Outnumbered

Yesterday, Mrs. Powers had me make a powerpoint presentation that I would eventually show the 8th grade art classes. I am going to teach them 2 point perspective (a method of making 2D objects look 3D). I made it in such a way that the end result would be several 3-Dimensional buildings, so that the middle schoolers could be able to create their own fantasy cities or towns using the 2 point perspective method. After I finished, however, Mrs. Powers said that she thought it would be easier for the 8th graders to start off just writing their names using 2 point perspective. It made me realize that Mrs. Powers constantly has to modify certain activities she has planned in order to make it more simple and easier to execute for the lower grades. Mrs. Powers also had me research another print making technique that I knew nothing about. It must have taken me an hour to find a valid step-by-step process of making the prints online, and even after I found it and tried to execute it, I noticed that the directions weren’t entirely thorough and I had to figure out how to do some of the steps on my own. Again, I realized that there are many difficult setbacks that Mrs. Powers must encounter when she tries o find a new art project for her classes to do. Yesterday, Mrs. Powers also left me in charge while she worked on something in the teachers workroom. If I was left alone with people I knew, this would be no problem, but it was very uncomfortable being left alone with a bunch of kids who all knew each other and didn’t really know who I was. When they asked if they could go to the bathroom, I had a feeling that they were going to take advantage of the fact that I was out of my element and try to skip class while on their “bathroom break”. Luckily, the students came back from the bathroom after a couple minutes, and I was relieved I wouldn’t have to be the ‘bad guy’ and tell Mrs. Powers about how they misbehaved. This is yet another thing I noticed; Mrs. Powers has told me many times that she hates confronting students about their bad behavior, and yet she is forced to do it on a daily basis so that she can maintain order in her classrooms.