First week of internship/ alternative practicum/ alt prac/ Harbourfront centre crash course

This week has been extremely exciting. My week in a nutshell:

Monday = meeting so many new people, first exposure to the outdoor education program including a walk (in the rain) a boat trip and the making of a wind sock. hours- 8:30am - 4:00pm

Tuesday = more outdoor ed training including a mapping activity, and a little bit of P.D. on dealing with situations that may arise in an alternative education centre as well as in an outdoor ed setting. hours - 8:30am - 3:30pm

Wednesday = first exposure to students through the painted creatures program with Kasha. First experience seeing Tim deliver a lesson with students, the program was story telling in Miss Lou’s room. As well as exposure to a department meeting (with carrot cake!) hours - 8:30am - 3:30pm

Thursday = Was a full day of clay!!! The morning was spent helping in the clay mask program with Lilianna. And then the outdoor ed program clay fish program delivered by Tim. hours - 8:30am - 3:30pm

Friday = Was a full day of the Rod Puppets program delivered by Cara! i also got to see the full version and the condensed version hahaha. hours - 8:30am - 3:30pm

I’m really excited to be a part of the Harbourfront Community of educators and have been fortunate enough to learn so much in my first week. It’s really interesting to see how an education program is run in a setting such as a not for profit art centre. It’s cool to see how many different roles an educator can fill outside of the strictly teacher role. From scheduling to marketing it seems that there is a little something for everyone in an alternative education setting.

It is also a huge bonus being surrounded by such great art work. All of the artists being showcased this month are incredible and it brings a smile to my face knowing that there are places like the Harbourfront Centre that support artists early in their careers as well as artists out side the typical “high art” realm.  

*photo's to come* 

responses

Patrick, vivian, steven, and simon

week 4

Well my last week was an interesting one... on Wednesday I finished the day feeling a little bit dizzy. Nothing too terrible but not 100%. I layer low at home and figures it had to do with me not drinking or eating enough or something along those lines... so I stuffed my face and drank a ton of water. Thursday was much the same slightly worse but not terrible.

By Friday I was in rough shape. The morning went by without too much trouble but by the afternoon. I was so dizzy that I was sick. I had to leave a period early and go home to my couch. I spent the rest of the weekend feeling like I was in a constantly spinning room. I obviously knew that something was seriously wrong and went to the doctor.

The doctor told me that there was nothing really wrong with me, but that she would run some blood tests to see if that would turn up an answer. I had to wait till Tuesday for it. And after spending Monday being extremely sick after leaving school early I decided an answer was needed. I went to the doctor for the test results and much like my first visit... nothing. That was it to the hospital for me! After a nice day in the emergency room and after several nurse/doctor interactions and completing what I would describe as drunk tests, the radiologist approved a CAT scan. Thankfully the CAT scan turned up nothing... no brain tumors and no vascular issues.

The best way to describe my condition was dizzy-man syndrome and I just had to wait for it to pass.

I’m not sure if this is of any interest to anyone but I thought I would share.

week 3

I guess now’s as good a time as any to talk about the learning wall! I’m curious as to how everyone’s finding the learning wall? <---easy response question;) (your welcome) I’m finding it to be a very effective tool for my grade 7 unit. The unit we are working on is an exploration of the watercolour medium. It is a fairly traditional art unit in terms of skill development and image making, however the students seem to really be enjoying it. Of course there are the select few that could care less about art; with that being said, the majority of the students seem to be pretty excited about it 

second week

Well it looks like I’ll be here longer than just the practicum dates! I have committed to helping organize the King Edward student art show and fundraiser. Apparently this event raises a fair amount of money for the school. Not only is the event a showcase of student work, but there is also a live auction! One of the main contributions I’ll be making is organizing and running a student painting club to produce work for the auction.

... on a completely different note. Over the past two weeks I felt pretty good, and felt like the students were enjoying my classes. So much so that more and more students started coming up to me and showing me drawings they had made in their spare time, and photos of cool things that they’ve seen around the city. I thought that the students were just really into art and wanted me to partake in their excitement. Eventually I said something to my AT about this; “the students are really into art at this school. I really like it!” I told her.

                “yea? I guess so... why do you say that?” she asked me with a questioning smile.

“Well a bunch of students have been coming up to me and showing me drawings and pictures and stuff. It’s pretty cool.”

She laughed and then explained to me that she gives out extra credit to students if they do any type of artistic work outside of class, and that they just show her whenever she sees them in the hall... I guess that makes more sense than my awesome teaching hahaha.

first week

The first week of practicum was an interesting one for me. My last placement was in a grade 6 core class, however; this practicum is in a grade 7/8 art rotary classroom. That means I have gone from a placement planning 4 lessons a night to planning 2 lessons a week! It makes such a difference in terms of developing lessons, and working on my delivery. I really enjoy being able to play around with the delivery of lessons and trying out some of the things we learned in class.

I also really enjoy the school I have been placed at. I am currently at king Edward public school, with fellow oise’ers Diava and Maryem. There are also 4 other student teachers here from Queens. Its nice to be able to talk to people from other programs sometimes. (I’ve been lucky in that my sister is currently in the BED program at u Ottawa) it’s nice to know that we’re getting good training! Hahaha

Anyways I’m really looking forward to this practicum and am excited to see what these students will create over the next couple of weeks.