The sun is shinning, this birds are chirping, the heat is rising and I'm still walking into a cold dank building to teach kids who never want to be there! WHAT!? I'm already working on my tan, that can't be right. Virginia is so misleading. I thought the rule was when you can start tanning you shouldn't be in school.....the kids agreed with me on that one (although most of them are black and don't give two hoots about tanning for obvious reasons). I have lost steam in the teaching department, although i think that started about the second week I got there....opps! But I've come to the realization that if I can give these kids a place to come and let out steam, whether or not the are producing the next bond to be a classic piece of art work, I'm doing something good. For the most part these kids are stuck in classes with teachers who don't give them a attention they need, or the stimulation to learn anything new and good. It's really pretty lame.
I look around at the class and for the most part they are happy, or at least content with what they are doing (sometimes it's even art...ish) so I pat myself on the back. They engage in conversations with me, joke, tease (sometimes it's not nice and I have to kick some butts), laugh, yell (I discourage this) and when they get too volatile and nasty or disrespectful I have a chat with them and they generally figure it out and stop (for a few days).
All of this being said, I WANT OUT!!!!!! The secretary and I (she's about 65 and always 'dealing with something') decided that we were going to play hooky and walk on the beach till we couldn't walk anymore, have a seat, and then walk some more. She's funny, and likes me so life is good in that department....it's always a good idea to have the secretary on your side because some day your car might break down, or you sleep in and are 20 min late for class......not that that would ever happen to me!
Soon, soon soon it will be May and that means only one more month of school, and the last month of school will be nothing now that I'm a teacher and can make executive decisions on how little I actually want to do in class. I could pretty much put paper in front of them and say "create a piece of art that represents you as a person" and I could draw that out for as long as I needed! HA! I think I'm getting the hang of being an Art teacher!
