It is the third week in and things are moving fairly well.  The kids seem to be a great bunch. Maybe not as special as last year, but great.  I had one students run into the room saying he loves the class.  In addition, there are already a few students who have their own cameras.  That takes the burden off us like you can't imagine.  While the donation of cameras last year was helpful like you wouldn't believe, you still can't beat having your own camera and shooting at your leisure.

I like to switch things and vary things from year to year.  I might not introduce a project the same way or with the same examples.  So this year I am making a concerted effort to show much more artwork.  For the Point of View assignments, I am showing brief slideshow videos of work by Kertesz and Erwitt.  One of my kids from period 4 last year was in one of the Photo I periods and asked why I didn't show this last year.  I guess he liked what he was seeing.  I just can't do things the same exact way every single year.

I guess I could just coast like some teachers do, but I would be bored out of my skull.   I also liked the way the class flowed with me talking, then a video, then more instruction.  It broke things up nicely to keep things interesting.  However, there is one thing that in disrupting the flow like you wouldn't believe - period attendance.  I have a specific flow.  This having to take period attendance within the period is bunk.  It creates a lull that becomes hard to combat.  Yes, I could take it later within the period, but the way a studio class works, there really is very little downtime, if any at all, and the chances of forgetting or being too busy within the period are too great.  I don't like it.  I wish we could mark it between the periods.  It would not be so bad if the website did not log us out so quickly, but we have to log in to the computer each period, log in to the website, and so on.   Tedious and disruptive.  I need to reconfigure the flow of the period because I doubt this will go away.

The bright side?  The summer weather finally came - in autumn - and I can go in the pool after work each day to relax.