More Teaching

9/10
Last week I gave a demo in class on Positive and negative space. It was a lesson that Mr. Christiansen had prepared and taught in a previous class. Today I was nervous, as it was the first Class I would give a lesson and demo that I had prepared. Being nervous I rushed through the lesson and ended up with several confused kids and repeating on an individual basis the methods to completing the assignment. The assignment was to recreate a line drawing on a larger scale. Each student’s drawing was one quarter of an entire image. I stressed the importance of maintaining proportions so that their image would match up with the drawings of their classmates. I taught the students sighting techniques and hints on how to check their work.
9/11
Friday I repeated the lesson from Thursday with greater success as I had already run through the assignment and demo and made changes based on the feedback from Mr. Christiansen. I also gave instruction and a demo for Mr. Christiansen in his last class, as he was feeling a bit under the weather. It went well and he gave me useful feedback to improve my performance.
9/14
Today was A day. First period was Drawing 1-2. I took role and after Mr. Christiansen’s instruction the students continues working on their shoe drawings in the hall. I spent the period walking up and down the hall. This allowed me to help the students remember to stay on task; I was also able to assess the student’s performance. Moving among the students allowed me to give aid and answer questions. I carried with me a sheet of plexiglass and marker that allowed me demonstrate the Contour and helped the students to more clearly see how to translate a three dimensional object onto a flat surface.
2nd period is Painting. The students were instructed by Mr. Christiansen and then began their assignment. The assignment was to simply fill up two 5-inch squares with colors. One square was to be filled with colors the student likes and the other with colors the student dislikes. Students worked with Acrylic paints. 3rd period is prep period and I spent that time working on my lesson plans. 4th was Drawing 3-4 and I did role, gave follow up instructions and put the students to work on their line drawings. I realized today that the project didn’t go as well as I had hoped. The drawing became very technical and difficult for the students to enlarge and maintain proportionate. They worked diligently and improved on gauging distances, but I was not as happy with my assignment as I would like.

9/15

Today went well. I helped students with sighting while drawing their shoes, and spent the class period learning the students names as I talked to them. I took role as usual. In Drawing 3-4 I also covered the methods the students were using to complete their drawing. The students listened well and performed well.

Student Teaching begins

Today concluded the second day of student teaching for me and I tought that everyone might want an update. At this point though I think that it should be student observation. I report to the Granger High School at 7.15 every morning. My cooperating teacher is Paul Christiansen, a teacher of 12 years, who has beed at Granger for 3. I sit in his class and introduct myself. The first Day of class I was so vervvous that my stomach made me go to the bathroom just before the first period began. I was red as a beat I am sure as I introduced mfelf to the classs. It was the first timei in all of my schooling that I was in a classroom were I, as a Caucasian was the minority. The class sizes are 35 plus. The horror stories I had hear about this school have thus far been proven wrong. The Students are attentive and respectful. One thing I have noticed is that the students are skills appear to be significantly lacking. The Drawing 1 class that is taught here feels more like and Art elements class. The students show little ability in being able to perceive and put onto paper what they see before them.

Mr. Christiansen has 7 classes. 3 on the A schedule and 4 on the B schedule. They all fall into Drawing 1 or 2 and painting. At this point all I do is walk around the class, try to memorize the students names, give suggestions, and answer any questions. I am excited for next week when I will begin taking role and contributing to the lessons. I hope that by week 3 I will take over the classes and act as a full time teacher. I did feel pretty good today when two students on separate occasions, approached me to ask my opion and advice instead of going straight to their teacher. I hope that they can all feel comfortable asking for my assistance and trust my advice.

I will keep everyone updated on my progress

I have also been working on the side doing this movie poster for a short film produced by Harry Cross, Jr. (Former roomate to Kelsy and Kent)