I give up I feel Basic

I have been applying for teaching jobs each hiring season - that is January to August for those who don't teach - since my daughter was 5 years old. I am hampered by location since I can't pack up my family to move for a job with a teacher's salary when my husband makes the bulk of the money at his job in DC. I only look for jobs in MD and DC because of traffic between MD and VA.is crazy. Teaching jobs even in the best schools do not pay a high enough salary to justify a move away from Geff's job which is in DC, he is paid well and only a three figure job could even be worth discussing moving for.  I only look for art teaching jobs or museum work because that is what I know best and have the most education in.

For awhile I was on the rolls of Candy, Sandoe and Associates a teacher placement firm, for a year I applied for jobs they sent me. I went to interviews many times and job fairs two years in a row, full of hope the first year, second not so much.  At the second job fair I realized that along with one other older person a man in a blue suit, I was the only one with even the slightest bit of gray in her hair, I spent the day sitting waiting to be called to interview talked to two schools with no results. I stopped using CSA soon after.

 I started looking in to making my own way and was very excited about the possibilities of starting my own studio, running my own show, but when it got down to it realized that any risk I took financially would impact my family and that while I didn't care for myself.  I would never hear the end of it or totally forgive myself if we wound up in deeper debt because of my failure if the business didn't take off.  My therapist told me that I was my own worst enemy, talking myself down and out of things that had an equal chance of success or failure.

 I still want to open my own studio, a place to do my own work and teach others about clay.  I am frozen because I am not a numbers person and the idea of having to go speak to some one who doesn't know me about something I have wanted for more then 20 years and give them the power to say yes or no definitively about it when they approve or deny a loan request is too horrible.  The idea of a crowd sourced venture is appealing but the possibility that no one, not even my friends or family might even think to take part would be a hard blow to absorb. When I had my shop on ETSY  I was open for two years before I made two small sales to people I did not know, not even one of my over 300 relatives on either side of the family or Geff's bothered to buy anything or I'll wager take a look at the site at all.  They could have but I realize that my art, while pretty wasn't really compelling enough and it shouldn't have been since I was only half invested in making it. I was only making it to sell not because it was something I HAD to create. In another words the art said nothing more then  "here I am, I'm decorative, hang me on your wall."  Art requires nothing more or less then a full investment of time and energy or else it shows, and with out a full commitment of energy and heart no matter how much time you put in to it you cannot charge a price which makes it worth while to sell.

So recently I tried again, I hadn't been excited about a teaching job application in a long time but I applied, I tried not to get too hopeful, just hopeful enough to try. I went in and interviewed and thought it went well, then I waited for more then 20 days and got more certain with every day that I would not hear from the school, tired again to pretend I didn't care that there would be other jobs that it wasn't because of my age, my ADHD, or my openness about it.  I know it was it was some combination of age, of delivery of lines, timing, impulsive behavior. If I had only not sent the email I sent yesterday by accident, the copy of the letter which was not fully edited and showed all my weaknesses. which brought a swift and negative response from the head of school, telling me that they weren't going to consider me, and an out of office reply from the other person who interviewed me and liked me.  If only I had waited, been patient, done nothing perhaps their first choices would have not worked out and I would have been there as a possible candidate instead of eliminated by my own impatience and impulsive actions.  I couldn't leave it, couldn't wait, had to take control of the situation some how.  I really wanted that teaching job, it was in such a great school, it was teaching the range of students I always wanted from K to 8th grade -- and it was also near by, a short commute, something I don't really care about much but it would have been nice.  I also hate that I left a bad impression with a poorly written letter.

Now is the time to look back and reassess, to look at my skills and abilities and see what I can do besides teach, I do not want to sell things or administer things, and lord help the person who depended upon me to keep their schedule or organize things more then once ( I am fine with sorting things out and setting up an organized system of my own and even maintaining it for awhile but doing that everyday would bore me to tears and then I would start to fail.

Right now that is what I feel like, a failure, in virtually all aspects of my life, not a total failure but just not very good, a not very good mom, a not very good housewife, a not very good wife, or friend or daughter. Mediocre,  just okay nothing special.  I guess that is okay, but it feels like crap and I hate it.










nergy to

Hidden Wealth.

Hidden Wealth.

I realized something recently,  that even though we have more then enough of everything we need, food, books, records, CDs, computers, cell phones, clothing, musical instruments, and amplifiers, we are in some ways poor. We work from pay check to pay check, we some times come up short.  Last week the local NPR station was doing their fundraiser, something I normally contribute 40 bucks to if I can. This time I decided to wait. The station finally realized that no one really needs another mug, tote bag or t shirt, no matter how nice the logo or how much they like the show. This time they where offering a donation to the Capitol Area Food Bank, donate a certain amount and they will donate a certain amount to the food bank, great idea, I thought, and went on about my business. At some point during the commentary I found myself listening to the description of the people who use the food bank, "the hidden poor in our neighborhoods, the people who have to put things back at the check out because they can't afford the whole grocery order."  Now this has happened to me frequently in the past six months, but I always assumed it came from shopping hungry,without a list, and math not being my strong subject.  It also seems to happen to me when I don't bother to check and make sure that the deposit has been cleared by the bank after I deposit it in the morning.  The thought that some one would think that I am poor, that I cannot afford to feed my family is a shock to me. It also explains why some of the cashiers have been so nice about having to put things away, do they see me as poor? Not mathematically challenged, and disorganized?   Our being poor only lasts a few days and then one of us is paid and we can resume living carefully, but quite well as long as we don't think too far about it in any one direction.

Thinking about this in more depth is scary, I realize we can't loose a job, or have an accident or illness overtake us. If we do we will be truly poor, dangerously poor, with no safety net to catch us. What we will have, we hope, is the love of our family and friends and our education and ability to use it to find solutions to our problems.  Since I have allowed myself to realize how close we live to the edge now, it alarms me to realize that we do not have the things we truly should have at this point. We have no savings, no cushion, nothing for college for our daughter, or anything more then the vary basic provisions for retirement. I have some small investments, but we have nothing like the three months of living expenses recommended in some budgeting books I have read.  I always wondered how I was supposed to save that kind of money with the student loan dept I carry and the fact that I have worked in art related teaching jobs, reference or museum jobs for most of my working life. The salary from those jobs seemed to provide only for short term savings which get eaten up by the everyday expenses of living, car repairs, minor illnesses, or small celebrations.  I  took advice from older women in my family that I would be fine if I left my job for five years or so, to raise my daughter.  I did and do not regret the decision except for the fact that I have been looking for full time work teaching art or ceramics for seven years and still have not found a full time job. Of course my search is limited to the DC metro area because art teaching does not pay enough for us to move away from my husband's higher paying job. Teaching hiring is seasonal in some ways, most of the new hiring happens in February through July for the next school year. There are jobs that come up throughout the year as well, but mostly art teachers, and artists who teach, hang on to jobs that are good until they retire.  I also look for work in the museum world since I have experience working at the Smithsonian.  I apply for jobs in related fields as well  always  hoping that I will find a hiring manager who will see potential in my work experience and background and take a chance on me, but alas this happens less and less in the days of the computer application. I still hope, I still apply, I still try.  However, at this point, I realize that in some people's eyes I am just another woman short on cash putting away groceries, that with all the riches my life contains I can still be seen as poor.

Musings on art and testing - revised

I am looking for part time and full time jobs because DH's contract may not get renewed so I may need to add to or replace the art teaching jobs I have currently.  So I get job listings sent to me from The Washington Post, Linked in, Idealist, MICA my college and occasionally my grad school. 

Today the Washington Post listings arrived and this was the listing at the top of the e-mail

Art Test Development Specialist

American Institutes for Research

Yes, they are trying to create standardized tests for art,  REALLY.  As I read the job announcement with a mixture of horror and shock I started thinking should I apply?  I do not believe that art is a subject that can be tested on a standardized test.  Art technique can be tested, art history as well. But art as a creative subject? the true heart of what art is about cannot be reduced to a set of standards. The whole point is that art should not, cannot be defined completely. Art is a living, growing, thing and can only be defined as history. Trying to teach students that there are standards in art could very well reduce it to a scene like the one described by Harry Chapin in "Flowers are Red" where the teacher catches a child drawing on the first day of kindergarten and tells him it isn't art time and further more:

Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Well the teacher said.. You're sassy
There's ways that things should be

And you'll paint flowers the way they are. Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

I suppose it might be good to apply for the job to make sure that teachers with that kind of attitude are not the ones writing the tests, but I have a feeling that being a cog in the testing machine would not be easy for some one who has actually been an artist who is a teacher.  So often the people who make decisions about things like testing have not ever been in the class room or even studied the subject they are writing tests for.  Or if they have it was more then 25 years ago. 

I can remember studying for the PRAXIS and being astonished to find that Bachmal sauce was defined as a cheese sauce which it is not, it can be a base for a cheese sauce but it is not a cheese sauce.  I suppose that is as good a reason as any to apply for this job to keep stupid test questions from being put in to the tests they will insist on imposing on poor young artists.

On the other side, I just can't help thinking that this is a way to finally control those crazy art teachers and make them teach the way the powers that be think they should.  Heaven forbid that real artists teach children the subject they have spent their whole lives perfecting and learning.  

Testing art as a subject could be a way to keep "those teachers" from showing pictures of people with no clothes on to students in high school never mind that the nudes they see in art will never  be as sordid as the images they can find on the Internet.  

Standardization can be a way to homogenize art, to keep it from being shocking and challenging to the viewer, the culture, the world. This is a great disservice to art; artists past, and present, student, amateur, and professional alike.  The shocking nature of art, the way it challenges us to see things in new ways is one of the things that makes it so interesting, so moving. Would Picasso's Gurnica have passed a standards test of the time? I doubt it.  In fact historically most of those who have applied standards to art have done so to control it, think of Hitler for example or governments in soviet countries.  When politicians and educators try to hold art to an unmoving set of standards the art that is produced is often nothing more then a technical illustration of the ideals of the regime under which it is produced.  Thank goodness that artists resist control and standardization. By taking advantage of the lack of artistic knowledge of those who require art made to standard, artists are able to poke subtle fun at the very people who ask them to produce it. A good example is Diego Rivera's mural which included a cameo of Stalin among a group of "workers." Of course the mural was taken down and hidden away,  but it was saved from destruction by thoughtful art lovers/historians, and preserved in photographs.

Could standardized testing be a way to convince people of the importance of art education or art in education ? Could standardized test results "prove" that art is as serious a subject as math and science? That art is worthy of being taught as a subject equal to any academic subject? Would testing results help the administrators and politicians to see the study of art as valuable not just for it's value in producing workers; illustrators, architects, package and product designers, interior designers etc. but in training the mind to think and solve problems creatively? Perhaps.

 Standards are important there is no doubt about that, but they are not the only way or even the best way to measure student knowledge or teacher's ability to teach. What standardized  tests are is familiar -- people know what a standardized test is, everyone has taken one at some time in their life.  The results this kind of test produces, statistics, are something beloved by those who have no real knowledge of the subjects which are being assessed. The numbers give them clear answers about things that really are not cut and dried or clear at all. Statistics can be tooled or spun to present exactly the answer required by those who are skilled at writing such things or would favor a certain result.  

A true assessment of art or any other subject is not simple, it requires an expert knowledge of the subject matter and of teaching, it requires talking with teachers, students, former students, parents and administrators about the subject. Once that is done it requires looking at the materials studied, and the experience and training of each teacher, their philosophy about teaching, their subject and what they know about the children they teach.  Another words it takes time, energy and thought. Such an undertaking needs to be done on a school by school, teacher by teacher, student by student basis to be done well at all.  Of course this is expensive and it is the reason standards have been developed.  The thing is at this point it seems as if too much weight has been placed in the testing basket, while other more thoughtful, personal, and time consuming ways of looking at education have been ignored or let go. 

The result has not been good for students or teachers.
when teachers have to teach to a test there are sacrifices made. Projects like planting a school garden and using it to study plants and ecology in science, or art lessons teaching children to draw plants or create art work inspired by the illustrations in books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar in first grade, or learning about John James Audubon and other artists like Beatrix Potter who studied nature carefully to produce their art can't take place because there is not enough time in the schedule.  A Health class using the school garden in more practical ways for teaching nutrition or cooking is swept to the side so students can learn to write in the test format, process information in the way it is presented on the test, memorize the way test information is presented so that the school will get good results and get more funding and teachers and administrators will keep their jobs.  This kind of dependence on testing for adult gain and profit takes the focus off of the real job of educators to teach students to think, reason, and solve problems creatively. Actively helping students to become the new creators and inventors and artists of the world. We are living in a culture that is quickly loosing sight of the forest, not just for the trees but because of the leaves. 

This space is Occupied/ It's a wonderful life!

     

written in Dec 2011

Recently I was going through my e-mail weeding out the junk that the filters miss and making sure I had n't missed any thing important.

 I saw a message from Sallie Mae, no not my great Aunt, the mega school loan people,   The Subject line said;

A card that can help you pay down your eligible Sallie Mae student loans.  

I ignored it, today I  went back to it - and yes it is a credit card -- Sallie Mae wants to give me a credit card which will supposedly help pay down my debt on my student loan.  What they are counting on is that

I will be so happy to have something that pays down the large debt I carry for being a highly educated art professional that I will just sign up for their card. With no thought, with out realizing that I am just substituting one kind of debt for another.

What kind of fools do they think we are?  They must get plenty of people clicking on the apply button in this e-mail especially at this time of year.   This is just one symptom of the real illness in our economy the banks, loan companies and the Market all depend on creating more ways for us to become indebted to them through loans and credit cards, and bank fees.  

As I read the small lighter type at the bottom of the ad I learned that 

5% Gas and Grocery bonus category rewards are earned on the first $500 total combined net monthly purchases in those two categories. 5% Books bonus category rewards are earned on the first $1,000 total net monthly book purchases

If I become a card member I can charge groceries, and gas up my car and only pay 5% for total combined spending on net monthly purchases up to the first 500.00  this means one maybe two months are covered three if the student is thrifty.

The 5% Books bonus category rewards are earned on the first 1,000 total net monthly book purchases.

Every other purchase earns 1% rewards.

The thing is there is a choice involved .  Students can choose to apply the rewards to their loan payments, they can also get a cash back reward. 

Once that time period is over -- IE once a student has registered bought their books and settled in to school for 2-3 months things change  and only 1%  goes to the rewards program.

After a year the 0% interest rate becomes a variable 11.99 to 15.99.

The fine print also stipulates that the card can be invalidated if not used for 24 months.

This seems like the kind of offer which might work for mature students but for your average college student I am pretty sure that unless their parents are keeping track of the rewards and making sure they are applied to student loans during the first year the whole thing could blow up in their face.  However for those of us who are not always savvy with cards and credit this sounds like a time bomb --

On Being  50 and thinking about it too much --

 I  turned 50 this fall.  Many people have told me I do not look fifty.  I suppose they mean that my hair is not too gray thanks to a bit of a shot o' color and a new hair cut just before my birthday, combined with being the mother of a child in elementary school. Some how being where I am in life makes it seem odd  It is hard to be the mom of a 10 year old here in the suburbs of Maryland.  If I lived in NYC I'd be normal, here, not so much. I guess it could be the way I dress as well,  in jeans, hiking boots, casual slightly boho clothes, I am hard to place.  I don't dress like a corporate type, or like a matron which would age me too, so there are no outward clues.


Having had several people say " you don't look 50"  makes me wonder what does 50 look like? To put it finer does it mean that I don't look the way we saw 50 year olds then?   Does it mean that I don't look like 50 year old people did 40-45 years ago? Or does it mean our view of 50 has changed?  

Think about it, it is 1971 or 1976 the line between old and young is firmly drawn in many places, the  people who are 50 are our Aunts and Uncles, (maybe our parents) 2nd or 3rd cousins.The Principal at school is certainly 50 (age added due to rank), the lady next store, or the guy at the local pharmacy are the grown ups.  We don't even notice them really because we are still in kid world. Totally submerged for the most part in ourselves, our friends and our views on things which we are just realizing we can voice and do.  The grown ups may be interesting but unless they are special to us we don't think of them as anything more then a two diminsional  image of themselves, or just in relation to us as support or obstacle.  They aren't old or young just sort of in between, and the idea that they were ever like us is shocking mostly, later we realize the truth, that they might just have remembered what  it was like to be us as they looked back at us coming up behind them, never catching up fully. 


 Coming fast forward to the present, it is odd to be on the plateau now, on the flat land between the big climb from baby hood to full adult life.   It is only a plateau,  I am not finished but walking up to the next part of the mountain wondering what the rest of the climb be like. Now I am able to see  the view, both behind and ahead. Realizing more and more that there is no 50 look, no way of being, nothing to have done, beyond being myself and getting ready for the rest of the climb, knowing how much more there is to do and see, and become.

the frog and the wig

There was once a yellow green frog who vacationed at the bottom of the garden of a rambling old house in the country. He was large and had been a famous jumper in his day, until he was caught by a young girl and taken on all sorts of adventures. This made him feel quite well traveled and wise and gave him a sense of fashion.

Lula was sitting on a flat rock in shade surrounded by the contents of her back pack The frog was sitting on a glossy magazine page with pictures of smiling girls with huge eyes and long hair on one side and an ad that said " Glory Manes, your solution to hair loss!!!" on the other. Rupert (for that was the frog's name) thought "Oh,I have hair loss! " I must find a wig" he croaked to himself.

Lula looked up from her game, saw him sitting on the magazine and said laughing

"Rup what are you doing? Reading again?" She scooped him up and put him down in the house she was building for him next to a mossy rock near a pool of water, it was furnished with doll furniture collected from many different toys, some large some small. She set him down on a light green lawn chair next to Francie, a doll with large collection of clothes. Today Francie wore tan shorts, doc martin boots and a t shirt that said Save The Planet. Next to her on a flat rock where several glossy wigs. One was long and streaked with blonde, the next short and dark with bangs, the third was a purple mohawk. Rupert watched as Lula took a fourth wig with gold braids and put it on Francie's head. She searched thought a pocket in the back pack and pulled out a small blue cap and put it on the dolls head.

Watching a small fly out of the corner of his eye Rupert quickly flicked his tongue out, snapped it up it and croaked happily. "Good job!" Lula said "I 'm going to get you some meal worms and fruit" and off she ran.

Rupert hopped off the chair and over to the flat rock, it was mossy and warm. He looked at the streaked wig decided it didn't go with his skin tone and decided to try on the one with bangs first. He stuck his nose under the back of the wig and lifted it up pushing it back with one webbed foot, it settled with the bangs slightly over one eye. Lula had made a mirror for Francie out of a piece of mirror with purple duct tape around the edges she'd topped it with paper flowers he hopped over carefully and looked at himself. (to be continued)

The Queen of Scheduling or How to teach focus when yours isn't so hot

I have AD/HD, so does my daughter.

It makes it hard to be the Queen of Scheduling.

my daughter is very strong willed, knows what she wants, and will tell you about it (all skills which will stand her in good stead as an adult.) At this point however they just make it hard to get things done when there are chores to do or places to go

A typical morning goes as follows:

6:30 Dad wakes Daughter up on his way out to work -- she wakes up gives him a hug and goes back to sleep.

7:00 I begin the process of waking her up again " It's 7:00 time to wake up hon", an arm appears from the blankets and toys pointing towards the door --" in a minute Mommy!"

I turn on the light. There is a up upheaval of the blankets and a wail " Don't turn on the light!"

Me: take your medicine I put it out on your desk don't forget D: I WON'T!!  (imagine petulant wail)

7:30 I go get myself together for the day, and stop on my way back from the bathroom - are you awake ? muffled yes....

Me: " you have to get up now it's 7:40 , take you medication now"

D : In a minute Mommy!

Me "Your friend is coming over at 8:00 to go to school you need to get ready"

She gets up -- but it takes until her friend arrives at 8:15 for her to get shoes and socks on.

In between 7:30 and 8:30 she has made beautiful beaded bracelets out of an old pair of tights, lined up stuffed animals, found shoes, pulled out three outfits rejected them all and added them to the pile on her floor, stood on her head, hung upside down over the edge of the bed. Sung several versions of her fave song of the moment,

I have interrupted and refocused her every 5-10 minutes or so and tried to get her to take her medication at least 4 times. Because she hasn't taken it she doesn't have the focus to focus on taking it, or the ability to slow down and listen to me or curb her impulsive behavior enough to let me help her.

As a result, my ability to schedule my own morning is gone. While I am trying so very hard to keep my daughter focused enough to function I some times forget to take my own focusing medication, my hair dries in a bird's nest formation, and I throw on what ever clothing I can find thinking I will change later only to end up wearing my paint and clean the house pants all day, not pretty!  Add trying to get her to let me brush her hair or getting her to brush her own hair

( another 15 minute exchange at minimum) and I end up handing her toast with peanut butter, her lunch bag and rushing her out the door, making her take her medication in the car, winching knowing it won't take affect until she has been at school for 45 minutes to an hour.

Over the years I have tried charts, rewards, marbles, additional allowance, taking things away, adding things, all with mixed results. Each attempt lasts about two to four weeks before it seems to just not be worth it. Charts made her frustrated to the point that they where ripped down,erased (the dry erase board chart), hidden under the bed (the calendar chart). Rewards and additional allowance quickly became more about the rewards and trying to build up more rewards or allowance then learning a schedule or behavior and often brought on worse behavior, begging, demanding better stuff which led to discontinuing the system then and there, caring more about what she was going to get then what she had to do to get it.

I am still trying. I have a wonderful daughter, she is smart, funny, beautiful, and thinks she is ready to run her life if only she didn't have to listen to her idiot parents (a recent declaration lol). Funny thing she hasn't thought who will do tiresome things like pickup, wash things, cook, or provide money for Littlest Pet Shop Toys. Some day all too soon she will be old enough, and this will all be back story for the rest of her wonderful, fantastic, life which if I can help it she will schedule with ease and always style!