The deadline for joining the class action suit of ATRs against the DOE has been extended to Friday, Feburary 9, 2018.
See the post from last week for details on the excessed teachers' lawsuit.
Showing posts with label DOE rejecting stellar teacher talent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DOE rejecting stellar teacher talent. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Star art teacher Part II: filling in after a safety-violating AP to be
In our last installment we read of how a Max Beckmann Fellowship awardee's wisdom and experience was snubbed. In this second report by the star ATR art teacher, we read of his experiences filling in an AP-to be leaves behind a room filled with safety violations. And is the new DOE resisting putting ATRs back into the classroom?
When I reported to one secondary school, the secretary asked if I were the art teacher they were told would be coming to the school. I replied I was and she said she had a program for me to assume. The staff and students of the school had just returned to the campus after being displaced by Hurricane Sandy, but without the art teacher who got a position as an AP with another school in the same building. I saw this as an opportunity to help students in a meaningful way.
My initial enthusiasm was dampened by the very first class, a group of 7th graders. One student went right to a jar of paint and threw it on the floor. It was acrylic paint which is hard to remove especially from clothes if left to dry. That day, I set about securing materials. I found unlocked in that art room easily available to the students: serrated blade knives (steak knives, I believe), permanent markers, acrylic paint, x-acto blades, electric jigsaws, cans of mosaic tiles, and other materials that normally would be locked up.
It took nearly a week to get keys to the cabinets so that I could make sure these and other items were safely out of reach and I could only do that by appealing to the custodians. That week I was stopped by security because they detected metal implements in my bag. Yes, I had to go through scanning. I had brought in a screwdriver and pair of pliers to remove a coathook sticking out from a cabinet by the door. It was mounted at eye-level for a young person. Security allowed those tools when I explained what I needed them for.
As troubling as the unsafe condition of the room was the program itself. There were double period enrichment classes for 6th-graders, but the Juniors met only once a week. Altogether, the program necessitated nine different curricula. It took over a week to get rosters for the enrichment classes and I was only able to get a printout of where all students had to go for the enrichment classes and sort out which were mine, but when I did I found that there were over forty students enrolled in one of the classes. I contacted the person serving as guidance counselor about this irregularity and she explained that she thought art was a specialty subject like gym and could have up to fifty students. Now the students could also change which enrichment class they were to attend the very day they were to go to a class by informing "guidance" they wished to switch.
I had support from the Dean and an AP and was able to get students' phone numbers. Unfortunately, due to Sandy, the phones didn't work properly. Staff contacted administrators on their cell phones and I was only able to use school phones for parental contacts the last few days I was there. The behavior of all classes from the sixth-graders to the Juniors was horrible with countless instances of purposeful destruction and lying. Students constantly reminded me that I was only a substitute, not a real teacher and that they would fix it so I would lose my job. After all, this was an "A" school.
During that time, I produced lessons and had projects I thought appropriate. Students were guided by rubrics in the expectations of those projects. I left behind the work the students accomplished graded during the three weeks graded according to the rubric and a record of each student's daily participation during the time I conducted classes there as well as a recommended grade for each student. Whoever would assume responsibility for the program had my grade book. But I think what was most emblematic of my time there is the memory of a sixth-grader who kept throwing paper at a girl's face. I tried to talk to him in the hall. When that didn't have the desired effect, I called in the dean. As well a parent coordinator was present as this sixth grade boy said he wasn't going to stop doing whatever he wanted because he just didn't give a f*ck.
This school did receive a grade of "A" from the DOE.
When I reported to one secondary school, the secretary asked if I were the art teacher they were told would be coming to the school. I replied I was and she said she had a program for me to assume. The staff and students of the school had just returned to the campus after being displaced by Hurricane Sandy, but without the art teacher who got a position as an AP with another school in the same building. I saw this as an opportunity to help students in a meaningful way.
My initial enthusiasm was dampened by the very first class, a group of 7th graders. One student went right to a jar of paint and threw it on the floor. It was acrylic paint which is hard to remove especially from clothes if left to dry. That day, I set about securing materials. I found unlocked in that art room easily available to the students: serrated blade knives (steak knives, I believe), permanent markers, acrylic paint, x-acto blades, electric jigsaws, cans of mosaic tiles, and other materials that normally would be locked up.
It took nearly a week to get keys to the cabinets so that I could make sure these and other items were safely out of reach and I could only do that by appealing to the custodians. That week I was stopped by security because they detected metal implements in my bag. Yes, I had to go through scanning. I had brought in a screwdriver and pair of pliers to remove a coathook sticking out from a cabinet by the door. It was mounted at eye-level for a young person. Security allowed those tools when I explained what I needed them for.
As troubling as the unsafe condition of the room was the program itself. There were double period enrichment classes for 6th-graders, but the Juniors met only once a week. Altogether, the program necessitated nine different curricula. It took over a week to get rosters for the enrichment classes and I was only able to get a printout of where all students had to go for the enrichment classes and sort out which were mine, but when I did I found that there were over forty students enrolled in one of the classes. I contacted the person serving as guidance counselor about this irregularity and she explained that she thought art was a specialty subject like gym and could have up to fifty students. Now the students could also change which enrichment class they were to attend the very day they were to go to a class by informing "guidance" they wished to switch.
I had support from the Dean and an AP and was able to get students' phone numbers. Unfortunately, due to Sandy, the phones didn't work properly. Staff contacted administrators on their cell phones and I was only able to use school phones for parental contacts the last few days I was there. The behavior of all classes from the sixth-graders to the Juniors was horrible with countless instances of purposeful destruction and lying. Students constantly reminded me that I was only a substitute, not a real teacher and that they would fix it so I would lose my job. After all, this was an "A" school.
During that time, I produced lessons and had projects I thought appropriate. Students were guided by rubrics in the expectations of those projects. I left behind the work the students accomplished graded during the three weeks graded according to the rubric and a record of each student's daily participation during the time I conducted classes there as well as a recommended grade for each student. Whoever would assume responsibility for the program had my grade book. But I think what was most emblematic of my time there is the memory of a sixth-grader who kept throwing paper at a girl's face. I tried to talk to him in the hall. When that didn't have the desired effect, I called in the dean. As well a parent coordinator was present as this sixth grade boy said he wasn't going to stop doing whatever he wanted because he just didn't give a f*ck.
This school did receive a grade of "A" from the DOE.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Star art teacher, Beckmann Fellow, now ATR, his expertise snubbed
Star art teacher and Max Beckmann Fellowship awardee, now ATR, his expertise snubbed. In New York City, America's Art Capital, the city DOE says it wants the best and brightest. As the Chaz blogger noted, in truth, things look otherwise.
I remember covering an art teacher at one school. The school's other art teacher was puttering around in the shared art room as art teachers are wont to do. I was helping a girl with the proportions of the human face and told her that the eyes are situated as if they sat upon a line halfway between the top of the head and the tip of the chin. The art teacher nearly shouted, "No, they aren't; the eyes are dead center in the head" and produced a xerox from a how-to-draw book for young children instructing kids to put the eyes in the center. I didn't tell her that I've had a Master's degree in Art since 1977, I was a Max Beckmann Fellow at the Brooklyn Museum, and I showed at The Drawing Center in Soho. By the way, my drawings are of the human figure. I bit my tongue.
Another time, I was being interviewed to fill in for an art teacher on maternity leave. I had to wait in the art room a few minutes and looked at the perspective renderings on display. In spite of numerous and glaring errors, all the students received grades in the high 90's. When the head of the art department asked what I would do next for this group of students who were pursuing a special sequence meant to be a springboard into design, I told her that I would probably revisit linear perspective as the student examples showed even the best were clearly deficient in their understanding. I mentioned that I had a profound understanding of linear perspective and had found ways of explaining it to students that would enable better results to which the head of the department explained that these children were low performing students thus implying that they weren't capable of understanding linear perspective. I countered that I had met with success with the students at Franklin K. Lane High School, a school closed for poor performance. I wasn't picked to fill the vacancy.
Another time I was surprised to see my assignment for the upcoming week had been changed Friday evening. I went to the new assignment Monday morning and produced a copy of the email directing me there. The secretary found some irony in the fact that the administration had just retained a per-diem substitute to cover an art teacher vacancy that would possibly last the rest of the year. I was directed to be with and assist the substitute teacher who was to conduct a class on computer graphics. She started them by directing them to go to The Brooklyn Children's Museum website for the art activities that could be found there. The few days that I didn't have coverages and spent helping in the computer room convinced me that the teacher had only a shallow understanding of the Photoshop program she was "teaching". I did bring this to the attention of the UFT.
I was surprised at one school by an assignment labeled "Tutoring". It was my job to make sure that the students completed a three page packet called the Art Project. The task for one page was to fill in a Venn diagram outlining the similarities and differences between Manet and Monet. Another page had an article about Rodin and students were to complete questions showing that they understood what they had read. The last page held a simple crossword puzzle of art terms. I tried to stop students from simply copying other students' answers and urged them to at least read and decide from themselves, but the students countered that it didn't matter because nothing was ever corrected. After the once-a-week, end-of-the-day, 45-minute tutoring class was over, I brought the folder holding the packets into the main office to deposit it in a large cardboard carton labeled The Art Project along with the other dozens of folders of packets allowing the students to get art credit. This was business as usual for this school.
There have been many more such incidents sharing the common theme of serving students poorly. It is no surprise that the state audit of New York City schools found art education in America's art capital wanting.
I remember covering an art teacher at one school. The school's other art teacher was puttering around in the shared art room as art teachers are wont to do. I was helping a girl with the proportions of the human face and told her that the eyes are situated as if they sat upon a line halfway between the top of the head and the tip of the chin. The art teacher nearly shouted, "No, they aren't; the eyes are dead center in the head" and produced a xerox from a how-to-draw book for young children instructing kids to put the eyes in the center. I didn't tell her that I've had a Master's degree in Art since 1977, I was a Max Beckmann Fellow at the Brooklyn Museum, and I showed at The Drawing Center in Soho. By the way, my drawings are of the human figure. I bit my tongue.
Another time, I was being interviewed to fill in for an art teacher on maternity leave. I had to wait in the art room a few minutes and looked at the perspective renderings on display. In spite of numerous and glaring errors, all the students received grades in the high 90's. When the head of the art department asked what I would do next for this group of students who were pursuing a special sequence meant to be a springboard into design, I told her that I would probably revisit linear perspective as the student examples showed even the best were clearly deficient in their understanding. I mentioned that I had a profound understanding of linear perspective and had found ways of explaining it to students that would enable better results to which the head of the department explained that these children were low performing students thus implying that they weren't capable of understanding linear perspective. I countered that I had met with success with the students at Franklin K. Lane High School, a school closed for poor performance. I wasn't picked to fill the vacancy.
Another time I was surprised to see my assignment for the upcoming week had been changed Friday evening. I went to the new assignment Monday morning and produced a copy of the email directing me there. The secretary found some irony in the fact that the administration had just retained a per-diem substitute to cover an art teacher vacancy that would possibly last the rest of the year. I was directed to be with and assist the substitute teacher who was to conduct a class on computer graphics. She started them by directing them to go to The Brooklyn Children's Museum website for the art activities that could be found there. The few days that I didn't have coverages and spent helping in the computer room convinced me that the teacher had only a shallow understanding of the Photoshop program she was "teaching". I did bring this to the attention of the UFT.
I was surprised at one school by an assignment labeled "Tutoring". It was my job to make sure that the students completed a three page packet called the Art Project. The task for one page was to fill in a Venn diagram outlining the similarities and differences between Manet and Monet. Another page had an article about Rodin and students were to complete questions showing that they understood what they had read. The last page held a simple crossword puzzle of art terms. I tried to stop students from simply copying other students' answers and urged them to at least read and decide from themselves, but the students countered that it didn't matter because nothing was ever corrected. After the once-a-week, end-of-the-day, 45-minute tutoring class was over, I brought the folder holding the packets into the main office to deposit it in a large cardboard carton labeled The Art Project along with the other dozens of folders of packets allowing the students to get art credit. This was business as usual for this school.
There have been many more such incidents sharing the common theme of serving students poorly. It is no surprise that the state audit of New York City schools found art education in America's art capital wanting.
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