Guest speakers

P. Larson:
Ms. L is a local elementary school teacher. She is one of the most organized art teachers I have ever seen. She also has an obvious passion for working with kids and it shows through her prepared materials as well as in the way she talks about her students. The information she provided about organization was very interesting and helpful although I don't think I will ever be able to obtain her level of organization.

B. Marine:
Ms. Marine is a certified special education teacher, her insights into inclusion of students with exceptional needs was extremely interesting. After hearing from her about her experiences it really made me want to do more with those students. I also really enjoyed her emphasis on the concept that they are "our students" not just belonging to special education but that they belong to all of their teachers and it is our responsibility to give them our best because they always give us theirs.

Bob and Darrel:
These guys were awesome. Although we were talking about some serious stuff they still found a way to get some humor in there. The information they provided about unions was great and it was refreshing that they chose to present both sides of the issues not just one or the other.

T. King:
As a former student teacher Mr. King's information was really valuable and helped to relieve a lot of my own anxiety about student teaching. His personality and professionalism were great to see especially because he found a way for them to work together in a way that was productive.

4/3

Safety is a huge concern in Mr. R's classroom, particularly because of the nature of art. All students are aware of the safety procedures in the classroom and are also aware of the safety hazards that surround them. The entire time I have been observing Mr. R I have seen one student violate safety rules (throwing clay) and Mr. R's reaction was very interesting. After the clay had been thrown (a very small piece, probably the size of a dime), Mr. R confronted the student and asked if he knew the procedure for discarding clay and if it was appropriate or not to throw the clay in the first place. The student replied that he knew the rules and that it was not appropriate. Mr. R then went on to explain why throwing clay was not acceptable and then allowed the student to continue to work.

3/27

Today I asked Mr. R if he teaches about other cultures. He said of course he does because art is a product of culture, however he tries to avoid doing projects that mimic or mock cultural traditions, such as creating a paper kimono, african masks etc... because he feels that because we are not a part of that culture we do not understand these items significance and are not respecting the cultures they come from. I never really thought about things in that way until now, but after hearing it, it does make a lot of sense. Especially when we have not experienced or do not have an in-depth knowledge of culturally relevant practices, should we really be teaching them? Yes it is important to present the information and perhaps a project with adaptations but to use another cultures symbols in a way that we do not fully understand is to mock rather than pay homage to that culture.

The rules in Mr. R's classroom are not posted but they are laid out in the syllabus and students are frequently reminded of the procedures and expectations them in the classroom. With every project new safety rules are introduced. Because of the high-expectations Mr. R sets in his classroom there is not a lot of disciplinary problems. Although it seemed that a handful of students were off-task Mr. R tried to redirect in a guiding way rather than a malicious way, but if they chose not to get back to work Mr. R would allow them to stay off-task and deal with the natural consequences of not completing the project on time and receiving a poor grade because of it.

3/6

Today Mr. R and I went over the rubric for the lesson that I had taught and the students final product for the project. Although a lot of the students did not have their projects completed the ones who did we graded. In the rubric Mr. R creates he allows the students to grade themselves and give an explanation for their grading decisions, along side these grades is space for Mr. R to put in what grades he gives them in each category (design, craftsmanship, use of technique). Grading was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated, because art metals is my concentration and I tend to pick pieces apart, so I tried to grade liberally. Mr. R noticed my grading was very lenient and told me that if I was to be lenient with their grades when I knew they were capable of more they would stop trying to do better work. This was a very profound piece of information and one that I had not really thought about before.

Today Mr. R also introduced the next project, batik. This is going to be a very interesting project for me to help with because I have never heard of it let alone helped guide students in creating a batik project. When introducing the project Mr. R used the smartboard to peruse the internet to find different examples of batik as well as give a brief history of the process. After all of the background information was given he gave a brief presentation about techniques to be used, it was brief because in the M school district many of the students do batik in elementary and middle school. Finally to conclude the lesson Mr. R goes over the rubric for the assignment and states his expectations.Mr. R does not use lesson plans or curriculum maps, but instead uses rubrics, that outline the expectations for the projects and goes from there.

2/28

Today I asked Mr. R how he was evaluated by the principal and how he prepares to be observed. He said that he is evaluated by his principal by being observed by one class and generally the principal does not stay the entire class period. At this point in his career he does not really prepare to be observed because he is comfortable with his teaching style and classroom management techniques.

When getting the students attention Mr. R generally just walks to the front of the class, either by the white board or the smartboard and just begins to speak loudly. This gets the students attention because this is not normal behavior and generally Mr. R is very soft spoken.

2/21

Today I asked Mr. R why he decided to go into teaching. His answer was not exactly what I had expected. As he began to tell me he wanted to make clear that at first what he had originally wanted to do was drive semi's, but his parents encouraged him to go into education. But he did not chose art until he began his pre-student teaching observations, because at the time those placements were not based on your content area but whatever placements were available. Throughout his education at UW-Eau Claire he was met with a lot of obstacles in his program including failing one of his student teaching placements. However his second placement was a lot better and he decided to stick with it.

Today I also observed the students entering the classroom and notice that they seem to have a good concept of what was needed for them to prepare for the class. The majority of the students came in, went to their designated seat to put down their backpacks, gathered their projects/materials needed and went back to their seats and waited for class to begin.