Almost there!

It feels so good to finally be at the end of this Masters program,it's something I wanted to do for years and finally I found one that I could do and directly benefit my students and REALLY learn new skills for myself. I'm glad it's over but I have to say I've loved the process.

a 4 day break..YAY

I'm so glad we have a 4 day break, school is not as much fun as I wish it would be. I love the students and my subject but our principal seems to love to give us silly busy work and it makes everyone grumpy when they know how much more they could be doing for their students during the time they waste on his little dictates.

Testing is over,Spring has infused the HS

Testing is over and it went fine, no one wanted to do anything else so it was NOT a constructive week. The nice part for me was that I could stay in my room (the best room in the school :) and I had a chance to spend time with some new kids that I do not teach. Everyone was very well behaved, and I hope they all did well. Now it's prom  and Spring fling.....there goes any attention to school work....

Welcome to the classroom

At my school we are in the middle of our SBA testing. This year we are testing for 7 days,one test a day. Most of the morning is interrupted, I will not see 2 of  my classes for 7 days, They will not have access to the art room with the materials they need to work on their projects. When we are testing, the students feel that they can't have a normal day after the testing, many checkout and go home, some just decide they can't work because they already tested,so even though classes resume after testing. half the class is gone and the others say " no one is here, why do we have to work" It's crazy! when we asked the principal why we didn't just test for 2 or 3 days and get it over with, he says we have to be on the same schedule as the elementary schools and they can't sit for more than an 90 minutes a day. Why do we have to be on the same schedule????? "The state says so" (Always the excuse for crazy things)
So we deal with another dictate by an education secretary that has never been a teacher and certainly doesn't visit classrooms or listen to teachers. Thank goodness the kids are so much fun to spend time with and we all just go through the silliness together.

Love of learning,imagination, curiosity....where is it?

I'm posting my thoughts after a conversation with 2 graduate students about to graduate in architecture. They made the comment that even many of the graduate students have a very passive attitude about their education. Meaning, wanting the professor to tell them exactly what he wants, them having the attitude that the professor is forcing them to do it (instead of them taking an enthusiastic initiative)Some of the students still maintained the attitude (that I see in HS) that the professors are against them, not with them. The (grad)students comment was this is the result of their education experience both in k-12 and even their undergraduate work. One of the 2 I was talking to graduated from Evergreen State College and one from Mount Holyoke.
As some of you know, Evergreen is one of the few colleges that teaches through a project based curriculum and uses evaluations and portfolios instead of grades. The unfortunate thing is most people want to keep education the way"it has always been" and don't see the value in the way Evergreen educates,especially some of the local people around Olympia,all they see is the extreme alternative lifestyles the students choose. (I know this because my brother lives there)
The problem I see with all the testing we are required to do,is the fact that we are making our education system worse. Teachers really are teaching to the test, there is no room or time to let students puzzle offer real world solutions or create large projects or integrate as much art as possible. I see instead a lot of rote memorization and so much pen and paper work that stifles imagination and stresses the "right" answer. As a result, I see students losing any love of learning they may have had in the younger grades and in high school,many very creative students simply going through the (unpleasant) motions to just get done and graduate,then realizing they have made no plans for the future...nothing inspired them!
When I express my thoughts and opinions in school or try to share ideas about ways we can work more towards real world experiences for our students,most responses are based on fear; "you'll loose your job if students don't pass the test! or we'll loose funding for this grant if they don't pass" On further inspection most of these fears are unfounded. So we continue to bore our students silly,shorten class periods, fragment their education and maintain teacher/administration driven environments that very little real learning is taking place, just a lot of unrelated (to their life) memorization.
I am lucky in the fact that I'm teaching HS art, so for many, it is the only time in the day students can work on projects, discuss ideas and be creative. The bad news they have shortened my periods to 45 minutes. I've taught K-8 all subjects and k-12 art for over 20 years so I know there are other ways to teach. I also know we do not need all this standardization in tests,but the thing I realize more than anything else is that unfortunately  many teachers follow fearfully along doing what they've become complacently comfortable with and maintaining a very small minded view.
BUT...I will not end this on a negative note. Those 2 grad students will be graduating in May, they are bright,open minded, creative and do not seem afraid to express opinions and follow their dreams. I WILL have hope that we will see changes in the way schools inspire students to learn. I know,speaking for myself, that through this graduate program, I have learned so many ways to help inspire students. I do have faith that things are changing.

First post for Web 2.0 class

I've been thinking about what to do for this assignment. I had thought that I would start a whole new blog and try to get a conversation going about some of the things going on in education now. But as I looked at the blogs I had created I thought that this one had some interesting thoughts that I wanted to keep. I worked on this last June when I was in transition from New Mexico to Washington state for the summer, it was a bit crazy, heading from a very "connected" situation to a log cabin in the mountains with no internet connection. This blog was worked on in The Kettle Falls (tiny) library and at my friends houses. Needless to say, the good thing about returning to NM in the Fall was the connection for my classes.

What I would love to hear from people is thoughts about what I see as the the conflict between the endless testing and teaching to tests as opposed to helping our students to prepare for their future with 21st century skills,some how they don't mesh. I believe we will move away from testing as we see less and less success with the way things are being done in most American schools.

Here is my final reflection and process paper

Laurie Heintz-ECOMP 6016

June 2011

Final Reflection

On reflection of all the processes we’ve been required to use during this class, I realize there are so many tools available to us now to enhance our students learning. It has also given me the confidence to try things I may never have done with out learning about them during this class.

Some of the basic processes, like posters, edited images and screen capture have become a common part of the vocabulary when we create most teaching aides. Teaching visual art demands the use of visual aides with every lesson, but in all grades and subjects the use of visual aides will only enhance students learning.

Technology, specifically the programs we’ve been using, like JING, imovie, Audio programs, animoto and even skype takes the term “visual aides” to a whole different level. Now it’s not just “visual” it’s audio, video, voice over and the combination of everything. I’ve only begun to use these programs in my teaching but I already see the response of the students when I share a video I made about them and their work. Or when I use JING to capture images to share during an art history lesson.

I will admit that it has not been easy to figure so much out by myself. I’ve tried to see what others in the class have done and asked for help a few times along with using tutorials, but this was one class that it would have been great at times to sit with my classmates and have time to work together.

So far I’ve not had a lot of experience with all of these to teach my students how to use them for their assignments, but I plan on beginning the year with lesson plans that incorporate the use of video stories, digital portfolios and requiring the students to work with image editing to a much greater extent. Unfortunately my school year ended only 2 weeks after I began this class so I have not had much time to work with students on these projects.

In all the lessons I teach, I try to introduce students to the diversity of cultures and at the same time guide them to see the connections between all human beings. Teaching art offers a wonderful venue to show our human connection through the creation of art. Throughout history, through all cultures, people have been creating art for the same reasons and using similar processes.  Much of the pottery of ancient Africa is very much like the pottery created by indigenous people of North America. Sacred art, all over the world, show similar repeated patterns or mandala designs, whether it is in a stained glass window in a cathedral in Europe or a Tibetan Buddhist monastery.

The lessons I am now creating and plan to continue to create, through technology, will not only bring the image to my students, but the opportunity to make a real human and current connection with other artists.  Lessons that incorporate these kinds of connections, I want to believe, can only lead to greater acceptance and peace.

In closing this reflection, What appealed to me the most and I am sure will benefit my students, is the opportunity to take technology to a much more creative and interactive level. Animoto,  JING,  imovie, voice over, to name only a few have added a whole new dimension how I will be teaching.