The headache started in the morning when I arrived to set up for my first class.  Even though I knew that I needed plenty of time to set up and had arrived 40 minutes before class started, I still wasn’t finished setting up on time.  I had a student come in and help me with the chairs (luckily) but he would continue chatting with me.  This chatter, which I normally love, was in fact distracting.  I felt like my mind was in many places and I couldn’t focus the way that I needed to.  What I needed to do was to set up the individual stations and set up the glazes, bottles, and paints.  When the bell rang, I was mostly prepared but I still wanted to make things nicer.  For the most part, everything was in place and ready to go.  Mentally, I was still all over the place.  I had to gather my thoughts and focus on the task ahead- that is, presenting to this class and going over the notes I had prepared the night before.

I had to do a glazing demo which went well.  I think it did anyway.  I made sure to cover all the key aspecs about not getting glaze on the bottom or on the edges of the tiles.  In addition to that, I had to stress that the brushes be kept in their respective glaze jars so as to not mix them.  Doing the demo actually slowed my racing mind which was good.

When they were working, some of the kids work so fast while other work so slowly.  How do I find a balance between these two?  I am still working on this.  The kids who were “done” glazing were told by me to draw more designs for future tiles.  Because we had so many, I thought this was the most appropriate activity.

The class after was my ceramics class.  This class included the three most difficult students I had to deal with.  They were not cooperating and fooling around so my SA gave them detention.  After school, I came in to work with them and they worked very well.  The invididual working time was conducive to getting work done rather than sitting together and goofing off.  After that, I wanted to have a quick chat with them.  I was brutally honest and told them that their disruption gave me headaches.  I communicated that they worked very well on their own but that together, they lacked the discipline to complete any work.  They also distract each other from completing work.  I told them that what they were doing was disrespectful and that I want them to succeed.  The last half of my practicum teaching this class must end pleasantly.  This is their goal and they must cooperate.  First they will sit apart then if they’re good, they can sit together.  I felt good talking to them one on one.

The highlight of my day was working with the Challenge kids.  These kids are the ones who do enriched courses and today was a workshop day for them.  I signed up to teach them an art history workshop about Impressionism.  Unfortunatley, due to miscommunication, the workshop didn’t start until 20 minutes later when I finally found the students.  The students were more engaged than a regular class and one student was a whiz at art history.  I hope I inspired them to continue learning!