Clocks and Cacoons

Ship Chronometer

After reading this weeks chapters I better understood the role the curriculum cog plays in Tomlinson's clock analogy on page 10 and felt that I understood the importance of each cog.  I was reminded of the analogy again this week as I was watching "Pawn Stars" when a customer brought a Ship Chronometer in to sale.  Learning about this type of clock made her analogy much more powerful to me.  A Ship Chronometer or Sea Clock was used as a type of GPS system for sailors.  By setting the clock to Greenwich England mean time and comparing its time to that of sun position time and to a world time map they could do some equations to find their exact location.  But for it to work the Chronometer had to run perfectly.  On page 12 Tomlinson mentions that, "Understanding these elements can provide us with a compass for decision making as a teacher plans to adapt instruction to student needs."  When I first read her introduction to this analogy that phrase escaped me and what I gathered was that teaching had to run like clock work with each thing its place working precisely together.  That might be "good" teaching but it is not "Differentiated" teaching.  When we use these elements as best we can and have all three cogs; teacher, student, and curriculum running as they should,  we will be able to map a course for our selves and each student and then be able to monitor our progress with each part.  All parts are needed and if they are running precisely we will be able to get each student to their destination.

  The butterfly's cocoon has long been a powerful analogy for me and putting it as Tomlinson put it made perfect sense to me.  From page 17, " Important as self-esteem is, the developing person must move from its protective cocoon toward a sense of self-efficacy."  If a butterfly is aided in removing its own cocoon its wings will not have the gained strength from that experience and consequently be unable to fly.  Differentiating Teachers will not only allow students to contribute but they will find ways that will help the students grow on their own and be able to see that they themselves have strength to learn and grow.

What if the teacher looks past me rather than into me?

The subtitle to my blog is My attempt to fit in.  I have always felt a little outside the crowd and now I kind of try to remain so.  But when I was younger I wanted the teacher and everyone else to see me as a the rest of the kids, with just as much to offer.  I started kindergarten after my sixth birthday, entirely because of my height or lack there of.  So I was easy to overlook from the beginning. I worked hard and did pretty well until third grade.  At that time it felt like I became a fox who was hard to tame.  I felt no respect from my teacher and I think she was unsure of what to do with me.  So I was sent to resource with kids who had speech impediments and were on similar reading and math levels as I was.  I think my teacher was looking at me  but only saw the problems that had to be dealt with, rather than looking into me. I was a fox who looked like a hundred other foxes and she had no need for me.  I could be wrong and it could be that she did see me and thought that resource was the best solution. I do know that I don't want any student to be looked past, over, or taken for just another kid or fox.
My mom read through that first paragraph and reminisced on how shy/ quiet I was and can be.  I reread the chapters in Fulfilling the Promise with that in mind and a few things stood out to me.  After a Teacher invite the student to be a part of the class the student has to accept that invitation.  I don't know that I ever accepted that invitation.  In the beginning of chapter two it talks about this invitation and what the students go through in processing this invitation.  ("Come do what I ask you to do," says the teacher.   "I can't," says the student "at least not until you connect with me.  Oh, I'll go through the motions, of course.  But give myself to this adult thing called school?...")  I have gone through numerous things in my adult life that have showed me that I have been very scared of fully giving myself to anything I always reserve some aspect of myself for my own safety.  I can tell now that I did not feel safe enough to give myself to school. 
To resolve this for my students I will need to do as the book says and make sure that each student is contributing and more than, "each learner needs to come to see that he or she is a nonnegotiable part of a classroom system with interdependent parts."  I felt somewhat invisible as a child, the truth of the matter is that I did not make my self visible nor did I really try to make myself part of the class I always waited for them to bring me in.
Recognizing each student and getting them to feel like part of the class might be an impossible task as the book questioningly implies but as it also says we have to try and as Eseme Raji Codell says, " The goal is not necessarily to succeed but to keep trying, to be the kind of person who has ideas and sees them through."  I want to be that kind of teacher.

Lil' ol' me

1. TUESDAY, by David Wiesner.  Is a book I would love to use in my future classroom.  It is just pictures through out the story, and I would like to get kids reaction to it as just a picture book, and also as a framework for their own story that they would put to the pictures.
2. As of right now my three favorite TV shows are Heroes, American Chopper, and the Dog Whisperer.  These I watch at my mom's if I am there and have the remote in my power, or on My computer at home through Netflix.  We don't currently have a TV hooked up at my place so if I watch something it is something I choose to watch.
3. I collect musical instruments, and fun things to draw, as for instruments I have a tenor banjo, 3 guitars, an electric bass, a broken cavaquinho, harmonicas in the Keys of G, C, and D, an aluminum  djembae, shakers, boom sticks, whistles, and some other stuff.  I love music and love to learn new instruments and styles of music.  I feel like it gives me an intimate access to cultures that are shut off otherwise.  I am also helping my friend Paul Overson with his collection of big professional audio gear this also gives me an in to other musicians and cultures. My other collection consists of toys and light bulbs, bottles, all kinds of knik knaks....  Oh and I also have an international money collection it is still pretty small.
4. I keep an idea journal with drawings and writings of things I want to make or explore.
5. I would sponsor any art and or music appreciation club 1st I'd be all over that.  Then World Peace 2nd, and Ecology/ Tree hugging third ( I am a hippy at heart.)
6.  I have both taken and given art classes out side of school.  Some Sculpture and animation etc.
7.  I took piano lessons when i was 8 until 10 years old, I then pick up guitar and took lessons when I was 15 and 16.  I have had three different rock bands I have played with and two I recorded with.  The first Lyra's Landscape I wrote some of the songs for.  The second The Moon Boots I just played bass for.  I have also played off and on with some folky singer song writers, with hose I have played banjo and slide guitar, and some back up vocals.  I have had song writers block for a while I also call it no time to spare.
8. NO and NOOOO, I can't get past my self criticism long enough to make my two left feet do anything.  But I have done a little Capoeira the brazilian dance fighting.
9. No, I have done sound for some plays and my wife loves doing musicals. She is now a drama specialist at Saratoga Shores Elementary.
10. I have a bachelor's degree in Fine Art Illustration and have done a few small illustration projects here and there.  I am an art teacher going through the back door or maybe it's the front door but I am putting on a Core Teacher Disguise.  I want to become the best integrated arts teacher ever, and then teach others how to do it even better.

Civil Rights Digital Story

This is a digital story I did for school. I kinda like it.

Graduate School?

This is the logo for Grad Portfolio Days http://www.gradportfolioday.org/ something I hope to attend. I am trying to decide if going to grad school is just a vain ambition of mine that will get me just another degree and no career. While I know it has been recommended by many even my religious leader. I am still unsure of the future it will bring. I can't help but think of the money involved. To really make a graduate Art degree worth it I have heard the schools outside of Utah are the best primarily because of the countless connections you can make. But BYU is sooooo inexpensive and what I want to end up doing is teaching art and they can offer that to me. I wouldn't mind staying in Utah I love being around family but I hate being trapped here.

Dirty Dogs and Red Linging

Dirty Dogs, Frost bite and Lula were dirty from a hike we had taken them on and I also had problems keeping the plate clean that I was printing this from.



"Red Lining" hot air balloons first came into mass production major usage in wars and knowing this fact I wanted to exploit that many wonderful things we enjoy have a dark past in which they were first developed . So in other words Good can come from Bad.

Old and New

The first is a four color wood cut of a Militiaman from the Revolutionary war. This print and the mono type of Steven were both in the Utah County Spring art show.






The second shown here is my first Lithograph done with litho crayons and pencils on an aluminum plate. I am currently taking a Fundamentals of lithography class at BYU from the great Wayne Kimball who will soon be retiring.

This is a Mono type Print of Steven who plays cello for my friend Colby Stead. A mono type is a complex way of painting on paper. Using thin layers of ink on a sheet of plexiglass you add layer after layer and you can put solvents in the ink or use templates to give effects like I did in the back ground.
With this piece I was trying to show Stevens inhibition to be in the spot light. He is a great musician but would rather be heard and not seen.

showing

some more wood cuts, i also have my BFA show on display at the campus canvas or the art wall across from the book store at UVSC. For my BFA I did some illustrations of a friends book called Darcy and Glass it will be on display until May.

The second work i have posted is called Gabe reclined it is on display at the Woodbury Museum with the spring student show until april 27th.

some woodcuts i did a while back but never posted the one with the bees is also a tunnel book.

I got a puzzle for christmas and put it together the week of new years.  I was pleasantly surprised at how much I was able to learn about color harmony and the principles of unity and variety.  It was a puzzle of James Christensen's Parables painting he may not be a true master but seems to know what is doing with the art business.  As far as the color harmony and unity/variety goes between the 1500 pieces there was a lot of color harmony and the only way to tell the difference in the pieces was the slight variety in texture.  Puzzles are cooler than I remember.

cmyk is different the rgb and these colors proove it, holly cow!

But yet again I like it.

If the Angry man of Jazz were alive today I think he'd use a poster like this.

So there is a lot of stuff in here that is copyrighted so know that is and was for educational purposes only. But I did like how it turned out I made my dad really small so he would fit in ok and look lie he was really there.

my costello

wow, this came out different when I printed it but this post is completely different. But I like it kinda crazy.

Harmonious

A new semester a new digital class hopefully this means more posts. This was for my digital imaging class. It is suposed to be an emotion, but I went for the feeling of Harmonious.... well at least I am learning how to use photoshop.

Pioneer Cut Out

Our Pioneer Day contribution, I made this for the ward party and let people take polaroid pictures. I threw it together in two days after planning it for 6 months.

the clumbsy unicorn

some times are harder than others

A Few Heads

These are all from this last semester but I had them in a digital format so might as well post them I could go a lot tighter with most of them but the blue one is hopeless the subject is just too ugly. That guy needs to cheer up.

Get in line

So I really like conceptual illustration trying to illustrate an idea with an image. For these two a line of people helped me illustrate the idea not necessarily the story. The first is Robert Johnson at the Crossroads the second is an article about Employers compensating employees for travel/gas spent getting to work.

A Cricket in Times Square

This is a multi color reductive wood cut it is backwards of how times square is actually set up but I got the results of an overwhleming big city with its bright lights and constant commotion. the Cricket is almost getting stepped on to add to his anxiety.