Art Teaching Experience

On Friday, I had my first run at teaching art at the elementary school.  I was at the school from 8:30 am until 1:25 pm, the full school day (Fridays are early-release days here).  I taught each grade level a presentation about the artist Henri Matisse, complete with pictures on a screen using a "dot-cam" (not sure what that is short for and we didn't have those when I was teaching nine years ago).  I gave an overview of the artist's life, the art period he was from, and a new vocabulary term.  We also discussed some elements of the artwork the students were going to recreate.  Then the classes separated and teacher's aides taught the actual drawing portion in the individual classrooms while I waited on the next grade level of students.

One thing I gleaned from this was that I really do enjoy teaching.  I  have enjoyed teaching my own kids preschool.  I have enjoyed doing summer learning with them each summer, including art and music and culture.  I even enjoy tutoring them in their homework.  But I also learned that I am very glad that right now I'm doing what I do.  I stay home with my kids and it's the right place for me to be right now.  Maybe some day, when my kids are grown, I will return to teaching.  I will enjoy this year's opportunity of teaching art, but I'm glad it's only once a month and only for six months of the school year.

I'm glad I have the skill set I have for teaching school so that I can use it if I need to, but I'm glad that right now, I get to stay home and focus on being a mother to my children.

*Goldfish by Henri Matisse, 1911.

My PTA Participation

PTA.  If you're the mom of a school-age child who attends public school, you know about PTA (or PTO).  Because I used to be a teacher, I always felt that I needed to contribute to the school.  I should volunteer.  I should join PTA.  I should be at the school helping out as much as possible.

The reality is for me that I don't really like to do it.  When the teachers find out I used to teach school, they always want to put me with a small group of struggling readers and have me do a reading group.  Or help a student who needs help with math one-on-one.  But it's very uncomfortable for me.  Often they do it with no guidance, so I'm not sure what it is they really want me to do.  It's one thing to be in charge of your own class, have a curriculum that you use and are familiar with and do what you want with it.  But when you are helping out a teacher, you aren't the one in charge.  They are.  I once had a kindergarten teacher hand me a packet of letter activities and a list of students' names and thanked me for helping.  I had no idea what I was supposed to do.  Therefore, I have sort of avoided helping out in the schools.  I sign up for the teachers to send work home for me to do, like cutting things out or sorting through papers, even grading.  But I try to stay away from being in the actual classroom.

At the end of last year when PTA papers went out, I decided that it was time I did my fair share.  After all, I will have three kids at the school and I have experience teaching school.  So I decided instead of just paying PTA dues and doing work for the teachers at home, I would try to do something more.  I looked at the choices of what committees to sign up for and picked a few that seemed interesting to me, thinking I could help on at least one committee.  The things was, there was just a list of committees, no explanations attached as to what you actually did on that committee.

About a week later, I got an email from the PTA president asking me if I would be the Art Commissioner.  No explanation as to what it was, no information about the art program.  I was promised I would get more information in a couple of weeks and told that I would be helping with the school's art program.  I thought I have experience with art and know a little about it, this could be interesting, so I accepted.

I finally found out a few weeks ago what would be expected of me.

I get to teach art to the school.  Once a month, the second Friday of the month, I get to go to the school and teach an art lesson on a famous artist to each grade level.  It will be all day, from 8:30 am to 1:20 pm (Fridays are short days here) and I will see each grade level come through.  I'll give them a fifteen minute lesson as a grade and then they'll separate back into their classrooms to do the artwork and I'll walk around checking to see what help is needed.

I am very excited about this.  I do have a little bit of an art background--I studied art in high school and took some art classes in college.  Art was a favorite subject of mine to teach too, when I got the chance, which was rare, based on the 100% focus on reading and math these days.  I have been pondering the idea of teaching again when my kids are all in school, missing teaching.  But I don't miss dealing with the district and the parents and the contract, etc.  This will fill  my desire to be teaching again without all the hang-ups.  Plus, the curriculum is all made, all I have to do is follow the lesson outline and teach it.  Once a month.  It's just the perfect thing.

The best part is, they had no idea I had teaching experience and was knowledgeable about art when they handed me this assignment.  I'm so excited about this!

Book Review: These Is My Words

These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book is currently my favorite book. I really felt like I could relate to the main character on many levels. I loved reading about life in the Arizona Territory as well, having lived in Arizona for some time as a young mother. I always love a book from that time period (end of the 19th century). There are so many things we take for granted in our modern lives that they just dealt with back then. It makes me appreciate what I have. I also feel like we could learn something about hard work, even from fictional books from this period, or at least hard manual labor. I think sometimes, after reading a book like this, that we have it too easy. I would recommend this book to anyone. Even the romance wasn't gushy or overdone like in other books, and it was clean.




View all my reviews

A Well-Rounded Education

American public schools are failing all over the nation.  They are failing to teach literacy.  They are failing to prepare students for higher education.  They are failing to prepare students for life. 

Reading and math, reading and math.  I just read an article from some small town U.S.A. (outside of New Jersey) about how they are introducing all day kindergarten.  Because of more hours in school, the article stated that they would be able to spend 30 percent more time on reading and 40 percent more time on math.  The other 30 percent of the time was to be spent on building social skills.  Let me ask this question.  Whatever happened to science, social studies, art, writing, music, speech (as in public speaking skills), and P.E.?  Why are these subjects being removed from schools all over the country in favor of reading and math?  Don't people see what a disparity this is, how this takes us from what used to be a well-rounded education and makes it so lopsided and boring that young kids, who have a natural thirst for knowledge, are completely disinterested and bored in school by the time they are only seven years old?  No wonder the public schools are failing--they are driving children away from loving learning and only teaching them to despise it.

I had a very well-rounded education.  In elementary school, we went to P.E., art, and music once a week.  They were pull-out classes with a certified instructor in that subject area that went for an hour each time.  We also had one library day, which was 45 minutes.  Those times were teacher prep times for our classroom teachers, plus we learned a lot in those classes.  In art, we learned art history and about various artists in each period in art history and their contribution to art.  In music, we learned about singing and various musical instruments.  In P.E., we learned how to play many different sports and participated actively in doing them.  In our classes, we learned science and social studies.  I remember learning about how batteries worked and how the incandescent lightbulb worked, all in elementary school.  We learned about the different time periods throughout world history, and that is when I developed my love for history.

Today's kids get plenty of instructional time in language skills.  They have "balanced literacy" (something I'm actually on board with and I think is great, but too much time is focused on it).  They have guided reading, shared reading, independent reading, and writing and word study (spelling).  Guided reading is when they divide into leveled reading groups and read.  Shared reading is when they read together as a class.  Independent reading is just that, reading independently.  They focus on phonics (now called something else but it slips my mind) and whole word studies.  They do spelling.  They touch on writing, but I feel they don't do enough with writing.  It's mostly reading.  This "balanced literacy" takes up much of the day, about three hours.  If they are in school for 6.5 hours (which mine are), they have 45 minutes for lunch, 15 minutes for a separate recess, that only leaves 2.5 hours for everything else.  Since math is also a priority, they usually spend 1-1.5 hours on math alone.  Our school has a time set aside for extra help, to help kids who have fallen behind or give enrichment to kids who are keeping up and need more stimulation.  I think that's great.  We are lucky to still have P.E., although it's only 30 minutes and is very different than what it was when I was growing up.  Library is 30 minutes, and they have computers too.  As far as music and art, that's not really required anymore so many schools skip them altogether.  Science and social studies are also often neglected, which is why 4th graders no longer know how to read maps (this should be taught in 1st and 2nd grade) and 5th graders no longer know much about history.

Education is always a big issue in elections.  Everybody realizes that our system isn't working very well but nobody seems to know what to do about it.  I suggest bringing us back to a well-rounded education.  Bring back science, social studies, music and art.  Include dance and theatre arts in that as well.  When I was studying elementary education, I had to take classes in each subject area and learn the basics of that subject as well as how to teach it.  We also took classes on how to integrate subjects into one another because time in the classroom is limited so it works to teach more than one subject at a time (like writing a history report using proper grammar and mechanics).  I don't know if this is how teacher education still works, since it has been more than a decade since I went through my program, but if it is, it doesn't make sense that they aren't doing this enough in school. 

I think more testing should be done.  Not end-of-the-year type of standardized testing, but testing that finds the child's abilities and strengths and then places them according to that.  Teach all the subjects but utilize methods that work for that type of learner.  Allow children to use their strengths as a ladder and then help them with the areas which which they are weak.  Allow them to excel in the areas they are naturally good at and praise and reward them for it so they feel good about something they do.  With the curriculum so rigidly focused on reading and math, that leaves a lot of children in the dust who are intelligent, even brilliant, but just struggle in those subjects. 

I realize none of these things will probably happen in my lifetime, but it's nice to imagine.  I'm starting to understand why home schooling is such an attractive option for many people because if done properly, it allows you to do just this, focus on your child's strengths and help them overcome their weaknesses.  Focus on their learning style and adjust your teaching style to help them.  Perhaps, though, if all these home schooling advocates spoke up about what needs to change in the public schools and then initiated that change, we'd have better schools. 

Writing this has made me miss teaching in a lot of ways.  I did love teaching all the subjects, especially finding neat ways to incorporate one subject into another.  I think it's even gotten harder to do that with so much emphasis on reading and math.  Reading and math are important, true.  However, more can be done to make public education in America more well-rounded and inclusive. 

Marriage and the Plan of Salvation

I recently read an article written by a gay man who actually said that "Jesus had nothing to say about sexual behavior of any kind."  He went on to say that Jesus taught love for one another, which is true, but he didn't teach us to love sin.  He didn't teach us that sinful behavior is okay as long as it is done in the name of love.


I guess if people want to be literal, then no, in the New Testament, Jesus himself did not say anything specific about homosexuality.  However, his prophets and apostles, who taught what Jesus wanted them to teach, did speak about it.  Recently, I saw an infographic going around Facebook.  Click over to the infographic and read it.  What gets me is how they compare homosexuality in the Old Testament with eating shellfish, pork and wearing clothes woven with different fabrics.  Now, I'm not an Old Testament expert, but I can differentiate between what are God's never-changing laws and what was cultural Jewish law of the time period.  They are not the same thing.  God's law never changes.  Cultural laws that reflect the time period did and do change.  I especially love the part on the graphic that says, "Have fun living your sexist, chauvinistic, xenophobic lifestyle.  The rest of culture will advance forward without you."  I don't understand why these people think that by accepting homosexuality and allowing same-sex marriages, culture is "advancing".  How does that make it advance?

It is clear in scripture that homosexuality is sinful, as are all other types of sexual sin.  These days, though, many people do not feel that sex outside of marriage is sinful as long as you are in a "committed" relationship or that you are "old enough" to make that choice.  The scriptures never say those things and certainly don't advocate any type of sexual relationship outside of marriage.

Let's take a look at marriage, then.  According the The Family: A Proclamation to the World, "Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan."  It also states, "God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife."  Can this be backed up by scripture?  In 1 Corinthians 7:13, Paul says "Let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband."  Also, Doctrine and Covenants 49:15 says that "marriage is ordained of God." 

Now that we've established a definition for marriage according to scripture and modern revelation, we should discuss the Plan of Salvation.  According to LDS theology, the Plan of Salvation is God's great plan of happiness.  In this plan, we lived in a premortal existence before coming to Earth.  When we are born, our spirits are given a physical body.  Our Earth life is a test of faith.  The plan includes the Savior's great redeeming sacrifice--his suffering for our sins and dying on the cross.  This part of the plan satisfied God's requirement for justice and also allowed mercy.  Our sins were paid for.  But we have to come unto Christ and follow Him in order to accept this sacrifice.  This includes faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end by living a life full of love and service.  Then, we die.  At death, our spirits are separated from our physical bodies and go to the Spirit World, which is divided into Spirit Prison and Paradise.  One huge part of the plan is that all will have the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and accept it, whether that be in our Earthly life or in the Spirit World.  After all have heard the Gospel and either accept or reject it, there will be a resurrection and then great day of judgment.  At the resurrection, our spirits and our physical bodies, now perfected, will be reunited to live forever.  The judgment is when we are judged for how we lived our lives and whether or not we accepted Christ's sacrifice.  At that time, we will be separated into three kingdoms:  Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial.  The highest kingdom, the Celestial, will only be for those who accepted Jesus Christ and all of the priesthood ordinances done and lived worthy lives.  The Terrestrial Kingdom will be for those who lived good lives, many who accepted Christ even, but didn't have the saving ordinances done (baptism by those in authority being the first of those ordinances).  The Telestial Kingdom will be for most everyone else, people who didn't accept Christ, people who lived immoral lives, people who murdered and thieved and never repented and changed.  The last place people will be sent is Outer Darkness.  Only the very worst will be sent there, the Sons of Perdition.

I realize that is a brief explanation of the Plan of Salvation, which is many Sunday School lessons for each part of the plan.  However, you can see from that plan that if we don't follow it, we won't end up in a place where we will experience eternal joy and happiness.  Following the commandments of God and the teachings of Jesus Christ lead to happiness, both in this life and the next.  As the scripture in the Book of Mormon says, "Wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41:10).

Now, many people argue that homosexuality is not a sin.  In and of itself,  it is not.  However, when people act upon homosexual feelings and choose to express their love in that way, therein is where the sin lies.  So many people seem to misunderstand the LDS Church's doctrine regarding this issue.  Yes, people may have the tendency, the temptation, the trial of homosexual feelings.  I don't pretend to know why Heavenly Father would allow people to have such a struggle.  But I also don't pretend to know why he allows some people to have cancer or get into terrible debilitating car accidents.  There are many struggles we face in our Earthly life.  Some of them are perhaps merely the result of having a physical, carnal body.  Even heterosexual men and women in the Church are taught to restrain from certain physical affections before marriage, and even to control our very thoughts outside of marriage in that area.  It seems unfair to some, both in and out of the LDS Church, that homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to marry and finally be able to express those feelings.  However, if you look at marriage in light of God's plan of happiness, gender as "an essential characteristic" (Family Proclamation) of who we are and how that all fits into the eternal plan, it is more unfair to allow them to marry in this life because they won't be able to be with that partner in the life hereafter. Others say it's unfair to expect them to remain celibate throughout their mortal life, but the Gospel teaches that anyone who never marries should remain celibate. Why would the Church, which teaches love and eternal happiness, want to condemn someone's eternal state of being by allowing them temporary pleasure in this Earthly life, which we know to be merely equivalent to the "blink of an eye?"  It just doesn't make sense. 

This quote has been going around the Internet for some time:  "Our culture has accepted two huge lies: The first is that if you disagree with someone's lifestyle, you must fear them or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don't have to compromise convictions to be compassionate." -Rick Warren

You can still be compassionate and loving toward those who struggle with same-sex attraction without changing your convictions about traditional marriage.  Not supporting same-sex marriage does not mean you hate your gay brothers and sisters or that you want to restrict their rights.  It means that you believe wholly in traditional marriage and that same-sex marriage does not have a place in God's plan of happiness.  You can still love them and treat them kindly and compassionately, as you should.  Definitely love your brothers and sisters, your fellow men, and treat them kindly.  That is something all can do.

Behind in Blogging

I know I have gotten really bad about keeping up with this blog.  I do actually have quite a few mostly written posts that need a little revision, just waiting to be published, but I just haven't had the motivation to finish them.

Here's the big news...I'm pregnant again.  I knew pretty much right away and at about two weeks started in with the terrible morning sickness, which I've now been dealing with for eight weeks.  I had some bloodwork done a couple times already and an ultrasound at six weeks (an extensive ultrasound), and this pregnancy is not molar.  So far, so good.  I'm ten weeks along now and am due on March 26th.  I really don't care if it's a boy or a girl, all I care about is getting past the horrible morning sickness, which usually (mostly) dissipates by about sixteen weeks (although I still usually have it in the morning the rest of the pregnancy).

My kids have been super helpful.  My nine-year-old has bathed his baby brother and gotten him ready for bed on more than one occasion when my husband hasn't been around.  Both the nine-year-old and the seven-year-old have been helpful in bringing me food that we have on hand that I crave.  They've helped with chores, like loading the washing machine, and doing the dishes.  So it's been great this time around to have older kids who can really help out.

I will try to catch up on my blogging when I'm feeling better, but don't be surprised if you don't see any posts from me for another several weeks or even more than a month.

Difficult Children

My five-year-old is driving me to distraction.  I have to leave the room sometimes to cool down because he makes me so angry that I feel like screaming in his face or worse.

He is a very intense child.  Two days ago, my husband had gone to work for the night shift.  We had eaten dinner and I was allowing the kids to watch a little TV before winding down for bed.  The five-year-old was upstairs watching something else than the other kids, who were downstairs.  I was on the computer checking email.  The power went out for about one minute.  Then it came back on.  We have Direct TV so the satellite had to power back on, which sometimes can take up to thirty minutes after a power outage.  The three kids downstairs shrugged their shoulders and said, "It will probably be on again as a re-run anyway" and went upstairs to brush their teeth and get pajamas on.  Not him.  He started screaming and wailing because he couldn't finish his show.  I told him that because the power went out, the TV company's system had to restart and sometimes it takes a while to get working again.  He continued to scream and wail as if he hadn't heard a word I'd said.  I told him that there wasn't anything I could change about what was happening with the TV.  I told him that we could look for that same episode of that show later to try and record.  We could even try to find it online.  Nothing would calm him and he screamed like that for a good twenty minutes before he found something else to wail about.

The above scenario is pretty typical.  He probably does something similar at least twenty times a day.  He wanted white milk and I gave him chocolate.  He wanted a sandwich not cut and I cut it.  He wants to ride his bike but it's raining.  He wants to play Legos with his older brothers but they want to play something else.  He doesn't want to do his chores.  Any and every little thing, a change or something he doesn't want to happen or anything unexpected comes along and he goes nuts wailing and crying.  I do try to forewarn him when it's time to change activities, like if his time on the Wii is almost done (this is a daily battle, even though he KNOWS he only gets 30 minutes and he KNOWS when he's down to the last few minutes and he KNOWS he has to get off or  he's grounded the next day, he still throws a tantrum almost every time), but I can't forewarn him about everything, like the power going out. 

I have tried to soothe him, ignore him, tell him "too bad", empathize with him, but nothing works.  He ignores everything and everyone around him and wails and wails.  I just don't know what to do anymore.  And I'm nervous because he starts school this fall and we all know that things don't always go your way at school and sometimes things change without warning too.  How will he handle that type of thing at school? 

Has anybody ever dealt with something like this?