Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Another Monday

Just so you know, I'm not looking for this blog to be come pages full of rants.  I keep trying to find a theme for my blog, but I figure, it should just be about what is going on.  I'm not good at keeping 3 separate blogs.  Besides, it's not my job to blog.  I only get paid to teach art.

So what the heck am I teaching?  Well, I had a pretty successful week teaching art and yoga last week for enrichment.  Enrichment is a period of time at the d-home, where it's not school.  It's something else.  Our goal was to offer lessons in wellness, and how can they apply it to their own life.  Basically giving my students tools they can use on their own.  So I thought.

It was my idea, and I encouraged everyone to be aware of the different problems that our teens face in particular:  drugs, sleep deprivation, sex, obesity, and stress.  That's a lot of different things, and of course I didn't expect that math teacher to talk about sex, but those issues are what out students are most concerned about in their daily life.

It didn't really happen like that.  We all kind of teamed up with another teacher.  Some classes showed an awful lot of videos... That to me, totally missed the point.  No matter what you wanted your theme to be, the point was to get the kids to be active.  DO something.

So next time, if there is a next time, I will remember to put down active learning as a goal for the enrichment program.  Meaning:  if you have to show a video, please don't use up the whole class for it.

My part of the program was pretty good.  It was thoughtful, definitely active, and left some kids asking me when could they do yoga again.  Mission accomplished.

Despite all the interruptions, I think it did end up having a positive effect on many of the students.

So now, there is no more enrichment.  We are our on our way to a State Operated Programs conference about 4 1/2 hours away.  I leave tomorrow.  It's weird that we'll have this hiccup in the enrichment program, but I guess that's what we'll have to.

At the conference, I'm thinking all that's really going to happen is that we're going to get spoken too.  I mean, I think there will be a few moments where we'll break down into our curriculum areas, but mostly there will be speakers.  Which I have to say, seems kind of wasteful.  Oh well.....what can you do?

In the mean time, the kids will do nothing, watch tv, play cards, sit, sleep, and go to the gym for an hour.  What a way to waste a day.  I mean, if I were in charge (and I won't ever be), I'd have those kids so busy with stuff to do on their down time, it would make them wish for school.  But no, idle time.  Lots of it.

In the mean time, I guess we'll find out soon if we have a principal or not.  I don't think we do, but I don't know for sure.  We were supposed to find out by last Wednesday.  I don't actually think we need one, to be quite honest.  However, we do need someone, who's job it could be to advocate for us.  Because, if we don't have that, i think the D-home people will make out lives miserable.

Always look on the bright side of life, right???

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