Will i find a job when i graduate?

i am studying to be an art teacher, and i am currently employed at a pharmacy. go figure has nothing to do with what i am studying for, but it does help with my public speaking and meeting new people. it also helps me by being professional, and straight to the point. yet despite that i am scare out of my mind in actually finding a teaching job in the area in which i live. every day i hear of huge teacher layoffs, and huge budget cuts to art programs. today's economy is making it realistically impossible to find any career type job. i am one of the lucky few students that has a job, that could possibly turn into a career. my argument about it is is worst case scenario do i love it enough to stick with it? honestly i love my art more, i love teaching students. not only is it fun and exciting, but you also get to have some impact on a student and their work. you begin to watch your students grow physically and contextually. you get really attached you become their friends, their mentor. i don't get that type of experience at my job that I'm at now. i get angry people all the time because they were once employed and are struggling just as much as i am trying to keep their heads above water. so realistically what are my odds of finding a teaching job in which i love in the area that i live?

School closings

this semester during my field work i experience a lot of school closing due to our current hurricane sandy. this storm couldn't have come at a worst time. at this time period i was beginning to teach my students a new part of a continuing lesson. this not only for the teachers but for the students as well made it hard to teach, and reflect upon. after having such a gap between lessons (5 days) this made it difficult for the students to review and to hop back into to work mode. as a teacher we have to be prepared for this stuff to happen. this event has taught me to be flexible for the unknown, and to find ways of trying to recapture my students interest in the work that they have started, and to give them a means to finish it. yet i don't want them to just finish a piece of work i want them to also take what they have learned from it, and to use those tools of learning to help them in other endeavors.

most important time in the classroom

what do you think is the most important time in the classroom? what if i told you it was the first 5 minutes of class and the last 5 minutes of class would you believe me? well most of the learning in the classroom happens in those two time frames. why you may ask? its because the first 5 minutes is where you review what you did last time in class. you also begin the new lesson with things that you just reviewed with the students so that they can begin by seeing the connections. the last five minutes of class is the most important as well. here you are reiterating what you did in class that day, and portraying to the students on what is expected next class and to give a preview of what you might be doing next class. these two crucial points in time you need to use not for clean up or getting organized you need to use every single minute that is given to you for your students to learn.

the apocalypse

three people in my class did a lesson based off the idea of the apocalypse. here they had the class create several ideas of a certain section of a humanoid form that was not familiar in our world today. then they had us break into groups and collaborate our ideas together to make one humanoid apocalyptic creature. these final sketches would in the future help us make our actual sculptures of our creatures out of clay, but before we did we had to successfully plan out or creature. for example, we had to make it realistic enough that we would be able to plan out a way for our sculpture to stand on its own. we also had to plan out some helpful visual hints on where our apocalyptic creature came from in our final sculpture, almost like a visual narrative all wrapped up into one. in the final product we had to explain where we got certain aspects from our collaborative group members sketches and how we also used it in our own work.

Joe and Daves presentation

two of my classmates recently did a presentation based off of the idea of profiling convicts and such. how they went about it was to flip it that the students were working in groups where one was facing away from their fellow group mate describing a memory to the other person who happens to be trying to draw this memory using the descriptions that the fellow person is using. this lesson was fun at first, but then you hit some snags. for example, it was hard for fellow students to hear each other over everyone talking at once plus you happen to be facing away from them. the other issue was people started to automatically begin drawing instead of writing down the questions that they were asking their fellow partner. why was this last one an issue? well it became an issue when the other partner started to draw then realized they didn't plan their composition out so that when they asked another important detail about the others memory there wasn't any room to add that important detail. i felt that if Joe and Dave made that as a point in creating their artwork in the beginning of the lesson then they would have seen better results in the students work.

little things that are so important in a classroom

while i was observing one of my fellow classmates do their lesson last week, i noticed one very important thing. the set up of the classroom. the tables and chairs were all situated in such a way as if you were in a theater watching their puppet show that they were preforming in the beginning of the lesson. you could see while the students piled in that they were automatically excited about today's lesson because their classroom was set up completely different from what they were used too. i don't want you to think that the set up of the classroom is just important for this lesson its for every lesson in general. your classroom has to be set up in such a way that you can address all your students in the best way possible, and that there will be a free flowing classroom where people could walk freely between the tables instead of being cramped together. another important thing about the set up in the classroom is by doing demonstrations as well. just having your students get up and walk around you while you are in the center of the room so that they can take in what you are doing to the fullest.

Symmetry

two of my fellow classmates did a great lesson in class last week based off of the idea of symmetry. how they started their lesson was very interesting to say the least. they began by having all the students in the room get up, and form two lines then strike a pose. the other line had to mimic that pose. from there they used that action as an example throughout the lesson to explain the idea of symmetry. to me that was an excellent way of portraying symmetry. by using their body's they also created symmetrical charcoal, and white chalk drawings by using one hand strictly on one piece of paper and the other hand on the other piece of paper. by doing this they were forcing the students to learn how to use both sides of their body simultaneously. there artist of choice that uses this method happens to be Judith Braun. to me her work is amazing and how she is able to create her work by using both sides of her body simultaneously absolutely baffles me. trying to do it one had at a time is harder yet. yet i do give the group a pat on the back for tackling such a hard concept to portray as a student. this lesson not only taught me about symmetry, but it also taught me more of my own body, and my own abilities in using my own body.