Joyce Lee on sun 15 mar 98
For Corrine and others who have indicated further interest: One
sure-fire method of improving your teaching and becoming the teacher
that you desire to be...if you have the stamina...is to videotape
yourself OFTEN for a period of some weeks or months. You will quickly
discover your faults; in fact, you'll probably "discover" some faults
that aren't faults at all. However, it will take a while to see what
you're doing right. Then, of course, your job is to build on those
strengths. For a trained teacher with some experience, this simple
method can be much more effective than a semester's followup class
wherein others critique you. The problem in the class setting is that
usually those students who are critiquing are too often concerned with
the way the instructor is perceiving them as they critique. Sounding
erudite can be more important in this environment than honesty. The
instructor, after all, is evaluating them as they evaluate you. Trust
yourself. Side benefits can be (were for me) that you discover more
about your students, too. For instance, the so-called behavior problem
might be having his buttons pushed by others. He may be trying to "be
good" much more often than you recognize. Or the back-of-the-room kid
may be receiving very little of your attention and be more than happy
not to receive it...but is she learning? My only foray into teaching
"art" (not) was a yearbook class which wasn't the real yearbook class,
the one that put together the book. Teachers will appreciate that we had
too many sign up for yearbook, so this dummy class was created. I was
new and too much of a dummy myself to recognize what a cheat was being
imposed on the students. Miss "Everything Is A Marvelous Challenge and
I Can Do Anything Because My Heart Is In The Right Place" here, bought
scrapbooks for 38 kids from her own pocket (no money available either,
naturally); we cut out pictures from magazines and created dummy
layouts. The only really great thing that happened through the video
process was my discovery of the quiet, extremely talented, subdued,
dyslexic, intelligent, hesitant young lady at the back of the room who
dreamed of being an artist. She was a senior in high school. Too late to
redirect her experience with public education. BUT, to make a very long
story shorter (and leaving out the dozens of others who eventually
offered her inspiration and help) at the age of 34, with two teenage
children who now themselves know it can be done, she graduated from a
most prestigious university with a major in art two years ago! Hooray
for our side! Teaching is tough at any level but few jobs have so many
intrinsic rewards when it's done well, or even awkwardly if "Your Heart
Is In The Right Place." (Some things don't change.)
Joyce
In the Mojave preparing to tackle largish bowls by reading her Clayart
"Bowl File."
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