It's alive!

When I started this blog, I thought I would post a few more things about my art. However, that hasn't happened. Last summer I felt so burned out from grad school that I had no desire to make art. Since I started teaching, I have lacked the time or energy to make much beyond examples for my students. As a follow up to my last post, I thought I'd show you one of my example puppets.

I simply scanned it because I was too lazy to figure out a way to photograph it well. My first puppet was an alligator that I'm quite proud of, but it was too big to fit on the scanner. I guess that means that you will have to just come to visit me to see it.

Anyway, presenting my bug-monster:

"Bug-monster," 2009. 10" x 8." Posterboard, tissue paper, pipe cleaner, and brass fasteners.

Sometimes I feel really lucky

Some days, it is all I can do to get up and go to school without having a nervous breakdown. Every time I start a new lesson, I never know if it is going to "work." Frankly, as a first year teacher, they usually have plenty of room for improvement. That wouldn't be such a big deal if I weren't a perfectionist. But I am. *sigh* However, today as I took pictures of my 6th graders' work, I felt pretty dang good.

It had been a bit of a crazy day. The mascot and a rookie from the St. Louis Blues had come to visit the 6th grade, which ended up cutting my class in half. I got them AFTER the visit. Last period on a Friday afternoon...oh, the potential for chaos! However, the kids were fantastic (this is one of my favorite classes). Last class they performed shadow plays, complete with original puppets, props, scripts, and sound effects, and today was not going to be the day to start a new unit. So, I didn't have much planned, but they settled right in to a creative drawing exercise that I had given some of my sophomores earlier. No need to say that young'uns were more creative. While they worked on that, I set up the screen from the shadow plays, handed back the puppets, and took pictures. My students were so charming, holding their figures tight to the screen to be photographed and playing in the light.

Some of you may have poked around my profile and seen the link to the blog I set up for them. It's just a place to stick links for them to follow so that I don't have to have them type the addresses. Anyway, I've posted some of the pictures. Check it out and see why these kids are super.


This photograph is of the screen sitting on our dining room table. This is before I installed the cloth on which the shadows are viewed.

Speaking of Uncertainty...

The saga continues. It is a tale full of sorrow, laughter, joy, and aggravation. This is the story of a girl, five classrooms, and no sink. And there is no sink on the horizon.

As most of you know, I teach art and English at a really nice private school here in St. Louis. When the school president called me up last May to offer me a job, I was ready to kiss his feet. Stability! I got a job! But from the beginning I knew two seemingly contradictory statements held true: 1. If I could not survive teaching at this school, I would not survive anywhere. 2. If I could survive at this school, I could survive anywhere.

That's because the fundamental truth about my school: everything is flexible and can change. I won't go into the details of my current position, but I find myself as the filler person in two departments. (Why else would I be teaching in 5 different classrooms, including a math room? Art in a room with carpet and no sink anyone?) Well, between the economy contracting, changing class sizes, and a key faculty change, my position is, well....Here's basically how my contract renewal interview went down:

Principal: Well, I have kind of a strange interview for you.
Me: I thought you would....
Principal: You've done a good job, and we want you at our school long term.
Me: This school is great.
Principal: So, we want you to come back next year, but we won't know what you will be teaching until at least April, maybe the summer.
Me: Yeah....

You see, the private schools do not have the same licensing requirements that public schools do. Currently I teach English, but there's no reason (other than sanity and common sense) that I next year I couldn't be singing and dancing for physics students instead. And right now, the principal doesn't even have a clue what they'll have me do. At least I have a job.

For the current time all I can do is cross my fingers and hope that I will get my own classroom. Or maybe only teach in two. But I know I won't get a sink. *sigh*