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.