Ugh

So, I am sicker than I have been in years.  It started with a sore throat Sunday night.  The "Downton Abbey" special was fine medicine, but I barely slept that night.  I woke up achy but had no fever so I went to work.  I got so much worse during the day that it was tough driving home.  I had my first ever eye appointment - the time I scratched my cornea while teaching sculpture doesn't count - and I was told I need reading glasses.  When I got home,  I took my temperature. I had a fever.  So, I am out today.  Teachers hate calling out.  It is not like any other job.  Sometimes you return to a disaster.  Most subs do not carry out your lesson plans,  to the point of claiming there were no plans.  They let kids use  materials you explicitly forbid them to use....  I could go on.  I have a couple of subs who cannot fill in for me because they do not know how to properly work with my more challenging students.  The most recent one is an ex-cop who, in a candid moment, told me some anecdotes that I would file under police brutality/illegal.  I kept my mouth shut. He told me not to look so shocked.  

So the good thing about being out today is that I can be here for our refrigerator repair.  Hubby didn't have to use one of his days.  And I am going to do some research for a better, more meaningful approach to my portraiture assignment for Photo I.  I have them watching a video on it today in advance of the assignment.  I want the project to involve some sort of examination or explorations of personality or situation.  I brought home a free video I ordered from Teaching Tolerance magazine.     Right now I am thinking Civil Rights era photos and the role they played in transmitting the message of the reality of life in the South for African-Americans.

Another idea I have relates to two things.  Aperture magazine had an article some time back on 20th century studio photography trends in some African countries.  With this Ebola propaganda/panic, I have heard some damn ignorant comments from the students. I really think they have no idea that Africa is a continent with over 30 distinct countries.  I might try to find a way to tie these two ideas together.  How do things like Irving Penn's staged portraits of "natives" from Vogue magazine frame our view of the continent and it's residents versus the reality and variety that truly exists?

I need to really work on this.  I get these grand ideas, do the research, run it by friends in and out of the field, and then get blank stares from the kids.  I want them to get it right then and there, not two or three days later.