Gosh darn it, I did it again.
Life got crazy for awhile there... between finishing up my first 6-week term, preparing for the two mini terms, family visiting from Canada and the Billings in town from North Carolina...I sacrificed the blog. I do sincerely apologize--you haven't missed anything too extremely important, but I'll back pedal for those of you who wondered where I've been all month! And well, because some of the things that have happened you just wouldn't believe.
Let me wrap up the first "term" (the six-week term: science, child development, art, and social/ethical perspectives)
We pretty much covered Science, but on our last day of class we had a bunch of different experiments to do. One was observing pill bugs that Kip brought in. Under a microscope we saw that one of those pill bugs was actually having babies...it was disgustingly, the coolest thing I had seen yet. I tried to take a picture to share with you, but it's blurry and looks plain strange. So here's this instead:
Kalysta :)
ART with Children:
Okay...I like art. I'm not good at it, but I like it. Well, this class was awesome and first and I really had high hopes for it but I didn't end up learning as much as I had hoped--and it's possible that that was my own fault. The book assigned was the driest art book you could have imagined, which made it near impossible to read. The information wasn't nearly as important as what we were reading in other classes so I often opted for "skimming" (aka not reading). This never got me in trouble, because we never really discussed it. So, what I'm trying to say is: I wasn't motivated because I wasn't being held accountable for the material. Kind of a lame excuse for a grad student, eh?
Here's where art got really complicated. We had a professor, who was a sweet lady but she exhibited all stereotypes of that crazy art teacher--you know? the scatterbrained lady who didn't quite know what was going on, but was talented? So, in addition to her we had a "student teacher" (aka an elementary teacher who was eventually going to take over the art classes at LC) who was supposed to be teaching our class (and observing our other professor for the other cohort's classes) This isn't exactly how it worked out. And while no one would ever say it...there was a power struggle of teacher and it was painful to watch. But, it was certainly a nice break from a days of heavy classes and mind-blowing material.
What really made me mad, however, was one day at lunch. A group of us were minding our own business, eating in the student center when some girls in our cohort approached the table saying, "have you heard what cohort 2 is saying?" We hadn't so we asked what was going on! Well, all we were told is that in Art we were going to watch a movie (okay? so, what?) The movie will not be explained before hand (uh, it's Art...I think I can figure it out?) and we will not debrief afterwards (ooh, do we get out early?). This is all we were told. We head to art and on the board says, "War Dance," the screen was down and she was ready to press play. When everyone was seated she said, "we're going to watch War Dance...it's a moving film...some of the other classes got upset..." Then the movie began--it was about the war in Uganda, which is already something I've been invested in (by way of rallies and fundraisers..) and it breaks my heart.
The movie was set in the Pantango Displacement Camp where the Acholi tribe has been moved. It is this people group that has been severely affected by the LRA (Lords Resistance Army). The children are abducted and forced to become child soldiers, the women are abducted to become sex slaves and everything is just so far for humane. Well, the people in the camp are somewhat safe and are under the government's constant armed watch. The movie follows the lives of young children who have been orphaned, or torn from their family, or who escaped from the LRA as a soldier, etc. Our professor was right about one thing...it was extremely moving. The children, with such raw emotion, explained how they watched their families get murdered or how they were forced to kill strangers.. To say the least, our entire class was in tears. After probably one of the most vulnerable moments of the film the screen turns blue and the lights were flipped on--break time. What? Now? We don't want to look around and see everyone's red, puffy eyes and hear the sniffles. If we weren't close before, we certainly were now. After the quick break we were told the movie got better, more motivating and encouraging... HA. Certainly not. The film's underlying plot was that these children were preparing a dance for the annual Ugandan Music Festival. They were the underdogs, the war children and not even expected to show up. They end up winning an event, but it's certainly not gratifying enough to erase the previous two hours of the documentary. The film ended and class was over. No one knew what to do, or what to say. We just walked out in a silent daze. That was that.
We didn't have class until the next week (because of a holiday), and by that time we were over the dance part of the film (the part that was appropriate for class) and we wanted/needed to discuss the actual tragedies that these kids were suffering. Oh, and we might have mentioned a time or two that this movie was completely ridiculous to show in an Art class with no warning or debriefing on what we should focus on and take from the film...
Now that it has been a few weeks, I find it kind of silly--But it was also an important part of my summer so I figured I should blog about it.
The term ended with some fabulous (and by that I mean, horrendous) puppet shows, with puppets we created. Have I mentioned I'm not creative?
Meet Tamara (her twin Tia, not pictured)
Please don't have nightmares!
Social, Historical, & Ethical Perspectives
There's nothing too profound to say about the rest of this class. I enjoyed the discussions in this class, and the amount of small group work. My literature group read a book about Dewey and applying his theories in classrooms today, it was quite interesting and I think there are some things I'd like to do in my future classroom with his hopes and dreams for schools in mind :) My professor for this class was great. I loved how personable she was, her passion for teaching future teachers was so prevalent. She over-planned each day to the point where our syllabus was entirely incorrect. It was refreshing, however, to watch her model the trait of modifying her lesson plans to fit into our 2.5 hour classes. She also modified homework, which was heavenly. This was a great class, and I know we will all be better teachers having looked at these different perspectives of teachers, students, and teaching in general.
Child Development
This has been my favorite class out of all eight summer classes. It was one of my harder classes, workload wise, but I loved going to this class. It's possible that I loved this class so much because of the teacher. Nancy Nagel. What an amazing women. I have to admit, when I first met her--in the Halls of Roger Hall before the program began, I was a bit intimidated. Not to mention, getting her long emails of readings and assignments to be completed before the program even began! I kept thinking, I'm in for a rude awakening! Oh, how wrong I was! Nancy is the sweetest teacher, and if anything her passion for teaching future teachers surpasses anyone I've met so far. With only a few classes left, Nancy explained that she was retiring and our last class would be the last class she would ever teach. Everyone was so sad to think that we only had a few more days with her, when we expected to see her around all year. The last few classes were a bit emotional for her (which of course made us all emotional), but I'm so thankful I had the opportunity to have her as a professor and get to know her as a friend.
This is on the last day! Not the entire class, but a good number!
Remember how I said I wasn't creative? This is what I came up with for my final project in Child Development. It is supposed to represent where I was before the program begin, where I am now and where I hope to be in the future. Well, this is as good as it gets--and it probably took me WAY longer than you can imagine.
