Posts tagged ‘teaching’
Just a little montage of the goings on in Lauren Alexander Land:
Sorry other art teachers, I am in fact the best art teacher “ether”.
It’s absolutely the most beautiful time of the year and I am trying to get out and walk around and enjoy it as much as possible.
My little cousin Daphne was born and she’s super sweet and schnugglie.
The vile greedy rotten squirrels devoured my patch-perfect pumpkins.
My daughter bopping along in the park after dinner singing “It’s a jolly holiday with Mary” is pretty much the most wonderful thing I can think of.
What is making your heart light in an otherwise heavy world?
And by underworld I mean education.
When my public school teaching gig is out for the summer I spend some weeks teaching art at a local museum. You might wonder why I would choose to spend my paid summer vacation working. Just look at my bank account. Also, when they ask you to sign up for classes it is still the school year and the idea of taking on extra work does not phase you. Then summer hits – you have a couple weeks off and spend time painting, walking, cooking, catching up on sleep…enjoying the world…. then boom – back to a classroom full of kids wondering when their next snack is going to be and asking the dreaded….what time is this over? (over and over and over….) And I wonder to myself what ever was I thinking signing up to work on my “vacation.”
It’s hard work this teaching thing. Especially if you are any good at it. There’s project planning, there’s practice, there’s material experimentation, and then there’s the kids! They are so unpredictable. Happy, sad, up, down, bathroom break, yelling, laughing, crying…. blah, blah, – bleh. Some moments I find myself looking at the clock every 8 seconds curious how long till quittin’ time and the parents retrieve their young.
Of course the flip side to this coin is that teaching can be so rewarding and fulfilling because you get to be around people who are curious and interested in what you have to say – which is more than I can say about the people in my house (just kidding family – I love you dearly). Just don’t get me wrong – I love my job very much and it helps me learn about all kinds of things including how to work with a variety of people.
So what’s with the Egypt pictures? This week I am teaching a class based on Egyptian artworks found in our museum collection. Perfect to peak kids’ interest; monsters, princesses, animals, architecture, the magical mystical afterlife…. Luckily last week I toured the Met in NYC and noticed they have endless galleries of Egyptian art. Wow. To be a teacher there would be impossibly fantastic.
Until I paint again – I will be immersed in the underworld. That place of unglamorous glory also known as the classroom.
Reading, writing, and god-forbid teaching poetry scares the be-jeezus out of me. Thankfully, I have found a book that is helping me not feel like such a moron. It’s called Pictures and Poetry by Janis Bunchman and Stephanie Bissel Briggs. It pairs artists with poets and provides little lesson ideas for children. It’s perfect for poem-illiterate me. This poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar immediately jumped out; it is paired with Faith Ringgold and her beautiful work. Making masks has always been a favorite project of mine because I like to talk to kids about wearing an emotional mask and how to illustrate that. The poem would be an interesting classroom conversation.
We Wear the Mask
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, -
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be otherwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
Felt Wasp Badge by LittleThee on Etsy
It was just after lunch and as I entered my steaming hot classroom (the A/C is on the fritz) I thought I saw something fly in the doorway. I ignored what I thought it might be because I had 20 kids coming who would be sweaty and excited to make some art.
Ooops. About 15 minutes into what was already a daunting project (weaving with 8 year olds? Argh!) one of my sweetest little quiet kids came up to me crying and red -”There’s a wasp in here! I’ve been stung!” Read more
Kansas City Art Teacher Exhibits Student Work at Nationally Acclaimed Gallery
April 3, 2011
Lauren Ingraham Alexander
The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MO
It’s always fun to walk into a big fancy museum and see your name on an official display card. Especially when you forgot that something you had a hand in creating is on display. Back in fall I taught a class called Explore Fundamentals with five and six year old students. One group of paintings we did was selected for display in the student gallery at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. Read more
