Last night was another town meeting.  There were only five of us and it went so well.  We are re-habbing a blight of a building at the bottom of Main Street and it is going amazingly well.   We finished early so we talked for 45 minutes about a new local business.  We discussed ways for the owner to improve it.  We came up with a ton of ideas and have a very loose plan to move forward with.  I got home and called my mother to get my uncle involved in trying to give advice to this guy.  I was so pleased when I got home that it made up for the past few weeks.

If you have been reading, you know that the kids have been particularly challenging.  But that comes with the job, and it gets worse every year.  And it cannot be taken personally and is not professionally threatening.  However, I work in a very gossipy place and people seem to delight in bringing bad news to the subject of the bad news.  So the word is that I will not only lose the darkroom because they do not value the art of photogrpahy - I mean they think digital is the only future - but it is also part of a revenge plan by a person or persons in the building.  Why do adults like to bring bad news to people?

So there is this whole STEM/STEAM initiative in U.S. education (and in places like the U.K.).  I am all for it.  However, not to the detriment of other courses.  In the past 20 years, school districts got rid of all the practical and vocational programs to make way for computer labs.  They are regretting that now.  Our state department of education has changed their goal from college AND career ready students to college AND/OR career ready.  Education is realizing we need the trades and need to give our students opportunities to experiment and gain experience in them before deciding how to proceed after graduation.  The problem is, all the equipment was dumped or auctioned off.  And the equipment costs a great deal to replace.  The rooms were altered too.  Politicians have convinced the tax paying public that schools are drains on the tax payer and we must tighten our belts.  So with detrimental spending restrictions - or dumping all money into sports that do not benefit 100% of the population - we have no money to bring these programs back.

Shift now to room 026.  There has always been anger and resentment towards photography once it was brought into the Art Department in 2006.   Photography IS an art.  And with digital, it is also a technology.  It is one of two classes in the department that is, in its current state, both.  So why this push to get rid of the darkroom?  Well, some administrators think they will win bonus points with the board of ed if they can save them money by getting rid of the darkroom.  But here's the thing:  If you want me to run this solely as digital, the equipment you will have to invest in, the software, the materials, the printers, ink, and such will blow that darkroom budget out the water.  You will wish you never got rid of the darkroom.  If you really want this to be ther right kind of digital program, know that you will have to buy a plotter printer, all the inks, dozens of DSLRs, mountains of digital paper, I will need my own 3D printer, I will need a laser printer (if you want to really proceed technologically) and its needed materials, memory cards, various new lenses (because if you really want the best sports shots to be taken, I need better lenses) and filters, additional software (I will need Lightroom), much more studio equipment and lighting, and I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Are you sure you want to do this?  Because if you don't want to make the necessary investment to make it a good digital-only program, and keep the kids interested in taking a class in which they truly learn (as they do now), then here is what you will end up with:  A half-assed program that benefits very few students, and you will need to find somewhere else to put 160 kids.  Talk to Guidance about that.  Talk to the kids.  Talk to the graduates.

I might also ask what your real intentions are if you are not also proposing getting rid of traditional drawing and sculpture classes.  Those arts can be replaced with mechanical drawing and a class that has a 3D printer and can make monsters and robots (like oh, say, robotics).  Dump the art and go all tech.  So what are the real intentions here?  Saving money?  Finding extra space?  Brownie points with those in charge?  Or a sound education for the students?  It's about time we start looking at the bigger picture in education.  Tunnel vision has not gotten us anywhere.

So I was thinking about my QBAs for Photo II and AP.  I already have the one for Photo I set and it is a matching scantron format.  I have been thinking of how to make the other two tests more "PARCC like" as requested by administration.  It will be one hell of a test for kids to take in the last week of the year, but oh well.  I have it all set in my mind and will type it up tomorrow.  Then I realize, duh, the majority of my journal entry assignments have been "PARCC like".  How?  The students usually have to read an article related to photography and respond to a question.  This is never a yes or no type of response.  It always involves some sort of analysis and explanation of one's answer.  Therefore, the students should not be surprised by the format nor should they complain at all.  It will be familiar.  And all year I have been sweating how I can do this....  Derp.

More good news?  I did a hell of a lot of work on this day off.  I did laundry, put the ladder in the pool, vacuumed the pool, cleaned the pool ledges, lifted and tied up a bunch of low hanging peach tree branches, removed diseased leaves, mowed and trimmed the lawn, updated the two political facebook pages I run for tomorrow's election, and hung the corner pieces in the dining and living rooms to prep for hanging the ceiling trim.  Phew.  The adrenaline rush from all that work should keep me happy through all the bs I will encounter tomorrow (nasty co-workers and disrespectful students who think the year is almost over).

Then this evening, hubby carefully asks me if I overdid it.  He never asks in that tone.  Apparently a co-worker of his was in the hospital due to high blood pressure.  She overworked herself and stressed herself to the point that her BP shot up.  According to him, she is a lot like me with always being on the go and taking on a billion things.  No worries here, I told him.  My blood pressure is always good.  So if I have some down time while on lunch tomorrow, I plan to make my summer project list.  One of the things will be to clean up my photo printing table in the basement.  I started last night and it felt good to prep the space for printing again.

How is one expected to teach seniors in June considering the haphazard schedule of the previous weeks?  Let's see: weeks of state standardized testing, days off from unused snow days (hooray!), our art show (hooray!), seniors come in fourth period on the days of state Biology testing, and the prom and graduation are looming or here.  I don't know how any of us are keeping these kids focused.  One girl told me when her teacher tried to get the class to take notes, the class just laughed.  No parent or guardian wants to deal with these kids right now.  And we are still trying to teach.  My non-seniors are working on their projects like crazy.  Periods 1 and 2?  Damn, the work is great and the energy is electric.  Periods 5 and 7?  Ugh.  Just ugh.  And they know they are getting zeros for class participation and they will receive zeros for not completing their projects.  But they just do not care.  Why?  They have done the math and know that with the automatic 50 on the report card, they still pass for the year.  Even though these are the top failing grades I have for this marking period:  7, 8, 9, 11, 12.  Yes, you read that right.  And they are proud of it.  But there are no ramifications whatsoever.  You might say "write them up!' and to that I say "that doesn't make a difference."  What do they get?  A detention or two? It makes no difference at all.

My suggestions?  First, skip the BS of letting seniors come in late on days that have testing they are not involved in.  The fact that they can miss those early periods sends a message that the learning in those classes is inconsequential.  Nothing is really being missed.  The other thing I would fix is let the fourth marking period grade stand.  Do not bump that up to a 50.  Bumping the fourth marking period grade up disproves the reasons given for the practice in the first place.  If the students grades are so low for the first three marking periods, there has not been a turn around in effort, therefore the grade earned should stand as is.

I will keep trying to teach this week.  I have the projects due, there will be one more journal entry for my level two classes, we have QBAs to prepare for.  I am not done despite what the students try to tell me.  You see, I teach in such a way and have expectations that mirror my work ethic as a teacher and student.  I worked until the very last day of school and I expect my kids to.  I never had such disdain for my teachers to brush them off when they were trying to teach me.  I hated school.  I had personal things going on.  I get it.  But I never slacked and never stopped trying.