Week 3- Research Progress

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The projects are beginning to flow. The energy of the students is overwhelmingly positive. Most of the students come to their meetings ready to change the world. They come with ideas and enthusiasm, and where they emphasis of BIG used to be focused on entrepreneurship, the focus of the students seems to be shifting slightly toward service and social justice issues. This is wonderful for me, because my entrepreneurship skills are somewhat lacking.

 

In fact the reason why I couldn't manage to make a living out of being an artist was, surprise, I didn't know how or even necessarily want to sell my work. This is especially relevant since this week I hung my first art show since I graduated with my BFA in 2002. Jeez. 14 years. The process was intense, and I overcomplicated it all as usual, but ended up with 2 new pieces that I'm very very proud of. Meaningful personal pieces which I created with the knowledge that at the end I would put a price tag on it and be able to let it go. I hung the show on Thursday and a huge emotional weight was lifted immediately. I like the challenge and the deadline, but I think I'll wait until after grad school to sign up for my next art show.

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Another event that has happened over the last week is that my step son's mother died of a fast moving cancer last Friday. The service is today, hours away from now. It's been a strange and exhausting experience, feeling so much empathy for a very non-emotional teenager, listening to my husband's confusion and evaluate her place in his life. There have been long moments of pause, and duty. We've carved time out to be together and provide appropriate amounts of entertainment and distraction. It makes me think of all of the students I know with parents that have passed away and the variety of ways that they cope and express themselves. It reminds me of the ACE score, and how a parent death can become something that crushes a student's life, or becomes a reason to live more purposefully.

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During all of the drama of this week I'm enjoying school. I'm constantly busy. The communication between my co-teachers, my students and the community contacts is almost 24-7. Teenagers don't go to bed until very late. My schedule is very weird. I have a couple of blocks during the weeks when I'm not scheduled to see students at all. During that time I'm hooked to my computer, curating content on our online class platform and communicating with students virtually. I have a relatively light load of 8 projects, which will grow at some point, but which more or less is equal to 8 preps. My job is to help guide students toward meaningful outcomes, make meaningful connections, but not take over or really to tell students what they need to do, unless they need it. Teaching students to communicate professionally, to advocate for themselves, to do the work- even though there may or may be a follow up by me and there's no graded homework, all of these things are slowly being revealed as part of my teaching curriculum. I came home to my husband on Friday and reflected on what my emotional state was during the last 5 years on a Friday afternoon. At Metro I was often emotionally exhausted. The curricular demands were not too strenuous, but there was no emotional stability. The student body was constantly in flux, every class every day you had to start over, to invent on the spot what was going to happen. There was always the possibility for an emotional or actual emergency. I constantly had my radar on to detect trauma, looking for what students weren’t saying. I was always on alert and my guard was always up. Not that I didn’t love that job. I felt like I helped so many people, I learned a lot about myself and others, I understand the larger purpose of public education in a way that few people I know do.

At BIG, my interactions with students are so positive. They come with ideas, they want to change the world, they want to learn, they have initiative and often a larger purpose. It’s an incredible change. My co-workers tell me that they appreciate me, that I’m doing a good job. They individually check up on me and include me in their social lives. They’re intellectually stimulating and they are all incredibly inspiring in their own way. My world is expanding.