Do you think I can make it?

It's been a long time, but I felt inspired to come back thanks to someone I know.  They always read these and don't realize how much their encouragement means to me.  So that brings me to the point of this post.

Having someone believe in you is sometimes all it takes.

I had a conversation with a student the other day.  He was here my first year, had really cleaned up his life, went back to the high school, but found his way back here again.  He got in trouble not too long ago after he made a bad choice to try to fix a bad choice.  Now he's back and really struggling.  The other teachers were talking about him at lunch, really concerned about the direction he was going.  He missed an entire week of testing last week which will delay graduation.  So I sat down next to him in the cafeteria yesterday morning and called him out.  "Do you really think I can make it?"  I asked him what he thought I would do if I didn't think he could make it.  "You'd leave me alone."  Exactly.  And for a moment he knew I believed in him.  I don't know what direction his life will go, but if I can believe in him, maybe he can too.

This post is dedicated to my biggest fan.  Thank you for believing in me.

Good things coming

Happy day!  This arrived today:

Thanks to some very generous and amazing people, and Donorschoose.org, the first of several boxes of MUCH needed supplies arrived today.  I have erasers!  It's the little things.  New scissors are backordered, but I'll have them in the next two weeks I think.  SO excited for those.

I'm super excited about how the project in my art class is going.  Inspired by pop art.  Focusing on positive/negative space.  The are making "self portraits."  First I gave them a box of junk mail and ads to go through.  I asked them to cut out words they felt described themselves, phrases that stood out, logos and labels of products they liked, etc.  They then covered a piece of paper with them.  After that they have the choice of using their silhouette or the shape of something important to them to cut out part of it and have a positive and negative version of it.  One would have words on the silhouette with a white background.  The other the words were around a white silhouette.  They've really been having fun with this, and showing off some of what they are able to find.  Then last night an idea popped into my head.  Tomorrow I'm going to try it out so I'll let you know how it goes.  Basically we're going to turn this project into a performance art piece.  Get excited.

My last theatre class of the day has been an interesting journey.  I had a little bit of a power struggle with a student today.  I ended up doing Columbian Hypnosis.  After I asked them how they felt being the leader as well as the follower.  It was very telling when a student said, "I didn't want to do it, but I felt like I had to."  We had a great discussion about where this activity came from and then we played The Great Game of Power.  I just used four chairs.  I asked them to arrange them so one chair had power over the other three.  They took turns, then I pushed them to come up with even more ways.  Then one of the students started analyzing what the chairs represented without me even bringing it up.  It was amazing.  This guy is a genius and has never even taken theatre before.  He just makes those connections on his own.  Then something really fascinating happened.  One of the students put all the chairs on their side, and said, "There, now no one has any power."  He wasn't being defiant.  He was just being matter of fact.  It was such a clear insight into how this kid is feeling about life.  He feels completely powerless, but he doesn't show it because of the world he has to survive in.  So even though we were having fun with improv this week I think I'm going to stay with this a little longer and do some image work to show them ways to express ideas physically and then how to use those images to come up with solutions.

 

Give it a chance

I am so incredibly grateful today for how things are going this year.  I went into the office to thank the principal and counselor for giving me separate classes this year.  It's been amazing.  I have a few students that have ended up in Theatre only because that was the class period they had open and they needed a fine arts class.  Thank goodness!  I really owe my supervisor for going to bat for me to help make it happen.

In my 6th period, I have a few students that came to improv last year and then I have a new student that had no idea what theatre was.  Today we did a warm up, then I showed them some Whose Line is it Anyways? and let them decide which improv game they wanted to try.  Next thing I knew, he was totally into it, helping create a scene and going all out.  It was so much fun and so amazing.  By the end of class we had a long list of ideas for projects they want to do.  I was so proud of them.  It's one of the best moments of teaching--watching students step up and get excited about what they are going to do next.

Starting Over

I have been gone for way too long.

Today was the beginning of year three.  It was the best first day of school I've ever had.  A little boring for the kids I'd have to say since I had to go over expectations, the syllabus, and all the fun stuff about how things work.  But they seemed open and willing.  It was so wonderful to see so many of my students again.  I missed them so much!

The biggest change about this year is that (so far, fingers crossed) I have separate classes for Art and Theatre.  Separate classes!!  This is huge.  As a result, I can focus on each so much better, while still drawing inspiration from one to inform the other.

I sometimes think I have the best job in the world.  (Other times I think I must be crazy to be doing this.  Yes, definitely a little crazy.)  Being able to say to them, "Hey, what do you want to do?  Tell me what you want to learn about?" is a great and liberating thing.    I have tons of ideas for the year from research I've been doing over the summer, but I'm not so set on it that I can't be flexible.  Heck if a student actually WANTS to learn about something I'll throw it all out and go with it.  Example:  Today I found out one of my students wants to become a better singer.  I had him last year, and he had his good days but definitely days he struggled with wanting to progress towards graduation.  As I talked to him about it a little, he let me hear him sing Hero by Mariah Carey.  His voice was beautiful!  I was floored.  So we talked and I'm going to gear work in that class around helping him make his performance as good as his voice.  And he was excited! 

The other thing I am really excited about this year is how I am handling the districts expectation that we incorporate more writing in a way that will allow me to track student progress and actually have some data to back everything up.  How can that be done in art and theatre you ask?  Thank you technology.  And google.  First, I will be taking pictures of all my students work and uploading it into a file that they can access.  Before they finish the class, they will present their 10 favorite pieces to the class and talk about them.  This was inspired by the new TEKS approved this year for all the fine arts courses in Texas.  Check them out.  They are awesome.  You can check them out here.  Then comes the clincher.  The part that the new TEKS that totally inspired.  I've shared it with teachers in other disciplines and they want to implement it as well.

I shouldn't say this...but all hail Google.

Google Drive has come a long way since it was just Google Docs.  You can do spreadsheets, presentations, and now drawings and forms.  Forms is the one I want to talk about.  I went in and created a form, which basically allows me to create a questionnaire with multiple choice, true/false, short answer, essays, etc for students to respond to.  When they submit, ALL THE INFORMATION IS PUT INTO A SPREADSHEET FOR ME.  I can filter it and just see everything a particular student has said while they were in the class.  I have information for administrators or parents who want to know "What is this student even doing in there?"  I will have their own words to show them.

This is what mine looks like.

It's so cool!  Make your own, try it out.

Making it last

Teaching is a roller coaster.  I have so many amazing moments.  Last week our haunted house opened for the other students.  Hearing the screams of those walking through was so awesome.  I was so proud of my students.  Then Friday I took a small group on a field trip.  They knew we were going to the art museum.  What they didn't know until we were on our way was an awesome haunted house.  Seeing their excitement and gratitude was worth all the sacrifices to get them there.

Then there are the moments where I realize why teachers like me don't last very long.  I take a lot of risks.  I put my neck on the line to give my students opportunities others may think they no longer deserve.  If things go wrong, those opportunities will disappear.  I disappear.  It's not just burnout that I put myself at risk for (and I feel that's less of an issue for me because I LOVE my job), but at risk of losing my job because I'm too much of a risk for the administration.  They have been so supportive so far, but a few bumps in the past week are reminding me that it can quickly change.

Today I had a student advocate for me to an administrator.  Totally made me feel like I've done something right.    

Flexibility and Eating

Tuesdays bring another day and another pair of observers.  (I have one pair Monday/Friday, the other Tuesday/Thursday).  Before class started, I was talking to one of them about some of the differences in working with this type of student population and having to let go of certain things.  I told her how hard it can be to have class discussions.  Take all the kids in a normal classroom that don't respond and put them in one room yadda yadda that's my class.  She then made a really important point about flexibility.  After class started, I showed the students a few short videos about how to use Pepper's Ghost to create ghosts in our own haunted house.  Originally I told my observers that we'd most likely go over to the woodshop and measure some of the space.  And then I ate my words.  My class had an awesome discussion about what we were learning and how we could use it.  Then one girl asked, "Can we look through the costumes for ideas?"  Um...yeah. Absolutely.  Welcome to the learner-centered classroom.

Dress-up ensued.  Ideas shared.  I ended up doing the same thing with most of the rest of my classes.  It's amazing how fast you can get a bunch of tough teenage boys to start putting on wigs and dresses.  The highlight was surprisingly at the end of the day during 6th period.  I knew that we were going to have a fire drill when we had 15 minutes left of class, so I gave the kids a heads up.  The next thing I knew we were all picking out the craziest outfits we could to wear to walk outside in.  Students that think they would never perform put on quite a show, some of them even embodying characters that would wear such costumes.

During my conference period today I ran into a student that has had a lot of changes since last year.  Once upon a time, teachers were shocked when I nominated her for student of the month after her attitude started to change with me and she started helping us with our haunted house last year.  After a few bumps and a life changing experience, she is back this year in school with a completely new attitude.  Two teachers nominated her for student of the month this month.  When I walked with her for a moment, she looked up at the wall where the graduates pictures are and said, "I'm trying to get my picture up there."

Later, I had a student from last year return to my 4th period class.  I made the mistake of thinking I could just pick up where I left off with him.  He seemed bothered by something, almost sad, and eventually left on his own and went up to the office.  It seems he just felt like he needed to get out of there.  I had to remind myself what it took to get through to him last year.  Now I have a place to start and hopefully I can start building him back up again.  

Lost and Found, Secured and Insecure

I really should be more on top of this and had made some separate entries, but you know how it goes.

Firstly, a miracle.  The second day of school, my classroom key disappeared.  Do you have any idea how expensive those things are?  Yikes.  It somehow disappeared between 4th and 6th period, and I didn't remember leaving during that time.  For a week and a half, I had to get my supervisor or the custodian to let me in.  Each day I checked my classroom again, hoping that it had slipped between some papers or something (I'd barely had the key and had not put it on a keychain yet).  Finally my supervisor told me the last Friday of week 2 to tell the principal's secretary so they could get me a new one.  I sent the email, and in my next class the receptionist walked in with my key.  A few days earlier, someone found it upstairs on a table and turned it in to the front office not knowing whose it was.  No idea how it happened.  Maybe it got mixed up in some papers and picked up accidentally.  Whatever the key's story, I'm so happy to have it back!

My students are much like this missing key.  They disappear sometimes.  They have bad days after a long string of good ones.  And for some reason, somehow, they find their way back.  I have a student this year that is 18 years old, and came back to school...as a freshman.  How much courage must that take?!  He failed the 9th grade more than once before dropping out, and after a lot of love and intervention by family and friends he's back in school.  This is a kid who has a history of making teachers quit teaching (one even left a note on their door saying as such on their way out).  It's such a gift to watch and work with students like him.

At the end of week 2, I took my students into the woodshop, turned off all the lights except for one creepy orange one hanging from the ceiling, and told scary stories.  It was awesome.  In 4th period, a student who is normally very withdrawn shared a few that totally freaked all of us out.  By 6th, a few of my students from earlier in the day snuck around the outside of the woodshop and banged on the metal door and my entire class jumped about five feet in the air.  It did a lot to help them feel more comfortable reading and sharing in front of their classmates.

And now the reason I am so far behind. Last week I got sick.  Bad allergies led to a sinus infection and an ear infection.  Gotta love Texas.  I was out for two days and went to work sick the rest of them.  I HATE not being at work when my students are there.  Nothing gets done while I'm gone, students forget about classroom expectations, and it takes at least twice as long to get your students back on track when you return.  I found out that a fight almost broke out during my last class on Thursday, so I had to execute a smackdown upon my return...and stop letting students visit my class during 6th period for a while.  Now that class is kind of getting awesome again.

My students in general are so excited about being a part of creating this haunted house.  I've really been trying to drive home the importance of trust and responsibility as we go to work on it.  After being gone, we've talked a lot about "what you do when I'm not looking is just as important as what you do when I am."  I told each class that they could start work on the haunted house as each class showed me they were participating and following the rules.  1st period we went over, and a student pulled out her cell phone and answered it.  The result? We went back to the regular classroom and did math related artwork.  Let's just say word travels and my later classes did not have the same problem.  

Then today I had a moment of feeling totally insecure.  I have a few college students observing my classes this semester.  There is a little bit of excitement having people see what is possible with these kids, mixed with feelings of having those same people pass judgement on the way you teach.  These college students more so since I worked for their professor for three years, and they are writing papers for him about my teaching.  Yikes!  One of them asked me some questions today that kind of surprised me, while others made me laugh.  Other questions caused me to wonder if I've given up on certain things.  Then I remembered the importance of understanding your students and building them up and into the work.  It's almost like I trick them into learning.  It's not a group that you can really get a class discussion going with, which was one of the topics that came up today.  Imagine taking all the students in a normal classroom who don't answer during class discussions and putting them in one room and then you have my classes.  But here's the thing.  These kids are working.  And while they won't have a big class discussion about something, you can accomplish the same goals through individual conversations with students throughout class.  Same principal, different approach.  My students will get there with time.