So what do you do when you have fallen deeply in love with someone?  You have tried to have the normal encounters with that individual, to no avail.  Well, you sit outside her dining room window and howl like a banshee.

Yup, that was just a part of my Friday night.  First something was crawling in the walls - and it sounded much larger than a mouse.  Then the forlorn Scooter tries to woo Millie, yet again.  This was the one time she was actually oblivious to a trespassing cat.  Sigh.  All I know is if I had a cutie pie like that after me, I would be right there with him.  So I decided to stay home and possibly deal with the creature in the walls and the lovelorn Scooter.  Then one of my favourite DJs posts some of what he played.  Some stuff that would have made for a great night out.  Darn.  All right.  Definitely getting my butt out tonight.

I also spent the night checking my song picks for my alumni show on May 10.  While it is free form and commercial free, we still have to abide by FCC laws.  That means no swear words that are highly offensive.  The mild ones are OK.  Each year, I have to go through my picks and look out for the big ones.  The problem is, much of what I like is angry, political, or passionate and that intensity lends itself to intense language.  It was easy when there was the record library and everything has the FCC no-no's labeled.  New studio, no library, all on us.  Luckily, I will not have to cut any bands from the list.

I am letting my students know about the show as I always do.  If they listen and name three bands and songs I played in a row, they get a 100 for the week.  Are you thinking it is stupid?  Not exactly.  Here's why.  When I transferred to MSC, I went to the cafeteria to try to get lunch at some point during a studio class break in my first week.  I thought it would be like JCSC:  good food, make my purchase, sit, eat, relax.  Wrong.  I pay for my food and turn to find a seat.  All I see is a sea of partially occupied tables and banners declaring that the empty seats were not available.  Why were they not available?  Because every table had been commandeered by a frat or sorority.  If you did not belong to the group, you didn't belong at the table.  I furtively looked for a spot.  I think I squished myself into a seat somewhere in no-man's-land.  I was clearly not even welcome at that table.  I wolfed the food down and got the hell out of there.

What was the message to me?  I did not belong.  A feeling I had been used to at that point with all the moving and changing schools over the years, but this was particularly grating.  We are supposed to be adults, I am paying tuition to this place, I should be able to eat my damn meal.

Then I got lucky.  I wandered the basement of the building and found the radio station.  A friend urged me to join because her brother had been a member.  I found my home.  That room in the student union basement was where I went when not in class.  I hung out, made friends, brought my meals down there, and I learned a hell of a lot.  I was the Operations Manager for a year.  I had listeners who called in regularly.  It was fun and free.

I watch and listen as my students are planning their first year in college.  Far too many think that the only way to make friends, have a social life, and enjoy the "college experience" is to join a frat or sorority.  Well, I vehemently disagree.  There are other options.  Those organizations are not a good fit for everyone.  What happens to the kid who tries to pledge and knows deep down inside he doesn't fit in?  Does he stick with it and deny himself the opportunity to find where he does fit in?  Or does he drop it and let himself be convinced he is a failure?  So I try in my not-so-subtle way to let my kids know there are other options out there.  Heck, some kids never join college activities.  They just focus on the academics.  Me?  With all my studio classes, job, and my desire to get high grades, I only had time for one extra-curricular.  But there are other activities to join.  And most of them cost nothing.  It might not be the "popular" thing in how our school defines popular, but we DJs were pretty damn cool.  We had a fabulous time in and out of the station, and many of us still keep in touch.  You couldn't pay me to trade that for a spot in a sorority.

My Photo II students are working on self-portraits.  The intention behind this is to see what they think of themselves, what they value, the things they note as most important, or characteristics they think most represent them.  They do not need to include the face, but there must be a part of the body in the images.  This assignment has led to some interesting insights.  I already know quite a bit about my kids, as is evidenced by the individualized assignments last marking period.  However, this opens up another window that I might not have been able to get to before.

Some of the disappointments include wanting to focus on one's hair.  Depending on the person, that could be a great idea - one girl is African-American and the topic of black hair is a big deal.  Some of the feminist journals I read talk a bit about the idea of fetishizing the "other" that comes into play when white people talk about or encounter black women's hair.  But that is not what I am talking about being disappointing to me.  I have a few boys who wrote their proposals and it involved photographing their hair.  Sigh.....  Really?  That's as deep as you can get?  And that is the feedback I gave.  One of them did indeed change his mind.  The thing is, the students are growing up in a world of multi-second sound bites and quickie snapshots.  Go to any art museum and people glide right on by the work.  A glance, and that is enough.  They do not know how to linger, contemplate, take it all in, analyze what they observe.  And the proposals for the self-portraits show that they cannot even look inward and analyze themselves.  And so I push - gently - for more.

The ladies in my class had better proposals on the whole.  One girl said some stuff that hit home.  She was talking about how people make judgments of her based on what she does in her spare time regardless of knowing the facts.  I asked if she meant going to the dance clubs.  Yup, I hit the nail on the head.  Oh honey, boy do I know.  She goes to dance clubs that play Latin music.  We have had class discussions about the importance of dance, the role of the man and woman in the dance, the lack of erotic aspects, the love of the music and the give and take of the dance.  Yet, when a person hears a girl is going to a dance club, one visual, and only one visual, comes to mind.   And that is certainly not what is going on.

Here is what is most interesting about this student.  She is the model of maturity.  She has an amazing amount of responsibilities at home.  As a student, she has never let me down.  The fact that anyone can assume her intentions and actions based on the fact that she goes to a dance club is absurd.  People make assumptions based on what they think they know, and what they know is extremely limited because they have no interest in getting to know about other ways of doing things.  And so they make assumptions about a person and go on to repeat those assumptions as fact.  I let this student know I fully understood and I like the idea behind her goals for the shoot.  How to do it?  That is up to her.  But you see, I go out alone to go dancing on the weekends.  I meet friends there - male and female - and we have a good time.  A sober, music and dance filled blast.  I want this girl to correct the misconceptions of her peers.  That vindication will make her feel good.  I could see it in how she talked about it.

I like the idea of using projects like these to get my students to shatter their misconceptions of each other.  I like the idea of having students get to know about ways of doing things that are foreign to them.  I believe it builds more empathy and appreciation for those who are not like them.  It also might make them think twice about repeating gossip about others when they hear it.  I have learned that the many of my co-workers have the maturity of five-year-olds.  They repeat gossip readily and willingly, regardless of the damage it might do.  They are cruel and vindictive if they feel they have been crossed by a colleague.  All some of them care about is "winning" and kissing ass to get to the top.  I can do nothing to change that, despite my best efforts.  However, I can do something to keep my students from growing up to be like them.  For next year, I plan on much more socially conscious angles to my projects.  This year has taught me that people are cruel and there is no reason the next generation has to follow in those footsteps.

The stitches are out.

So apparently this was quite the surgery.  "Major" might have been the word used.  The assistant who took me in asked how I made it through.  She commented that the first few days afterwards must have been very painful and rough considering the severity of the work.  I shrugged and said it was ok.  The doctor commented to the same effect.  I didn't dare tell him that I went to work the next Monday.  The way they were talking to me, I guess this was indeed major.  The doctor took the stitches out of the graft.  That stung a bit, like needles, but no blood.  He exclaimed with glee when he saw how the graft took.  He called another assistant in to show her the job.  Apparently my recession was "severe".  They gave me the mirror so I could see the job.  Well, it was a nice ending to a day that started with me nearly fainting and losing my stitches.  My sister keeps referring to the effect of the surgery as "raw meat" but this isn't raw meat.  For a gal that scars profusely, I healed amazingly well.  I left with a smile on my face.  Something finally went right.  And I celebrated appropriately:  a Nutella filled donut from an Italian bakery.

And then I spent the rest of the evening on my knees pulling weeds in the backyard.  I weeded until I couldn't see the weeds anymore - precisely 8.00 pm.  My first late night gardening session.  And with this Spring weather, I am more in the mood to go out on the weekends.  I missed my regular haunt for four weeks.  I went Saturday.  The doorman/bouncer greeted me with a hug and said he missed me.  Cool.  This is a man who a lot of patrons do not like.  They think he is mean.  I happen to love his snarky sense of humor.  He said I am one of his favorite patrons.  I might have giggled.  It was amazing to walk in and have people say they missed me.  People were happy to see me.  They might not be friends in the proper sense of the word, but they are people who are nice to me, worry when I am not around, and are delighted to see me each weekend.

And the feeling I get when I am around these people is what I hope my students feel when they come into my room.  No matter how crappy they are feeling or how others are treating them, when they step into my room, I want them to feel valued, as if their presence matters.

And in the midst of all the standardized testing fun, there is this gem to read:

http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/we-wont-improve-education-by-making-teachers-hate-their-jobs/

Yes, many of us are miserable.  Thank goodness for the students, the only bright spot of my day.

A bit of a mishap this morning.  It all started yesterday.  My tongue got caught on the edge of the packing on the stitches in my mouth form my gum surgery.  I was able to push it back up but it hurt a bit because the stitches were stuck to the packing and the stitches were pulled a bit.  No blood, so all was well.

Then, this morning, the packing came off again, hanging down from the roof of my mouth, pulling hard on the stitches.  Real hard.  I rushed to the bathroom to break the packing apart but the stitches were being pulled hard.  A lot of pain.  I started to feel nauseous and faint.  I tried to eat the oatmeal.  Bad idea.  I walked to the bathroom and my legs were like jello.  I had to dry my hair sitting down with my head between my legs to not faint.  Multi-tasking at its finest.  I couldn't walk back to the oatmeal, so I crawled.  But there was some packing stuck to the stitches dangling, pulling on the roof of my mouth.  Amazingly, there was no blood.  Phew.  Blood and apples & cinnamon oatmeal would not mix well.  Then the rest of the packing came off.  But there was a long piece of stitching hanging down into my mouth.  Oh well.  PARCC testing.  I must go in.  Can't call out.

Then, while talking to a co-worker before school, the dangling piece broke off.  I didn't want to swallow the stitching, so I picked it out and threw it out.  However, over the course of the day, more has become loose and I now have a one inch long piece of thread dangling.  Luckily it is eighth period and I get the stitches out after school.  The fear I have had all day is that a piece will break off and come out my mouth while teaching.  I had to scold fifth period for not gathering round and quieting down for a demonstration by giving them all the gory details of my morning.  I ended with the fact that if they were quiet and ready right away, I would not have had to tell them why I don't want to talk loudly.  I think they got the idea.

No matter what happens, most of us show up for this PARCC testing, whether we are administering it, proctoring, or just here for back up.  No matter what.  Yesterday, the testing website went down.  The WHOLE site in the WHOLE state.  Testing has been pushed back a day.  Yesterday will be made up May 6th.  We show up but PARCC can't.  Hmmmm.....

Wednesday was the monthly meeting for a town group I volunteer for.  I give my time to a couple of different groups and I am starting to feel a bit stretched too thin.  I had previously quit this group once before when leadership and a member were getting a bit rude, demanding, and obnoxious.  When the leadership was ousted, I decided to rejoin and have been having a blast, for the most part.  There is one individual who is trying my patience, and Wednesday really tested me.  Our meetings are to be no longer than an hour and an half.  This could easily have been an hour.  It was at least two hours.  Our agenda was quite lengthy.  However, if this one woman would just shut her mouth, we could have gotten through the meeting in a jiffy.  

Let me give some background on this woman.  She lives in an impressive historic home in town.  It is larger than ours and she and the hubby have no children either.  She works from home.  They are clearly very financially comfortable.  She was paired with me one clean up day.  As I am picking weeds and bagging garbage, she gets chatty.  When she finds out what my job is, her response is "Oh, you teachers make good money.  I have a friend who is a school librarian and she makes a good six figures.  You teachers have it good."  I took a deep breath and informed her that I in all likelihood will never see six figures despite having paid for all my education out of pocket, no reimbursement.  And no, we do not have it easy.  She reacted as if she knew better and did not believe me.  

That "I know better" attitude comes with her to every single meeting.  She has an opinion on everything and it is counter to anyone else's suggestion.  Every single person can contribute and agree and support each other or disagree in a supportive way, except for her.  I believe the only reason she listens to others is with the sole purpose of letting them know that she knows better.  It has gotten to the point that when there are calls for help during the week, I refrain because I know she will be there.  She hears but she does not listen.  For my sanity, I have decided I must not attend every meeting.  I think I can handle every other right now.  

And lest you think this proves some of my colleagues correct that I cannot work with other people, I offer this:  The current president of our organization is a former alderman with whom I had a major disagreement when I was on our Historic Preservation Commission, ending in my resignation.  Because of our shared love for the town, intense work ethic, and ability to forgive, we put that behind us and get along very well now.  But this other woman...  Well, the town is not behind her actions.  Making herself look tops is, and I have a problem with that.

Which gets me to this job of mine.  We all know that the generation we teach has little ability to pay attention for extended periods of time.  Sound bits and snippets are all they can handle.  On top of that, the first bit of information to get to them is what is believed.  They have no ability to take all sides in and assess a situation based on what they know, observe, and hear from all sides.  We can try to fight that tendency all we want, but we have not figured out a way to fix it, yet.

That kind of thing becomes so dangerous and damaging to personal relations when it comes to rumours.  There is an awful lot of playing devil's advocate on the part of us teachers.  And I find it frustrating but I take it all as part of my constantly evolving job.  What I have a very hard time dealing with is when this is how my colleagues operate.  I  pull into the first parking space this morning and reflect on how a colleague believes I think that is "my space."  Cute.  But I have never said nor believed that any parking space belongs to me.  It is a first come, first served deal with parking here.  On the days a colleague beats me to work, I think "Good on you, you early riser."  Have I ever thought "He's in my space?"  Hell no.  And so it goes.  There are not enough hours in this day for me to address all the rumours running wild in this place and the ridicuous and hurtful things adults will believe.

And why do I think these supposed adults behave like our students?  I am still figuring that out.  I have noticed that the majority of my colleagues who came into the field in the generation below me are like this.  They are incredibly competitive and mask that with a facade of cooperation.  They talk out of both sides of their mouths.  They tell the children they are to be respected but get stinking drunk at establishments in our sending districts for all to see.  They talk about all their grand lesson ideas without putting in the time and research to create a plan that measures up.  They slap things together at the last minute.  Some of them revel in having a persona that the students worship.  Note I said worship, not respect. 

 

That aura, the self professed "hard work", and on and on, are not things that make a good teacher.  It puts you on the same adolescent maturity level as your students.  And we are supposed to help bring them into adult maturity.  Put in the time doing the research, practice runs with an assignment, creating amazing presentations, figuring out what problems your kids might have during the course of an assignment.  Don't slap a video on and a last minute power point.  Then, if you have the time, go out, have your social life, but far away from here.  Think carefully about what you say in the classroom and how that correlates to what you are seen doing outside of school.  Because they see, and they talk.  And they are not always wrong.  And ass kissing will only get a worker so far in this school.  Things are changing.

So many people claim there are no job prospects in the art fields.  So I decided to give our colorization project a new spin.  I broke it up into two parts.  I have the students scan a negative without cleaning it.  If they have scratched or damaged negatives - and boy do they - they should pick those.  I then teach them how to use Photoshop to fix and clean the negatives.  last year, we did an extra credit project for the police department.  We scanned the 4"x5" police images and fixed them digitally.  There are so many ways the students could put this to use in a job.  For instance, working for a photographer or a magazine retouching images.  Or, they could restore historical or family images.  So they learn how to scan a negative.  Then they use what they learned about retouching in the CS6 videos to clean it up.  I love showing them how easy it is to get rid of dust and fine hairs.  I also remind them that it didn't used to be that easy.  I had one girl in period 2 who had a fabulous shoot ruined by massive chunky scratches in her negatives.  She fixed that up so quickly.  And the coolest part is that two days after working, she decided to scan more negatives.  I hope some kids decide to dig through family stuff and bring those in.  I have had some students put in extra time cleaning up a parent's old pic or negative.  I wouldn't mind the extra time helping them do this for family.

Then the students work on colorizing the image.  Around Christmas time, I played Italian silent films for those who were finished early.  The films were hand colored, frame by frame.  This related to the later hand-coloring print project, but now I can relate it to this current project.  On top of that, I found a great video showing colorization. Short enough to keep their attention, but detailed enough to give them completely different methods than I had in the other instructional video.  Needless to say, I am excited for this project.

I always go on with my classes about how there are indeed career options in Photography, especially since many of our graduates who come back to sub come back because they cannot get jobs in their more commonly approved majors:  business, education, etc..  As a matter of fact, I have one former student looking to intern in the entertainment division of my former job at a sports organization and another student works there part time.  No jobs in my area?  Sure.

Hubby and I went back to Amsterdam during spring break.  I saw a few men (yes, no ladies, just guys) shooting with film cameras.  You bet I got a pic of one of them!  And outside one of the churches, there were two people with a cart selling custom wet plate collodions.  They photograph you with this beautiful archival method and you get the glass plate image.  The lowest price was 25 Euros or so.  I glanced at the images on display.  So nice!  But then I looked across the path.  On a tri-pod was the piece de resistance:  an amazing large format camera, wood body, amazing lens, all the bells and whistles.  I was too shy to talk to them and ask about their equipment.  But oh wow, it was so nice seeing that.  We also went to the Huis Marseille to see their current photo exhibit.  So I was perusing their website the other night.  They have all these analog and archival method workshops.  Yes, I know that there are lots of these here in the US.  But here is the thing.  While I see a high degree of technology embracing in Europe, there is still a deep appreciation for the historical methods.  And this is not just knowledge of an out of date artifact.  This is an appreciation for the method that is still accepted as viable.  They seem to be able to have the two co-exist.  They do not see the need to throw one out one method for the other.  A lesson we could learn here.