act like an artist
Photos by Billy
On the first day of fall, I remind my third grade art students of our vision of the year:
Act like an Artist, I say, Be More Creative.
By doing the things that artists do…imagining, inventing, dreaming, managing your own project, you can develop your most creative self.
Then we start a project to explore the design principle of ‘Unity’ — how do artists piece things together visually? we ask.
At the end of three sessions working, these same students amaze me with their excited observations about each others work lain out on the gray Berber carpet:
I love the way, a mousy girl says, Sam S. connected the lines and colors and his drawing. The way he added so much detail. It looks really smart to me, she says.
On my way home I think of our school, an award winning school, and our mandate to push children towards excellence, but only in the directions that can be measured by SOL testing.
I wonder what space will be left for moments like this.
What do you most remember from grade school? What did you learn that served you in your adult life?
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Filed under writing | Comment (0)so long, farewell
Photo by Billy…Check out his gorgeous new blog!
Two weeks now I’ve been dropping a doe-eyed William off at Montessori school.
Mama, he says today. No William go to school.
Don’t worry baby, I say. While I’m away, the teachers will take good care of you.
Mamma, William says (he is in the backseat, I am unfastening his seat-belt) I want you to take good care of me…
He shuffles across the lot, eyes watery. Early fall leaves crunch under his footfalls.
At the bench I stoop down beside him.
I want to tell him, it’s not forever.
But isn’t it, this constant coming and going:
To school?
To work?
I love you so much, I say to William.
I kiss the shallow slope of his nose. He is crying in earnest now, his lunchbox dangling from his hand. The assistant teacher shoos me away, grabs his other hand to walk him back to his room.
I am teary eyed too, behind the steering wheel.
I set off to work, the car-seat empty in the rearview mirror.
Who have you had to leave behind?
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Filed under family matters, motherhood, photographs | Comments (7)summer sun & firecrackers
William plays drums with his dear old dad in a acoustic session with Straight Punch to the Crotch at the Cville
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Filed under family matters, video | Comment (0)obama party
My parents had community members and neighbors over for Barrack Obama’s DNC speech on August 28, 2008, Photo by Papa Johnson
William will be in good hands, politically-speaking, if Grandma and Papa Johnson have anything to do with it; them with their progressive Obama party a few weeks back for his DNC convention speech. That was before high-cheeked boned, gun-totting Palin, before William started Montessori school…
I think of our last presidential election: my hope, our disappointment, and in the last four years our nation tumbling into greater corruption and mismanagement. Things fall apart, I guess.
There is more than a glimmer of hope on the horizon with Barrack Obama. It makes me smile that this so-called superficial candidate, this biracial boy the color of my own, is in fact extremely moderate, painstakingly thoughtful, clever, and principled . In contrast, once moderate McCain has been pushed farther and farther right in an attempt to shore up that evangelical base. In the end, you have to dance with them who brung you.
The real question is this: Who will we, as Americans, bring to the office of president this year? I’m hoping my old essay might inspire me to do my part.
I am here because I heard him on the radio: this man, this pundit, this apologist– and his slickness sounded like the result of the most brutal polishing.
I tried to pick through what he was saying; I am open to consider policy, opinion, any interpretation laid out in earnest; I believe there is wisdom in diverse points of view, but when I hear that something is good, I then must ask “for whom?” and “ to what end?”
I am here because he would make a mockery of my questioning, call my consideration of his ideas proof of my deficiency, mince me into fodder for his lackeys.
I am here because he is multiplying. He reminds me those weeds in my garden. Not the spring ephemerals that thread themselves through everything and are easily pulled from path crevices. But the hardy, perennials weeds with deep tap roots and saccharine berries that are persistence especially in drought. So that he thinks I hate him because he is successful, but really I fear them because they threaten to choke out everything else.
To read this in its entirety at Salomemagazine.com, check here , or read a printer friendly version here.
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Filed under photographs, the world we live in | Comment (0)hotel window
Photo by Billy
Billy has a new blog. It’s nice. Check it out here
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Filed under photographs, writing | Comment (0)back to school
summertime fun is over but not forgotten; William acts the fool in the ‘middle’ pool
video by Billy
My first week back at school and the kids are are all like, “Hey, Ms. J, do I have art today?” They sit criss-crossed applesauce in a circle and I say, Boys and girls, as your art teacher, I have a vision for you.
Act like Artists, I tell a group of kinders, Be More Creative!!!
What’s important, I say, is what the process of making the art does inside of you, to you. (I figure even six year olds need a reason, beyond SOLs, to push forward a bit.) Picasso’s Blue period, I say. Make a small collage showing me what blue means to you?” In response, Joey F. cuts furiously with dull gray scissor, Alex S. puts a fleck of pencil shaving in Alex M.’s hair…
William started school too this week, the Montessori after all.
They have a tight focus, a small, tight room with ten parents squeezed in for the first week’s transition. We watch obediently from our chairs, wincing as William pinches a small knock-kneed girl with first day ribbons in her hair.
We leave wondering what his Montessori classroom, the experience of being there, will do in him.
Are you going back to school? Where? For what? How is it for you?
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