WEEK #2 (25-29 July 2016)

LÜCKHOFF

This week at Lückhoff was a bit stressful. At last I was meant to be with my Life Orientation teacher, but she was absent due to illness. When she returned to school I found out she only barely had LO classes, I was stressing because I needed to finish my lessons ASAP, since I do not have long before my due date and I needed to get all my lessons in before going on a kind of "maternity leave" two weeks before baby is due. She was kind enough to give me all the LO lessons and said we can have them all theory and she will just take the learners out more after I finished. Our mentor at the school also said that if one of my teacher's LO classes have Geography with her I can even give a lesson in her period so I can just finish in time. She (our mentor) I feel has really been my guardian angel at the school and is really looking out for my well being. I really appreciate it, as not a lot of people understand how difficult it is to do PGCE whilst actually pregnant. I also joke and say third trimester is THE BEST time for student visits (it really is not very much no). But the amount of support I am receiving from the our department at the University and from my mentor at the school and from the staff at the art centre as well, is helping me pull through. It is not the ideal student visit time but I am learning SO much SO fast. 

During this week I observed some of my LO teacher's technology classes. I noticed that some classes are better behaved than others, but there is a lot of disrespect and noise in each class. My teacher said that it is a problem Lückhoff has with its students. But I do notice that there isn't a lot of managing of it. The detention thing Lückhoff is trying doesn't even phase the learners. They also have no shame. I am sitting right there, a stranger to them but if it was me I would have tried to behave around a stranger/ adult/ teacher I did not know. But even staring at the learners that are being chaotic and being loud and disruptive, they will stare right back look away and keep going at it. It is very puzzling to me. The teacher also seems to ignore them for the most part, she just speaks a bit and writes on the board, and every now and then will mention detention and say things like how this class was always her favourite and now she doesn't know what happened to them. I don't think classroom management is at its best, but I don't know yet how I would exactly be successful in managing it any better. 

I observed another teacher's LO lesson this week, since I will be giving all my teacher's LO lessons I need to get my observations in elsewhere. I was so hopeful after that class, because the teacher really seemed to have a good thing going with the students. Sometimes learners talked but she managed to get them quiet, since she was leading a class discussion and couldn't hear when others were talking. She was adamant that everyone be quiet when someone is speaking. The learners also participated so well, it was inspiring. I thought to myself maybe it won't be that bad? ...

PJ OLIVIER  

This week at the art centre I realised something. They don't teach art there for the same reason that I want to teach art. Maybe they did at first, but through time it became more about marks and the centre's status? 

We had a GREAT BIG life lesson on the Friday since I was suppoused to give the Drawing class the first lesson and the other student teacher the second lesson. The previous day the headmaster was stuck in traffic on the way back from Cape Town and they asked me to just sit in and supervise his class till his return. As my luck would have it, even leaving early enough I myself was stuck in dreadful freak timing traffic on the Friday and my phone had been in my bag thrown in the back so I couldn't answer or let them know (other than the message I sent to the other student teacher when I was on my way). What ended up happening was that she gave her lesson first and I gave mine second. So it was a bit backwards since mine was meant to warm them up. I felt horrible for being late, but it was completely out of my hands. I feel we learn through these experiences how to adapt and that things don't always work out as planned. Our painting teacher there, my inspiration every day, told me "sometimes things are better backwards!". I still don't completely understand how it is better, but I love her outlook on everything, on life on art on painting. I feel a connection with her way of doing things and looking at things. It is definitely different than the rest of the centre. The headmaster had a panic about what happened, although he says he is flexible, he is very much a perfectionist and couldn't wrap his mind around dealing with the backwardness of the lessons. I also ended up giving my last 10 minute drawing to the other student so she could just finish up one of her points. I felt it as I owed her for stressing her out being late and having her unexpectedly having to give her lesson first. We are both still young new teachers, nervous about giving class and unexpected changed do throw us off balance sometimes. 

I got really frustrated when I said at least the kids did seem to enjoy the lesson and some of them even said so and I got told that yes that is nice but basically that is not what giving art is about. To me, it is the most vital thing in art lessons, in a school curriculum or outside of one. If the learners do not enjoy it you WILL lose them. Even if something is difficult, but they are enjoying the challenge, that is good. As soon as you say that having fun in art is not important, as soon as it is just about outcome and marks and status. You have lost the meaning of art. I feel, what I personally took from that lesson is even though it was a bit of a fragmented two lessons, backwards and stuck together oddly, there were important aspects that the learners could take home and when they start with their long figure drawing with the teacher then the pieces will fall into place and it will make sense to them. If not at first, in time. Two hours is not enough to teach learners what to remember and focus on and how to do figure drawings. It was an introduction, and they will have to learn with repetition and practice and revision of what we gave the and told them. 

The Tuesday we also gave a lesson that was the teacher's lesson but to the kids that were absent from the previous lesson. We gave it together, and it was immensely fun. It came so naturally, and it reaffirmed that painting was my passion and teaching it was the best thing ever. Especially since this lesson was about them experimenting and getting more comfortable with going loosening up, with regards to painting. My forte. We actually took a lot of photos of the outcome of the lesson. We keep forgetting to take photos for the evidence file of our portfolio, and I'm sad about that, it is just that you are so focused on the lesson and in a certain head space that you completely forget about asking the teacher or even you yourself afterwards taking photos, I will have to do something about that!