Erin wanted to have a kitten and I figured this would be a good way to get her one. The mamma we adopted, they said, should have her babies within a few days.
Well, that was 17 days ago. Personally, I am beginning to think they just gave us a really fat cat. If she doesn't have babies soon, her ass will be tossed back out on the street.
In other news, we had a Chinese NY parade at our school to "honor" the three new Chinese exchange students we got after the holiday break. Coincidentally, this celebration just happened to be scheduled when the big-wigs of the corporation would be visiting our campus. The prep-time we were given to come up with a dragon for the parade? 9 days....
Keep in mind that this requirement was handed down well after lesson plans had been made for that week, so we either had to scrap our lessons, or somehow fit the dragon-making process into an already tightly scheduled work day.
So I'm not a big fan of these last minute projects, especially when we run the risk of minimizing an entire culture by expecting students to do projects like this without any context. So I scrapped my English instruction for 2 weeks, and we learned a little about Chinese myths, their NY celebrations, and why they have some of the traditions during this holiday that they do. The lessons went off better than I expected, and my students were really into it.
Meanwhile, I was fretting over the actual dragon. With no guidlines from anywhere (we were told to figure it out ourselves and 'be creative') I was naturally concerned, as I can hardly draw a straight line, and am one of the least artistic people I know.
On the other hand, I am also one of the most creative people I know, especially when it comes to problem solving, so it was with mixed feelings that I designed a model for my students to construct.
I started by watching several Chinese NY parades. Seeing how intricate the dragons were, I was more than a little concerned about making a hideous failure of a project, but I figured if I could just get the head right, the rest would fall into place.
Other teachers were using paper, sheets, boxes, etc., but none of their ideas seemed to me to be something I could do well, and besides, I`didn't want to copy anyone. They were ALL doing projects which the students would wear, which is really more traditional for the Lion dance, not the NY's parade. In NY's parades, the dragon is traditionally held up on sticks, chasing a ball that symbolizes the sun. So I decided to build ours using only traditional colors for luck and Spring (red, yellow, orange) and to make it with PVC and foam board. The head I built from foam coreboard and balloons, and the students did the rest. I was amazed (and very pleased) by the results. We had senior art students asking if we'd bought our dragon, and it was by far the best one. The president of the company took a picture of our class to put on the corporate website, and in general we got lots of kudos, which was great. Here are a few pictures of our dragon:
So besides the trollop and the dragon, not much else is happening here lately.
Well, except for the fact that Nick is going to be FIFTEEN on Tuesday, and I'll have TWENTY years sobriety on Sunday. It's crazytimes, indeed.
1 comment:
That is the coolest dragon ever. Well done Teacher Man.
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