a rainy friday is still a friday!

Week one is now complete and my nerves have been put almost completely at ease! Though I still have much to learn about the students of Oakgrove, meeting them and experiencing their classes has really helped me to feel pumped up and excited about this semester. They are such bright and curious students and I love working with them already!

I get a kick out of their questions about America and their interest in New York City, Florida, etc. Everyone seems to think that because I'm from America, there's a pretty good chance I'm from New York, or that every day in America is like an episode of Law and Order or CSI or something. :) I am eager to answer their questions and clarify some of the stareotypes, but I try to bring the subject back to art too.

I've actually been quite impressed with how many of the students really seem to genuinely appreciate and look forward to art. It is common for students at their age to get discouraged about art and drift away from it all-together, but these students really seem to take art seriously.

At around lunch time I snatched a taxi and skipped across town to the Primary School. My arrangement allows me to leave at lunch on Wednesdays and Fridays in order to give a lesson or two out at the Primary. I have a lot of independance with my lessons at the Primary School and i already led my first independant lesson with them today! For my Primary lessons I am given a small group of students who have trouble focusing in their regular, larger class. We meet in another room and have our own art lesson. The group is small enough that I get to be really attentive to their various needs, and they seem to be pretty successful at staying focused with these smaller groups. I had a blast with them today as we worked on making our own versions of The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks. They all wanted to keep the one color copy I had of the famous painting, so I simply wrote down the title and artist for them so they could google it or find it at the library. Their interest was encouraging, as one of our goals at the Primary is to get them more familiar with existing artists as well as art history.

So, despite the freezing wind and rain that flipped my umbrella as many directions as it would go, I had a very pleasant friday. :)