Size me for my ring

Monday, day one in my official capacity. Feeling oddly confident, when I should have been a lot more nervous. At this point I was not sure if I even totally understood the objective, but Miss Hundt's preparation was very detailed, and plotted out through the end of the year, so as long as I follow this to a tee, I can't go wrong. It dawned on me that I will only be teaching in the afternoons. My mornings are almost completely free and clear, except for before school office hours, twice a week and our Friday professional development. This gave me a huge chunk of time to get acquainted with the facilities and observe other subject areas. I witnessed Latin, AP World History, Government, Algebra, Chemistry, and Ceramics. Can you guess which was my favorite?

Familiarizing myself with a new age group is going to be a process. I'm accustomed to middle school aged students. In my head I have pictured high school students as young adults, which they certainly are, but what struck me on this day is just how immature they still are. When I was observing Mr. Bilbrey's World History class, I noticed a corpulent young man in the back of the class, slouched in his chair, only half listening to the lecture, holding a pen that had been gnawed into oblivion. Mr. Bilbrey showed a slide entitled Demographic Indicators of Life Expectancy. One indication of how long a person could be expected to live is the teacher / student ratio in their home country. Mr. Bilbrey supported this, by talking about his friend who teaches in Lawrence. He said a typical classroom size for her is upwards of 30 and even as high as 42. "There are 24 students in this classroom right now, and even that is borderline too many," explained Mr. Bilbrey. At that moment the aforementioned student perked up, made a motion toward the door as if he were about to leave and said, "So get outta here!" I also had a good chuckle at Mr. Hughes' Science humor when a student asked, "Do you have any hand sanitizer?" He said, "No, but I have nitric acid."

When fourth block finally came around it was my turn to shine, and I felt ready to go. The students are practicing monochromatic still life paintings. The introduction went smoothly and almost every student worked diligently. The least productive student proved to be a bit of a thorn for the entire block. He had a tiny tuft of hair tied up with a rubber band on top of his head, and I made some man bun jokes. My warnings about not being inclined to write bathroom passes apparently did not register with him. He did not ask to go to the bathroom, but did request to go to the clinic for asprin because he had a headache. I said maybe your man bun is pulled too tight. In an attempt to stall him until even he could see that it would be pointless to miss class time with it being so close to the end of the day, I had him show me his progress, I am being generous to say that it was meager. I gave him an extended one-on-one tutorial, and as I proceeded down the isle to assist another student, conveniently forgetting his original request I could hear one girl who sits at his table say to another girl, "He's a really good teacher."

The student with the headache persisted and all but shut down. This is typical behavior for middle school, but that was one short year ago for him. Now I could have said no outright, knowing that he might complain to his mom, or I could relent and risk having my authority called into question on day one. I elected to take him aside, write him a pass, and explain to him that this would not be an everyday thing and that he must hurry back. It did not appear to have a detrimental effect, and he indeed hurried right back. I figure a well placed email to his parents might help him to see that art is not a knock off course.

At the end of the day as I was recapping with Mr. Renwick we were pulled in to the corner office. Mr. Renwick is one of four staff members who have worked at Herron all ten years, including Head of School Mrs. McNeal. They are all purchasing rings along with the seniors to commemorate this occasion. The spirit in the room was jovial and it occurred to me that I was the least tenured staff member sitting a room with the four who have the most, so I said, "Hey where's my ring?" We laughed and Mrs. McNeil said, "I think you'll fit in well around here."

First day teaching at Herron

I entered door one promptly at 8 a.m. I was told to follow Mr. Bilbrey, (a cyclist like me) to the Lyceum in the main building where the entire staff was assembled for their weekly professional development meeting. This was quite a way to break the new guy in, having to walk into a room full of teachers just about to begin a meeting. I tried to look as inconspicuous as possible as I sat down next to my department chair, Mr. Renwick. I knew I would like him right away, because he resembles Dave Grohl and was wearing a Wu Tang Clan T-shirt (there is a relaxed dress code on Fridays).

The sage on the stage for this meeting was Assistant Head of School, Mr. Gilchrist who was present for my interview just four days prior. Mr. Gilchrist, as you might imagine, being in such a high ranking position was impeccably dressed, no Wu Tang t-shirt. I enjoyed how he injected his dry, sarcastic humor into the meeting; it really served to lighten the mood. One teacher raised his hand and asked, "Can I ask a catch-up question?" Mr. Gilchrist responded with, "No, we only ask mustard questions here." One teacher spoke for a couple of minutes summarizing the efforts of his team on the recently completed ISTEP exam, praising them for their volunteerism and tireless dedication. As he concluded his remarks, Mr. Gilchrist, with a completely straight face asked, "Mm Hmm . . so what did YOU do?"

Mr. Renwick was my tour guide for the day. We started with the classroom in which I will be teaching, right next door to his. This is a feeling that I have now experienced twice, and it's a glorious one, that first moment that you step into your very own space and immediately begin to anticipate the creative projects that will happen and that memories that will be made. I will however be sharing this room with two other teachers.

I observed Mr. Renwick's advanced painting class and flooded him with a wide range of questions throughout the day. I am being thrown into the fire, so I must absorb as much as possible in a short span of time. I walked around and connected with students as much as possible. I was floored by the fact that I could speak to them using art terminology offering suggestions that could enhance their compositions, and they not only heard, but understood every single word of what I was saying!

Mr. Renwick and I had salads from the cafeteria in his classroom, and then I got a chance to finish the day by observing the one class that I will be teaching on A days, block four, Intro to 2D. As it turns out, there are two former students of mine on the roster and believe it or not, they are two of my favorites. Being an intro class, I will have mostly underclassmen. The age differential is evident, but they were still very well behaved. They are a little bit chatty, and their normal classroom teacher would prefer silence, but I will tolerate a low volume so long as they are being productive.

When I left for the day, the sun was shining with the promise of something new.

Herron: how did it come to be

I am in the midst of making a transition from teaching at the middle school level to teaching high school. I have been out of education (on a full time basis) since June. I am happy to say that Mr. Beal is back! I have seized an opportunity to teach at Herron High School, which has pretty much been a dream of mine since it became a charter school in 2006. Just one year after into my studies in Art Education at Herron School of Art (not affiliated). My position is on an interim basis, filling in for a teacher on sick leave, but it could become a full time position next school year.

I am part of the first class of artists to graduate from Herron, attending only the new building on campus at IUPUI. Those first few years we heard a lot of gripes from students who missed the rich character and charm of the old building at 16th and Pennsylvania, which was originally established in 1902. I always wished that I had the chance to experience it. Well now it is a four star charter high school with an excellent reputation, and now I teach there!

Herron has a classical approach to education, emphasizing the arts and Latin. It is Hogwarts like, similar to an academy, anchoring a noisy street corner in an historic part of a burgeoning metropolis. It is totally unlike my high school experience at Pike, which was a sprawling township school. There is no bus transportation provided to the students by Herron. They come from all over the Indianapolis area each morning. Some car pool, some drive themselves, some take public transportation, others ride their bikes or walk. Today I even saw a handful of students roll up on skateboards. The more time I spend on campus, the more I'm sure that I'm going to love teaching here.

It was with mixed emotions that I left my position at Chapel Hill in Wayne Township in 2015, but five years felt like the right time to make a change. I needed to focus on the completion of my master's at the Art Academy in Cincinnati, which is now in the past. For this reason and a handful of others, I had to make the move from the Herron / Morton neighborhood, to Irvington on the East side. That community has really become home for me and I absolutely love it, however I am now having to make a 15 minute daily commute to the immediate area that I used to call home for three and a half years. It's a new beginning in a familiar place.

Self Portraits

I met Eric Bolander in the summer of 2013 at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Eric teaches high school art in Lexington, and at the time, I taught middle school in Indianapolis. The next several posts serve as a record of our time spent together in Cincinnati as well as some other fun art related things that happened . . . This is Mr. Bolander's studio. Above is a self portrait he did in oil on a wooden board. Below is one done by Mr. Beal. Both were created while at the Art Academy.

Terracotta Warriors at the Indianapolis Children's Museum

Mr. Beal got to see real-life Terracotta Warriors at the Indianapolis Children's Museum, but unfortunately there was a little mishap.

Bolander: Here is the first challenge. Select a work of art, and break it. Post a photo to our blog and talk about why you chose the piece.

Bolander Cartoon

Here is a portrait of Mr. Bolander drawn by one of his students. Very talented, he must have a good teacher.

Missing Bolander

This is Beal at the very end of his second summer with Jason Kunk and Jessica Bohart, both just graduated. The last day of the program is always a sad day. Mr. Beal has one more summer in the program.