My Spanish Art Classroom is ready for next week!!!

This is the display right outside my classroom. Everything is in Spanish because I will be teaching art classes in Spanish to K, 2nd and 4th graders. 

Some initial decorative boards were put up to beautify the halls before the art goes up. 

The 3 art teachers share this lockable storage closet. It's an art teacher's dream!!

Another view of our lockable, storage closet. 

More displays in the halls. The art teachers are responsible for over  15 bulletin boards. 

My classroom view from the doorway. I have 7 tables. 

My table markers. Each table has a different color. 

My elmo projector!!

I teach 3 grades and see kids 2-3 times a week for 45 minutes.  That is more art than I took for my studio art degree in college. Content and Language objectives will be posted here daily. 

My Spanish Art vocabulary wall of the letters A, B, C and Ch. (Remember, it's a Spanish alphabet) 

My Spanish Art vocabulary wall detail of the letter P. 

The Early childhood educator in me always loves these jars filled with colorful items....

My demonstration corner 

A gallery corkboard on right

A sink!!! (Ta da!!)

I posed these moving figures up on top of my cabinets. 

My drying rack and visual files

Paper.....glorious paper. 

My doorway..... 

Says, 'Welcome to Ms. Cutelis' class'

This door goes out to some wooded area.... 

Huge picture windows

My class with the lights off

Peeks into the beginnings of my Spanish Art Classroom

               Okay, my room is FAR from done....but I am very proud of what I've done so far. It took me 4 half days to even get it to this point, and I still have lots of work to do to get it to match my vision of a safe, warm and exciting Spanish art room. 

This is my door. Lots of storage on the left and the right (not pictured). 

This is the view of my tables, my whiteboard, more storage, my sink (way in the back on the right). I have 7 tables altogether. So much potential!!!

A blurry picture of my display area (left) with rug. I will be getting an Elmo, a projector, and a cart next week. The papers you see were in this room, but they are going to the storage closet.  

My paper shelf. I took out about 300lbs. of paper out of here and placed them in our lockable art teacher closet. In this one I leap watercolor. On top are my multicultural paper, below that are my black papers, below that are drawing papers (2 shelves) and last, my watercolor papers. 

My demo area. 

I did this in my last class and it's just so visually appealing that I had to do it again. It brings mystery and interest to ones class. 

The models on display here in my window, which faces trees. 

View of my classroom from the entrance. Sorry for the blurriness. 

View of my classroom with the lights off......look at those trees!! what a view. I need more plants. So if you have any plants you no longer need, I'd be glad to adopt them for my classroom. 

Hallways full of art teacher bulletin boards. We, the three art teachers at the school, are responsible for over 20 bulletin boards that are expected to be changed often. Thankfully, we are given time in our schedule to put up displays. Can's wait to meet the kids. All classes I see twice a week, some even three times a week. Will post more next week after I have created and added all the signs. 

New Classroom Pics

I was able to finally enter my new classroom yesterday and assess what all I would need to do before I begin a new school year. Nora came along to 'help' me. 

Drying rack on the left.

 Lots of official bulletin boards spaces both in the classroom and all over the hallways.

 Windows that lead to trees.

A door that leads to these trees and the outdoors.

 Locking cabinets. Locking doors, locking storage closets. I get keys to all these.

 and.....a sink.

What major themes are running through your life?

                      There are certain themes running through everyone's lives at all times. I believe we all have these seasonal themes running through our lives. If we just care to stop long enough to listen to what is happening with us in terms of small universal messages, we too would get them. I've always firmly believed there are two kinds of people in the world, the reflecting kind and the non-reflecting kind (these are the ones who know everything). I consider myself a 'reflecting kind'. Currently, I have three themes that keep nagging me when reflecting. These themes keep coming up in all sorts of unrelated situations and scenarios and keep hammering me over the head with their messages. Sometimes, it almost feels like I'm living in a very good independent movie where every little thing from the background song, to the art on the walls have meaning. My three themes are (1) Absolute need humans have for inspiration, (2) the healing power of merely noticing can change the world and the idea that (3) the way systems are structured makes an enormous difference to how everything is experienced within that system. 
                       Inspiration. I've been watching my 7 year-old son go from an intense obsession with space, science and scientists to baseball, baseball players and baseball scores. I am not being dramatic when I describe these as 'obsessions'. While he's living through these intense periods he is able to absorb such detailed information and make such expert analyses of the all the big ideas engendered within its topics. In applying this to schools and how they are built and structured, I am not being harsh when I say that schools are not either equipped or structured to tap into these timely learning opportunities. This is very, very unfortunate for if schools were able to tap into subjects and subject matter that were more closely aligned with student's interests they'd be able to teach all skills more efficiently. Inspiration allows for warp-drive learning to happen. Unfortunately, the way things are now there is school and then there is the after school activities. More often than not, it's after school where kids finally get to explore what they really enjoy because true learning can only happen with true engagement. True engagement only happens when things matter to us. Therefore, inspiration is the driving force of all things meaningful. Grab any biography, anyone that has ever done anything meaningful with their lives has done so out of inspiration. So it pays to pay attention to our kids' obsessions. The book I am reading now written by Jenifer Fox speaks about strengths-based child rearing. So for now, even though intense units on baseball and outer space are far from being on the school curriculum, we at home are certainly using these themes to teach reading, math, nuance, writing, and conversation skills.
                         Noticing. Sounds like such a benign act. Sounds like such an insignificant act that could not possibly carry such monumental powers. But the act of noticing has life-changing potential and it's free, anyone can do it. Think of any time in your own life where perhaps a wise/older person voiced that they noticed one of your many abilities. I bet you still carry this compliment of sorts in your heart. I can also bet that you've done something with it. Part of my role in being a teacher is noticing what kids bring to the table and making them aware of what I see. In verbalizing to them what they may not yet be able to put into words, I am able to open up in their hearts a world of possibilities. These short, yet accurate phrases might seem like nothing meaningful at the time, but soon you'll see that this child has quickly adopted what you noticed as part of her identity. Once there, these identity structures stay there, forever. Like plants, we humans bend towards the light. Noticing is like sunlight to our souls. It feeds and heals, it directs our purpose in life. Try it. Next time you see your little one do anything, walk up to them, look them in the eye and say, 'I noticed you were very kind when you did that, I noticed you are quite creative because you've spent the whole morning drawing these pictures of cats." You are not just merely holding up a mirror and reflecting back what you see, but the act of noticing also communicates to the child a much more golden message; that you cared enough to notice. We can do this to heal ourselves as well. Have you ever been so wrapped into some current drama that you almost forget to check the lights before crossing the street? I have come to learn that the mere act of noticing our very surroundings can help bring you back out of any anguish. Noticing, sounds totally unimportant, yet can help shape our very future. 
                          Systems. Systems have been the source of so much mental debate for me lately. In framing what I've been experiencing at my last job in a public school, as a larger systemic issue, I've been able to better understand how all the pieces fit in this structure to create the results we all end up experiencing. Like in any personal argument you might have with a loved one, if we get stuck in arguing over the minutia of the smaller fragments, we never get to address the bigger, more damaging issues. The basic idea here is that the large big-picture ideas and assumptions embedded within any given system needs to be right, just and democratic in order for the unfolding results to grow and prosper correctly. How is this helpful to me personally? For one, In understanding how the larger part trickle down to the smaller parts I now know that trying to change the smaller parts of any system is futile. I can also apply this knowledge to my own classroom, a smaller system, but one nevertheless. There are certain ingredients, if you will, that can make or break any classroom. Respect and the idea that all kids must be engaged in order to learn are great structural ideas that help any classroom system grow. Yet, the idea that some kids are 'broken', for example, can only weaken your classroom system. You see, main guiding ideas and assumptions about the people within system must be 'right', holistic, democratic, hopeful, and appeal to humans at their highest state. Anything less than that and you would be, as Ravitch says, 'shooting at your own troops."
                            So there, those are the themes currently running through my life. I assure you that you too have big, overriding themes running through your life and if you listen very carefully they will speak to you. Have a wonderful summer. 

Systems. How they can inspire or burn us....

                Systems. We exist within them, we work in them, we send our children to them. There are systems all around us. School systems, government systems, economic systems, food systems. After my experience working in DCPS for 3 years, I have become ultra sensitive to systems and how they have the potential to make its participants either thrive or wilt. This is one of the reasons I am resigning from DCPS. 


                Currently, I work for DCPS, a system notorious for being highly disorganized, top-down, and distrusting of its teachers. Most of its teacher-directed policies are created with the premise that,  'there are some really bad teachers out there who are not doing their job right and we must weed them out". This was all fine at the beginning of the process, but every year we have what Washingtonians now call, "Churn and burn". Most currently, I have been appalled to see the very open and heavy recruitment and hiring of non-DCPS employees. All the while, some 333 effective DCPS teachers wait to get rehired by any school after being displaced due to funding reductions to their schools. Hundreds of new teachers coming in, hundreds going out. 


                 The morale-busting continues with the excessive 5-times a year obligatory observations of which only one is scheduled, the rest are pop-ins. In a 10-month period that means we get observed every 2 months. No matter how effective and experienced the teacher, they still get this many observations. One could be 2 years from retirement and have been a great teacher all their life yet still getting 5 observations in a 10-months period. Next, the increasing number of enormously costly, two-week long, standardized tests. Every child, beginning in 2nd grade, goes through this grueling 2-week process yearly. Each year, there are more and more subjects added to be tested. At the expense of our kids' education and time, the results are then used primarily to help fire teachers and to promote unhealthy competition amongst teachers. I don't have an issue with evaluation of children's education, yet the use of the scores to grade the teacher (called, "value-added") has been proven to have a corrupting affects on education overall.  


                  Next, the mandatory and over-collection of data. This requirement to collect and report data back downtown has become so time consuming in the last few years that classroom teachers are out of the classroom for hours on end collecting data from individual kids. Where are the rest of the kids while this is taking place? with substitutes, who are not teachers.  
              
                    In comparison, I would like to give you a sense of my experience interviewing with Arlington Public Schools. I feel a comparison is needed here to get parents, especially, to understand why this systemic problem is also our problem. A teacher beat down by a system is less likely to be emotionally available to our children, and when they are not emotionally available they are less likely to inspire, connect and enrich the lives of our children. In Arlington, after three years, the observation count drops dramatically and teachers get to have a say about how they will improve their own practice and even asked declare ways they will address any weaknesses as part of their yearly evaluations.  These type of teacher-related policies communicate trust. Trust then allows great teachers the freedom to do what they do best, teach, inspire and connect with our children. As incentives, teachers get incentivize through professional development opportunities as a way to advance in their field. This communicates respect. DCPS, by handing out monetary bonuses to their highly effective teachers, promotes favoritism; this negative practice foments unhealthy competition with the same peers with whom collaboration is required for a good working relationship.  Having been with this system for three years now, I have been feeling my morale, my energy and my creativity quickly wilting and it was time I listened to my body. I am an excellent teacher, but DCPS as a system, got me down. DCPS made me feel paranoid and made me feel ineffective most days. After each observation I would feel helpless for days on end. 
                     
                     I have become convinced through this experience with DCPS that in order for any system to be sustainable, run effectively and smoothly for years to come, its leaders need to insure that its big, overriding ideas become the driving force behind all its policies. In addition, its big, overriding ideas need to have respect and trust embedded. All policies, no matter how benign they seem, communicate assumptions about a group of people. That assumption, however subtle and nuanced, will work its way to the inner psyche of all its participants and either inspire and energize or wilt and harden them from the inside out. 


                      I have chosen not to become hardened and wilted and sought shelter in a less harsh waters. To be an effective teacher I need to remain open, fresh and inspired myself. If my blood-pressure is to the roof, and I am losing sleep over increasing the percentage of higher level questions I am asking in any given lesson, I have lost all focus. As Einstein said, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." I needed to be someplace where the stuff that can't be counted, like inspiration, still counts.