I am still at my desk today, this last 'teacher' workday, enjoying organizing my room and supplies before the summer begins. I felt like taking a break from that task to write some thoughts about my 5th year of teaching.
Teaching art in a high school has been my dream job since I was 18 years old. When I entered the profession (rather later in life) I have to admit I had a few niggling doubts as to whether it was still my passion after many years. I'm happy to say that it IS! I thank God, the Creator of the Universe, everyday for allowing me to realize this dream. I have the best career in the world. My commute is a lovely 9 mile drive along the Willamette River, and only 3-4 stoplights to deal with.
I have a classroom with storage rooms that can hide all the supplies we use (although the classroom gets fairly cluttered on a regular basis)and I am free to make it home. I am teaching a Fiber Arts class that I designed (and kids are still signing up in droves for) as well as classes in clay and fundamental art skills.
I always love having a foreign exchange student in my class and this year I got Sophie, from France, during the second semester. She told me yesterday that this was her favorite class, which of course, made my day. What is remarkable about her is that she survived a horrific shooting event in downtown Portland this winter in which two girls were killed. Sophie took a bullet to her leg (it went in one side of her thigh and out the other I believe) and on the warm days I would see the purplish grape sized mark on the back of her leg and think how grateful I am that she is still here. She never spoke of the incident, and always came to class ready to work in a thoughtful and creative manner. She made a clock with a human face and hands that burst through the center and told me it represented the idea 'do we control time or does time control us?'.
I had another student from Iran (but not an exchange student) who taught me a few Farsi words and phrases. She was quite shy about speaking English but communicated very well nonetheless. Having been the 'second language learner' when I lived in Germany during my 9th and 10th grade years I know what it is like to try to communicate in a new language at school.
Ok, time to go back to organizing!
2 comments:
I don't know why my blog tells me your last update was 4 months ago. I am finally catching up. What neat stories. How about the French girl's parents, they didn't whisk her back home after that incident? Amazing. I am realizing that perhaps people think I don't want to talk about my lung story when in fact I just want to avoid a long explanation and taking the center of attention. Yes you do have an amazing job and commute! :)
They did come visit her (immediately) and took her home for a month, then she came back to classes till the end of the year. Her parents were very courageous and philosophical about the incident.
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