Procrastination

Two of my final projects are due this coming week and I have a ton of work to do so, as usual, I feel compelled to blog instead.

I am a few weeks into my 5th grade placement and I am not so into 5th graders. They are growing on me more and more but I really do miss being in the 1st grade. I feel bad calling 10 and 11 year olds jerks but as a clump they are kind of jerks. One on one I can see that they will mostly probably grow into pretty good people but right now I have very little desire to be around them.

People who like teaching older kids over the itty-bittys say they like it because you can talk to them like adults. I talk to adults all day. Adults on the whole are pretty lame. I think I am finding out that I would much rather hang out with small people who are assholes by accident instead of on purpose to see how much they can piss you off which seems to be the default mode of operation for 5th grade.

The fact that I am not such a fan of 5th grade (I leave frequently with a splitting headache) coupled with my grad school semester ending and all my final projects being due has brought out a bit of my grouchy side. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank my boyfriend for putting up with my short temper and crying jags. Love you! Ok now I feel like I'm off the hook next time I bite your head off for something like switching our pillows or walking too loud.

Alright...back to work...or back to watching Ghostbusters II.

Stop looking at me, Swan!

This is my last week with the first grade :(

Next week I begin with the fifth grade!

My (awesome) boyfriend woke me up in the middle of the night to point the following out to me:

It's like you're going from being Miss Lippy to Ms. Veronica Vaughn.

I like it...but I will miss smearing paste on my face.

warping tiny (and possibly not so tiny) little minds

I am loving the first grade. My research group (and I along with them) is learning where rubber comes from (Trees! how did I make it to 25 without knowing that?). We built an awesome (if I do say so myself) rubber tree in the classroom. I will post pictures when I find my camera (did I get jacked by a 5 year old?)

I have also learned that deadpan humor is at best lost on children and at worst might warp their mind. This was an exchange I had at the end of the day yesterday:

Cute-Little-Wided-Eyed-Girl-Who-Trusts-Her-Teacher-As-A-Source-of-Truth-And-As-Someone-Who-Would Never-Ever-Mislead-Her (not her real name): Who invented the backpack?

Me: John C. Backpack the Third.

CLWEGWTHTAASOTAASWWNEMH: * blink * *blink*

I had to explain that I was joking and she had a few followup questions including a bunch on why I chose the name John for which I had no answers and eventually I just told her she needed to find her line partner and get ready to go downstairs and then I ran away.

So I have stopped having panic attacks about going into school and genuinely enjoying the classroom I am in and the first grade in general just in time for it all to end at the end of the month. In November I am getting a new placement and it looks like it's going to be in the 5th grade.

5th grade!

They are giants and almost hormonal and nowhere near as adorably trusting as first graders. I have begun to talk in the overly enthusiastic cheesy way that first graders eat up with a spoon but I have a feeling won't fly with 5th graders. Plus the NYCBOE are much more up your ass about hitting standards for testing in upper grades so possibly no more building rubber trees :(

OK memory lane: 5th grade:

we got binders and assignment books and had to start keeping track of multiple subjects and writing essays.

On that essay writing note: I had a mental breakdown writing a science essay on magnets on my birthday and my dad and mom helped me write it and we STILL got a C. Which was the first time (but by FAR not the last) I heard my dad call a teacher a "petty tyrant."

I think girls began wearing bras ... I got boobs that year.

Periods? I think some of us got them.

I began wearing jeans instead of leggings

I had a HUGE crush on Harry

I think I became obsessed with Ace of Base

I secretly listened to LoveLine (A call in sex question show) at night. I understood about a quarter of what was said but thought most of it was hilarious.

Help me out...what do you all remember?

"Tuck" internal combustion.

The first grade classroom I am in uses the inquiry method of learning for social studies. The children choose a topic and spend the semester investigating it in smaller research groups. I was put in charge of a group interested in investigating "vehicles". Today was our first meeting where we had to narrow that topic down. For some reason I wanted to try to persuade my group to investigate sanitation vehicles (I am still not sure why... I became momentary fascinated with street sweepers).

They did not go for it.

Instead they want to know how engines work, something I know less than NOTHING about. So I am now frantically reading about spark plugs and pistons and trying to figure out how to translate that for 6 year olds. I am planning of buying myself some time and starting with bikes but it turns out I know nothing about them either. Though, thanks to a very nice bike shop on the upper east side, I have a bike chain and two sprockets which I shall attempt to base a lesson around.

Also, today a reminder of how 6 year olds minds may be in the toilet (poop is a huge theme) but they are not yet in the gutter:

Today while learning about the sounds certain letter combos make the teacher asked this question:

"Who can tell me another word that rhymes with 'duck' that your parents do when you go to bed"

Every child in the class immediately knew the answer is 'Tuck (you into bed)'.

you dirty pervs.

Back to school!

I did not update this blog this summer as much as I wanted.

My excuses are work, finding a new apartment and moving in with my boyfriend (!), and taking a two week vacation with my family where we drove from San Francisco to Vancouver (which was awesome) none of which had very much to do with museum education.

But now... I'm back in the thick of it. Today I have homework I should be doing and the sudden urge to procrastinate...er, I mean, be vigilant about my blog has struck me.

The biggest news is I started student teaching in the first grade this week.

For the first day I wanted to fit in and wore what I consider to be the universal uniform of the Progressive school elementary teacher:

Note the interesting vaguely indigenous/ hippie patterned shirt over black pants of irregular length and clunky black shoes. I felt the part. Now the task is acting like it.

Also, the first pearl of wisdom from one of the 5 year old boys in my classroom:

"Don't say 'stupid' because it's a bad word and if you say it no one will like you and no girl will want to marry you and you'll end up crying for the rest of your life...with your parents."

words to live by.

Are You There, GOB?

I had been planning to post an update on how my month of summer classes were going at the halfway point (which came and went a few days ago).  However, I am so so so so so burnt out and the little coherence I still possess is going in to papers and other classwork.  

SO instead: a link to a video of Will Arnett reading a key passage from the Judy Blume coming of age novel Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. 

Click for awesome.

So, it has come to this.

I am now wearing a backpack.

I seem to be incapable of not carrying my entire world with me in a bag at all times.  Up until a few months ago I carried giant messenger bags filled to capacity with me everywhere I went. 

Then in November I had sudden shooting pains in my chest and arm and went to the ER convinced I was having a heart attack.  Turns out I had probably pinched a nerve in my shoulder and pulled a muscle near my ribcage from lugging around a giant bag since I was 13.  The prescription: no more one-shoulder bags.  

Since then I have been wearing a "lumbar pack" (glorified fanny pack) which was working for a while but it has been steadily accumulating weight (I plead total ignorance on this one,  I have no idea how all my bags end up so heavy. Bag Gremlins?).  Yesterday I noticed a slight bruising on my waist and began to worry for all the important internal organs in my abdomen.  Plus I was starting to carry a shoulder bag for all my school books and that was also getting pretty heavy.

So ... backpack.  My reluctance to wear a backpack stems the fact that it will make me look even more like a 12-year old than I do already but I feel like I'm out of alternatives.  

This morning I dug out an old black Easpack ("The leader of the pack" says the Double-Dare announcer in my head) from middle school.  It has miraculously emerged from that time unscathed by purple marker drawings of peace signs, ying-yangs, or flowers.  To offset the 12-year-old factor I decided to pair it with a granny cardigan today.   My roommate assures me that the sweater and the backpack average out to make me look my age.  

After my fist backpack commute in over 10 years I will say this: padded shoulder straps are pretty sweet.

Also if anyone knows of a cool (and inexpensive) backpack-type-concept let me know.  I am looking to upgrade the Eastpack.  

Oh, NYC, why don't you want me to get a graduate degree?

After my first class yesterday I realized I might make it through this summer term if I managed to get up early, stay up late and get some major reading done on the subway during my commute.  This morning I set off reading packet in hand.  I had an early success in getting a seat right when I got on.  I opened my packet to begin learning about Erikson's 8 stages of development when suddenly:

The Crazy happened. 

A woman I hadn't noticed before sitting in the corner of the car began talking back to the train announcements.  It is the N so there is the female and male automated voices.  She thought they were talking shit about her and that they shouldn't be the ones talking because she knew a lot of shit about them...and it was REALLY juicy.

Apparently the automated bland female conductor voice is actually a Trinidadian woman who was "married at 16 divorced by 19 to a black man who was forced to marry her" AND she "fooled around with her mother's boyfriend" which got her kicked out of the house.  AND (prepare yourself) is actually a "he/she, who answers to the name mrs. and mr."

The automated bland male voice seems to be two distinct people.  One is a "MTA Jew" who is watching everyone all the time on cameras he has planted around the subway.  He judges them but he should really judge himself because he is responsible for EVERY crime: "rape, murder, arson, IDENTITY THEFT!"  Also "He needs something in his ass to get rid of all the shit."

The other male is a retarded Panamanian ("I have never seen anyone so retarded") who likes to brag about his exploits "with sodomy."  I am sure he has a richer background story but the 14th st. stop came too soon to find out.

I feel vaguely guilty about finding these rants so fascinating in their conviction and details.  I hope that woman finds the help she obviously needs.  Or a job writing for All My Children.

I still know nothing about the 8 stages of man but I know who to blame next time there is ANY crime.  I'm looking at you MTA Jew...what ARE you doing with those cameras?

To my friends...

To my friends:

Tomorrow I will disappear for a while.  For the month of July I will be working from 8:30-4 and then be in classes from 5:30-9.  I am taking two classes (Child Development and the aforementioned extraneously-long-titled Children's Literature in a Balanced Reading Program -Focus on Grades 3-8).  So that about covers July.  I love you all and will see you on the other side.*

 

To my laundry:

Could you somehow get yourself clean? That would be really helpful. Thanks.  Also, could you be the sweetest little cupcake and tell the fridge to fill itself.

 

To the non-school related books I have started and will definitely not finish:

Sorry.

 

And lastly to my unwatched Netflix:

I think I will miss you most of all.

 

* I say this now while my resolve and work ethic is strong.  I can already foresee the need to blow off some steam at some point. 

The Giver involves no rabbis

In preparation for the Child Lit class I am taking in July (full-FULL- course title: Children's Literature in a Balanced Reading Program -Focus on Grades 3-8 ).  I have to read (or re-read) some kids and young adult books. 

So far I have re-read Charlotte's Web and The Giver.

I didn't write about Charlotte's Web because it made me cry a lot and I had just written another entry about crying a lot and I didn't want to worry anyone. 

Synopsis: A piglet, Wilbur, very much enjoys life and throws himself down into piles of hay in absolute hysterics (Wilbur is a bit of a dandy) when faced with the reality that death is inevitable meets an older spider who fully understands and embraces life's natural cycles.  Life, death, detailed (almost oddly pornographic) scenes of spiders eating flies, bacon. crycrycry.

Last night I finished reading The Giver by Lois Lowry.  I had read this when I was younger and it has been on my bookshelf since then.  I had never been tempted to pick it up again because for some reason I remembered it having a Jewish theme (I blame the rabbi-looking guy on the cover and the prominence of a character named Asher).

The Giver is actually about an alternate community where everything is controlled down to the point it is in black and white.  People live in assigned family units, do assigned jobs, they have no knowledge of life outside or before the community.  They live in what they call "The Sameness".  One person in the community is designated the Receiver of Memory and he hold all memories of the outside world from colors, to weather (they have none of either in the community) to death and war and pain and love.  The main character, 12 year old Jonah, is designated to become the next Receiver and begins to inherit the knowledge from The Giver.

It's a warm up book to Brave New World and 1984 and all that good stuff.  

Message that ultimately maintaining "sameness" eliminates humanity and allows people to do appallingly inhumane things without batting an eye.

Plus they make you take a pill to get rid of "The Stirrings" that start around the age of 12.  That is no life I'd want to live.

First grade

I have found out where I will be placed for the first part of my student teaching in the fall!  

I will be with 1st graders.

This is a relief because my giant boyfriend had planted the idea in my head of the possibility that my students might be taller than me.  It is the rare 6 year old who breaks 5 feet so I am feeling (relatively) safe on that front. 

This has made me try to see what I remember from first grade:

I think I was starting to know how to read.

I shared a school birthday with Anna M.

My class was OBSESSED with Fiddler on the Roof. (Oy, jew school).

Ari stuck a pair of scissors (possibly) accidentally in Anna M's forehead.

We wrote books.  Or we would narrate and illustrate them and the teacher would write it down.

In one of those books (what makes me happy and what makes me sad) I wrote that "it makes me sad when my dad hits me" prompting the school to have a SERIOUS conversation with my father who would never even threaten to hit me.  I wonder what that was about. 

When learning about syllables I went to WAR over my belief that "Charles" has 2 syllables.  My first academic defeat.  I still have not forgotten it.

What do you guys remember about first grade that will help me prepare to face them come September?

This...was probably a foreseeable problem.

Jane:  read your blog....i read the link as "e meats paste" and i was like....hm meat paste?

Me:  ha ha I am a little worried about the unintentional "meat" in my address.  

oh well.  

maybe it will intrigue the fans of electronic meat paste

a fast growing industry

Right Decision

OK.  So everyone at my graphic design job now knows that I will be leaving to go back to school for museum education.

I feel totally secure in my decision.  Furthering this sense that I truly belong working with children is the fact that this Gawker post sent me into a fit of giggles at my desk yesterday: 

The New York Times' Arts Beat Twitter feed was hijacked last night. Granted access to the feed's 2,500 followers, what message did the interloper choose to send? "Pooping."

AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA... I am 5.

The Big Stuff

Yesterday I saw Up.  Beyond its ability to accurately portray a dog's thought pattern (squirrel!), Up also beautifully illustrated a few big picture life issues that have been on my mind lately.  

In a mostly silent opening sequence we see a couple (Ellie and Carl) meet, marry, and grow old together.  They think of having kids, find out they cannot and revive an old life dream to travel. They save money in a jar that is broken open prematurely several times when the money is more urgently needed for life's little emergencies (broken legs, tree falling on roof...).  Time slips on and Ellie dies without having ever gotten around to her original dream.  

I bawled. In 3D.

I have been crying a lot lately (for some of it I blame hormones).   I have been crying about the Big Things.  Everyone I love will eventually die.  We have such a short time here, how do we not lose track of the big plans.  

I think maybe it's because I'm at a point in my life where I can sort of, kind of, almost peak at what my future might look like and I can begin to envision life's big milestones and they are awesome and terrifying and amazing and tragic.  Which is the ultimate message in the film: all of life is an adventure. 

I wonder how young viewers responded to these themes in Up.  Is there any part of them which understands transition and end?  Does a 60 year old wonder that same thing about me?

Anyway... Go see Up.  If you're anything like me you'll cry and then you'll laugh that super giddy laugh that comes after crying and then you'll nap.  

I... might be 4 years old.

Oh SH...ugar

I curse too much.  WAY too fucking much.

Today my boss brought in her young daughter to work and not only do I not know at all how to interact with her (which doesn't bode well for my future teaching career) but I also keep cursing.  I cannot stop.  It's like the presence of a small child triggers a cursing instinct in me.

Even for the adult sphere I curse too much.  I have accidentally started fights with my boyfriend because I forget that cursing doesn't always add the lighthearted humor to a conversation I think it does.

I have also recently found out that a gibberish sound I make instead of cursing means "cocksucker" in korean.  I even curse by accident! Multi-lingually! 

So before I start working working with children (and for the sake of all my human interactions) I must cut back on the cursing.

Any suggestions of non-cursing interjections?

Drool...

In the New York Times today a kind of a "no duh" concept article about reusing trash for arts and crafts projects.  

But I am seriously jealous of both the breadth and depth of their collection of trash (and their organizational skills).

Cute children and creative projects slideshow on the NYT website

Anthropomorphic art

In this week's New Yorker there is an piece about Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian in which they spoke with creator Shawn Levy.  He talks about the process of making the art come "alive."  

He says: 

"The fun was imagining what each piece would be like if it could interact with the other pieces...I knew I wanted the Calder to move on its three legs with an insectlike stride, freely swinging its mobile trunk. And I knew that I wanted the waiter in [Edward Hopper's] 'Night-hawks' to defend himself from the weird modern people outside the frame. With the Pollock I knew that I wanted it squirming with intestinal motion.  I wanted innards, or a pit of worms and snakes, all of them writhing in a fluid way."

I have not seen the movie but I think this is a really fun way to approach art (with or even without kids).  

There are examples of ways to approach both figurative and abstract art:

How would this piece move if it suddenly gained motion?

How would the people in this piece react if they could see you, like you could see them?  

What would an interaction between the people in this painting and the person in that painting be like?

Personally, Levy's Pollock description grosses me out. Through writing this post I have realized that, though I like Pollock when still, if abstract paintings were to suddenly start moving I'd be much more comfortable with a Mondrian Broadway Boogie Woogie.  

Any other suggestions?

Hello!

This blog will be about me, em.  

After spending WAY too long at a graphic design job I have remembered what I meant to do with my life: Museum Education! (ta da!) 

I am passionate about arts education (I have been working in museums and other cultural institutions education departments since high school) and I'm psyched to get back into the game. 

So psyched that I am going to prematurely start this blog even though I am still at the graphic design job doing nothing with children or museums til I start graduate school in a few months.  

But in the meantime it will remind me who I am when I give a shit about what I do.

Here goes...