now, from 7:35 a.m. until I go home (which is often long after they go home), I teach, therefore, I am Mr. Bates, my school is my world, and this is my place to to blog about it.
I teach, therefore, I am... But what is I am? Could it be that as "teacher" I am by default a peopler of new worlds? "In the beginning God created..." and subsequently took a rest, which, by default, has left me as a substitute (a sub-sub of the Great Creator) with dominion over my own little garden. Logical? Not really. But possible?
Today my classroom is Eden, and I am the god of this world, and in my classroom-garden-world everything is possible.
Okay, so maybe that's a bit grandiose. Maybe I'm just a splash of the dreggs of the liberally arts educated masses that's willing to show up daily by 7:35 a.m. to take the stage before 150 students, and turn off the lights after they all go home for a measly $2,761 in monthly take home.
Whatever the case, in the words of Popeye, "I ams what I ams." So for now, from 7:35 a.m. until I go home (which is often long after they go home), I teach, therefore, I am Mr. Bates, my school is my world, and this is my place to to blog about it.
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