I liked hearing Bob and Darrel talk.  It was apparent to me that they had an opinion, but were trying to be honest within there presentation.  I'm not sure that I really learned anything I wasn't aware of before, I've been thinking about the union issue for a while now.  My father is a teacher and when the Governor broke the teachers union he was of course upset.  We were upset because the union gives teachers the ability to negotiate things like their working conditions and pay even though they are not allowed to strike.  On the flip side there have been times where the unions power has been abused and I don't like some of the causes that the teachers union supports either.  It's apparent to me that there are two sides to the union coin.  I'm not really sure how to fix it so that the unions power will not be abused, but I also believe that unions can be good for more than just the teachers they represent they can also be good for the students too.

I liked the maps of the united states that showed the link between teachers unions and student ACT and SAT scores.  Maybe it's not solid proof that unionized teachers are better teachers but it does show evidence that this is probably true.  I'm not sure how long it will take, but I think that the education provided to students within the state of Wisconsin is not going to be as good as it was before the union was broke.  Not because teachers don't love kids or teaching, but because without the unions teachers are going to lose some of the working conditions that helped them be good teachers, such as smaller class sizes and prep time.  I hope I'm wrong.  I think most people will agree that we all want a great education for our kids we just don't agree on how to go about giving them that great education.

Hours 10 and 11

I couldn't complete my lesson this week with the first graders due to Easter break on Monday.  I did come to the school though on Wednesday and helped the fourth graders with their masks and the first graders worked on a drawing inspired by Klimt's the cradle.  I missed the introduction for this project. Talking with Mrs. A she had a power point with some of Klimt's paintings.  She felt that a lot of Klimt's work was inappropriate for this age group and had specifically chose the cradle painting because it was one of his more tame paintings.  I think that this is an interesting problem because there are a lot of great painters and paintings that you can't show to an elementary class.  Mrs. A even has a few art books designed for young children that she has had to alter some of the images because they were inappropriate for young children.  In the Klimt inspired drawings the students were allowed to pick some sort of character that would be sleeping under a blanket divided into sections and then the students decorated each section with patterns.  Today they were coloring in the patterned blankets with water color pencils.  Mrs. A demonstrated to the students how they could color lighter or darker to create more or less saturated colors.  Next week the students would be coloring in their drawings.

The fourth graders were working on building up features on their masks.  They added balls of newspaper, egg cartons and cardboard onto the base of their masks to create a nose, ears, or eyeballs that pop out.  The students did a pretty good job of doing this they did have a little trouble brainstorming ways to create the three dimensional form they wanted, this was most often fixed by just asking them what they were thinking of doing and then asking more questions and offering a few suggestions to help them think.  

Hour 9

Today I began teaching my lesson on Eric Carl's brown bear to the first grade class.  The lesson went well over all, but there are a few things I would change.  The students were all very familiar with Eric Carl which I expect, I was happy to see how excited the students were to be read to and to create the project.  I think however I would maybe move this project to the beginning of the year or perhaps the end of the year for kindergartners so that it would present a little more difficulty to them.

The parts of the lesson that were very successful were the reading and the power point.  The demonstration went well also.  Once the students were dismissed to the tables they really became engrossed in their painting.  Mrs. A had suggested that we roll the paper over the table and allow the students to work on covering the whole paper with paint and then scrap with different tools to cover the paper with texture.  I explained during the power point to the students that texture can be something we feel like rough sand or a silky ribbon and it can also be what we think something might feel like an for example the fur of a bear.  They had a ton of fun with the paint and texture tools, but had a little trouble filling the entire length of paper with texture, as they focused on one spot.  If given one sheet of paper perhaps they would have had been more aware of the surface.  The second problem came when I asked the students to clean up.  The paint dried on their hands and they kept scrubbing and scrubbing to get it off.  Part of the problem was that they need to use soap, but think a different paint would solve this problem.  I have a paste paper paint recipe that I wanted to use, I had tried the recipe at home and loved that it dried slowly and created a really distinct texture when scraped.  It also cleaned up quickly.  Mrs. A used acrylic mixed with a gloss medium for a similar project and wanted to stick with this type of paint.  The color was more saturated and glossy plus the paste paint requires that I boil a mixture of water and flour (wheat or rice) before adding color so paste paint is a little more work.

If I use acrylic in the future for this project,  I think that I will set up stations for the students to work at. One table where the students are working on a less messy project with minimal clean up such as drawings and one table where the students are working on the paintings.  This would eliminate lines at the sink for hand clean and the amount of tools that I would have to clean after the project was done.

Hours 7 and 8

This week the first grade class finished there Matisse paper cutouts.  One student was behind from the previous week.  To help that student catch up Mrs. A would usually allow them a sample that she had started with the class the week before or she might allow them to use another students who was present the week before but missed class this week.  It seems that none of the students really mind this although I think that it might undermine how much owner ship a student would really take in the creation of their work.  I'm not really sure how I would approach grading a project that wasn't completely done by a student either.  Her concern is that the student would never catch up if with the class if they aren't allowed to start where the class left off.  I do see her point, but I'm not comfortable with a student using another students work as their own.

I talked with Mrs. A a little about how her principle evaluates her.  The schools policy is to have a formal evaluation every other year and an informal evaluation every year.  Mrs. A didn't seem to think there was much of a difference between the two evaluations.  The principle stays within the classroom for the entire class and later the principle writes an evaluation for Mrs. A and reviews the evaluation with Mrs. A.  Mrs. A said that she doesn't do anything special for the evaluations.  In the beginning she used to always try and stay engaged with the students while her principle was viewing her, but she has with time become more comfortable with allowing the students to work while she multitasks prepping for other classes.  The evaluations seemed very informal to me and I'm wondering if every school approaches teachers evaluations this way or if another principle may stress the need to develop a professional philosophy and ask you to set teaching goals throughout the next year.