I am slowly getting access to the tools that I need to be successful. I have an I.D., a laptop, an email address, keys and now I even have a teacher's assistant! My T.A. has already proven herself to be indispensible. She did a lot for me during my morning office hour today. I sent her to Russell for a stack of handouts, she numbered the tables and wiped the countertops, she answered the phone which was ringing off the hook and she organized the totes, which contain the brushes and paints the students have been using on this project.
These brushes are brand new, but already look haggard. I can't be completely sure about this, but a student said the situation has worsened over the past week or so (on my watch). This is of course unacceptable, but they have been using them everday, so some of that wear and tear is natural. You wouldn't think that I would have to be hovering over their shoulders making sure they clean the brushes properly, but it is a now a situation that calls for my immediate attention. I told the students before that each time someone does not rinse out a brush thouroughly, somewhere in the world a person kicks a puppy, so don't let a puppy get kicked . . . apparently they don't care for small, cute animals, because puppies have been getting kicked all over the place.
Yesterday during 4th block a nerve-racking thing happened, the two assistants to the head of school, Mr. Gilchrist and Mr. Harris paid us an unexpected visit. I figure they want to keep me on my toes and see how I perform. Thankfully, I happened to be in the midst of a good teaching moment at the time . . at least in my own assessment. You never can tell what is going through the administrator's minds when they're visiting, especially Gilchrist who has a really good poker face. I mean the dude should be in Vegas. Whenever I have a principal drop by I just keep doing what I do. It's like the secret shopper program back when I was waiting tables. If you're always doing things right, you've nothing to worry about.
Yesterday was Pi Day (3/14). I was in the midst of showing an interesting powerpoint about Pi, when Gilchrist and Harris popped in. It wasn't part of Miss Hundt's itenerary, but I happened to have it stored on my hard drive, which I had with me in my bag. I created it at CHC on Pi Day last year as an interdisciplinary time killer. Consilience is the unity of knowledge, and I feel that this presentation is a perfect way to get that message across to my students. Math and Science actually do relate to Visual Art, as a matter of fact, all fields of study blend with eachother. I wish we wouldn't create divisions in education like we do.
I'll do my best to explain what the students saw, but I probably can't do it any justice. Martin Kryzinski is a scientist working in the field of bioinformatics, but he also uses software to illustrate the visual connection of scientfic and mathematical phenomena, such as Pi. He has a series of digital artworks that show Pi in different ways. You've probably seen some of these going around the internet on March 14th. Kryzinski will create a sequence or a formula of some kind and use that to plot the data, which of course we know is infinite. Each year he creates a new visualization of Pi using a new method (see below).
I read the explanation that went along with each of these and several more, but it didn't make much sense to any of us, which is okay. I have a saying, To be great, you don't have to know everything, but you have to be open to everything. Our conversation shifted to gravitational waves, black holes and the science fiction movie Interstellar, and this was all while the students were painting. It was awesome! I hope Gilchrist and Harris liked what they saw.
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