Tale from the Art Lab - my war with the Sunset View Dragon

It was made very clear to me when I was hired on at S.V. Elem. that I was a part-time art instructor. And although I would be responsible for managing my own classroom and dealing with nearly every student in the school (600) I was, let me reiterate, part-time. No contract, but the job description required me to work 9am-3pm M-Th which amounts to an average of 24 hours a week. The "part-time" nature of my job description was made apparent to me because if I was paid for any more than 25 hours a week for working then they would be obligated to give me basic health insurance. And as it seems that health insurance is now-a-days more of a high-class luxury than a necessity, like a house boat or a summer home, the school would not be able to provide me with such lavishness; thus, I have no health insurance. That's not the problem, well not the one I am going to address in this blog, because I agreed to it and there are some perks to only working part-time. That is, part-time means that you do not have to work more than part-time. That means less time working and less responsibilities because we all know that with less power (I'm no ceritified teacher with full-time benefits) comes less responsibility. However, it would seem that this truism is not as universally understood as I once thought. I began to realize this in the last month and half as parent teacher conferences approached.

Early in February my supervisor reminded me that for PTC I was responsible for putting together what was called the school's "Spring Art Salon". No problem there, as I was told about this shortly after being hired. Indeed it was pretty frustrating when I was asked to put one together for the Fall conferences that never got hung up. It was slightly aggrivating after getting 500+ students to finish at least one art project to submit, then getting them all to write their names and teacher's names on the back of their art projects, summarizing what each project was and what they learned, and finally coalating every class' projects to orderly distribute the artworks to teachers who were to put them up on their bulletins only to hear after the conferences that the teachers had all freaked out because they had too much to do without the art salon. I will admit that I felt like going into a faculty meeting and kicking some shins but I crossed my ankles while my supervisor sat me down and gave me back all the un-displayed art projects to pass them back to my students. Afterall, I do get paid nearly $12 an hour and that is a small fortune for someone who only has an undergraduate degree.

But this blog isn't about the Fall PTC Salon and how it never went up. In fact, it didn't even bother me when they found it in their busy schedules to meet with their measely instructor to begin voicing their expectations for the "Spring Art Salon". It got a little overwhelming when they started talking about these high aspirations for what it should look like, how diverse the artwork should be (at least 2 or 3 different projects from every class), how there needed to be at least one artwork from every student, what the summaries should include that would be posted next to the artworks, etc, etc. Wow! Great ideas for the salon...but who has time for this when there is only 24 hours in my work week here?

But that wasn't all. Apparently there is also a hall in the school that needs some bright decorations. The school vision for it is to have big fabric panels hanging from wooden dowels with painted shadows of school children running towards the school's giant mascot dragon, "Flamey". Who better for the job than the art instructor? Oh and there is also a closet full of local artworks appraised at a few thousand dollars in school storage. Someone needs to do something for them. Make a restoration plan... They thought of me. The way it was presented, they were giving me an opportunity to make "a few extra dollars" and what I began to hear was "we could save a few dollars if the art instructor did it because we pay her close to nothing compared to all the other people here or a real professional". Well, as gapingly overwhelmed as these burdensome projects seemed, I have trouble saying "no" to extra hours when part-time work can be feast or famine. So I consented.

In the following weeks I began to put together the Art Salon. There was about a month of scrambling to get students to finish the same projects and make them look presentable (It seems like Title 1 Public Schools are a one room school house even within one grade. You've got gifted and talented with ESL and Autism - not an easy group to homogonize into one set curriculum). Yet, in spite of how wildly tricky it was to pull off, I felt like it was coming together as long as no one interrupted my roll of things. There were countless times I went before or after school, during my lunch to go and check with Art Salon Visionaries about something I was doing but it seemed there were profoundly important things going on and no one was ever available for the art goings-on. I came to terms with being neglected in this epic task by telling myself that all I could do was my best and that was that.

Then I got stopped in the hall. They needed me to come in a week from that Friday to teach all the Title 1 students (ie the lowest academically and consequently some of the worst behaviorally) so that they too could have an art project in the salon. I would have 45 minutes with each class to have them produce something for the salon. It was near imperative that I come in that one specific Friday which was 3 weeks before the conferences. I told them I couldn't because I had made some personal committments that day (it was the day before the cake dome party and my mom and I had planned an elaborate day in her classroom). They told me they really needed me to come in that day. I told them again that I couldn't. They asked me if I was sure. I told them that I was sure. A few guilt-trip words for me about how life is profoundly hard for everyone else on the staff and then I was scheduled for a different Friday.

So I made a plan the best I could with what I had to work with. Hmmmm....only 45 minutes to produce a project students with short attention spans and difficulty following directions. It was not any easy task but I decided that I would do a cutesy project with the younger students where I would give them odd shapes to glue down to a paper and make into a picture and then the older students could do blind contour drawings (this had been a super popular lesson in both my classroom and my mom's). These plans seemed simple enough and easy to finish with minimum clean-up and background explanation. And man! was I glad to have something simple when those mixed groups of pre-deliquents and sincere students showed up. My head and throat was aching by the end of the day.

Point was, I did it! I made it! It was a nightmare of a week but last Monday, 3 days before the conferences, I was feeling all kinds of relief and self-satisfaction. I had only one question left for the Salon Visionaries and on my way to my classroom that morning I conveniently ran into one. I marveled at being able to talk face to face with someone who I could usually only reach by email and quickly started to ask my question about where to hang the murals the older grades had done. She skipped over what I needed to know and went to straight to what she wanted me to know. In listening to her I learned that these Title 1 students blind contour drawings were apparently "unpresentable" and "something we could not show to their parents". It turns out, according to the Salon Visionary that I "should have just done the 1st grade projects with all the 6th graders" because they would have "looked much nicer and it would have been easy to understand what the project was from just looking at it". It didn't help to remind her that I had written up an explanation to be read along with the display as I had been asked to; it didn't help because "hardly any parents were going to take time to actually read that". I found that last bit interesting and reflection on the several hours I had taken to fulfill that part of the vision.

After being sure I left the conversation without bursting into hysteric tears or punching someone in the face, I went on to teach until lunch. When I had made it that far through the day I walked down to the office and let her know that I "didn't think it was a good idea to take on these other projects as I wasn't sure I would be able to fulfill the expectations". I was assured that these projects were "no pressure" and even though it was up to me whether or not I wanted to do them, there was every bit of faith that I could do a great job. "Thanks but I think I better stick to what I was hired for". Concern was expressed as to whether or not I would "be okay not working during Spring Break". I took that as an opportunity to remind her in the most diplomatic way I could muster with my rising agitation that I had another job I went to after this one. However, I didn't bring up that I was planning on enjoying the Spring Break just like all the rest of the faculty, even if that meant a week without hourly wages. Although I hadn't spent the week complaining about how Spring PTCs were the mark of the elementary school apocolypse, like 2/3rds of the staff there I still had, remarkably, found a way to exhaust myself with under appreciated work.

That said, the Spring Salon turned out inspiring and beautiful. My students are up to the brim with creativity.