Hi Friends, Many of you know I work at a small charter high school in San Jose. I am so pleased to tell you that I am offering AP Art as a brand new class this fall. Unfortunately, our district … Continue reading
Building a Better Art Classroom
Tag Archives: Education
An evening with Friends, and Gallery Hopping in the City
On Wednesday, Annie had a few of us over for a casual get-together. We munched on a few things, and sipped margaritas. Our usual crowd was there, and it was just what I needed to finish out my week. Work has been running me pretty ragged, and it was exactly what I needed. My friends are always the cure for anything. We played Cards against Humanity, which is always a blast and very entertaining.
On Thursday, Roomie and I had professional development at our sister school in Hayward. I met the other two art teachers, and had a wonderful time talking shop. As I am the only art teacher at my school, and building my own curriculum, bouncing my ideas off these two guys really helped.
While the rest of the district had a second day of professional development in Hayward, the three of us met up at 111 Minna Gallery for a day of wandering around looking at art galleries.
The weather was warm and sunny, unusual for San Francisco in October. We drifted from 111 Minna to the Academy of Art, and stumbled into a ancient five story building with a multiple small galleries on each floor.
We grabbed a bite to eat at Le Boulanger on Market and walked over to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. They had a beautiful exhibit. I snapped these there
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My favorite piece at Yerba Buena was tucked into the room in the front called the Room of Big Ideas. I loved the wall that was there. I wanted to take it home with me.
I loved that last line, so I took a picture of just that. Sometimes it is very hard to live in the moment, to feel everything around me. But this wall, this wall reminded me of why.
From there we sat in the garden, and took in the glorious weather.
We walked back to Minna and parted ways. I walked over to Nordstrom’s, where a girl from my small group at church works in the Fine Jewelry floor. We chatted for a while, and then I realised what time it was. I dashed over to the Kate Spade section, and treated myself to a little something!
I ran errands today, and tidied up around the house. Last weekend my family and I celebrated my birthday. My parents gave me a stand mixer!!! So, tomorrow I plan on baking up a storm! Annie is coming over and we are tackling a long list of yummy treats! Tomorrow I’ll show you what I picked up from Nordstrom’s and whatever tasty things we bake!
I hope you have some exciting plans for tonight! Saturdays are always the best night to have a little fun.
Love,
-S
Work, Testing and Becoming a Yearbook Teacher,
Work has been busy, and it occurs to me that I haven’t really talked about what the Roomie and I do during the day.
The Roomie and I work together at a small charter high school in san Jose. I teach two periods of intro to art, and then work as the site testing coordinator for the rest of the afternoon. I tackle a combination of paperwork from MAPS (Measure of Academic Progress), CELDT (California English Language Development) CAHSEE ( California High School Exit Exam) and most recently added PSAT and SAT Testing for our school. I organise, assist proctor, proctor the tests, and then collect and ship all the documents back.
In one aspect, it is nice that I teach for a bit, and then get to format the rest of the day any way I choose. But, it is also a lot of paperwork to read through (Dull stuff too), and mind-numbing test proctoring. I have been playing a lot of catch-up in both sections in addition to starting my BITSA training.
Also, I am the yearbook coordinator for our school. Getting that program ( a club at lunch really) up and running has been a lot of fumbling in the dark since there aren’t many notes left from my predecessor. He has been helpful, but I am making a lot of decisions that I hope will pan out well!! We shall wait and see.
The Roomie is also working hard, and teaches the girls soccer team after-school. We get home most days around 6, and dive into dinner and cuddle time with the pups. They sorely miss us, so we try to give them lots of love when we are home. Our days are long but the weeks tend to fly by. We have been very busy with the quarter ending this past Monday, so writing posts has somewhat fallen to the wayside. Now that I have had a few weeks of work under my belt, I am hoping to build gym time and blogging time back into my daily life. I also just got a Canon Rebel Xti from work to play around with for yearbook, so expect more photo saturated posts coming soon!
Today and tomorrow Roomie and I are at a professional development session at our sister school in Hayward. Tomorrow my group (the art teachers), are hitting up museums in San Fran, so expect a photo filled entry tomorrow!
Happy almost Friday! (it feels like one to me since we don’t have students for two days!)
Ps. What should I be for Halloween? I have no clue!
Love,
-S
Classy and Fabulous 
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