Flying Saucer Post Card Project at PS 298

Fourth grade art students from PS 298 are about to embark on a global journey. The artwork we do at PS 298 is interdisciplinary and connects their art making process to all other subjects. The first few weeks of school usually have the students exploring their community. While local community is very important, it is also vital for students to know that they are part of a global community, now more than ever, and to have them connect with the world on a more visceral level than just via the internet. This is especially true for students that live here in NYC.

For this project, each student will design their own Flying Saucer Envelope in art class, showing the world their artwork, their talent, and their perspective.

When a recipient gets a Flying Saucer Envelope in the mail, they will be asked to send a post card from their part of the world back to its creator at PS 298. Each envelope will contain instructions and the identity of the student who has sent it. But, the recipient has two jobs, the first being to send a postcard back to the student answering three basic questions on the back: what it is they do for a living (or if they’re a student), where they are located, and whose envelope they’ve received. Their second job is to send the Flying Saucer envelope (with the instructions) to another recipient to keep it traveling around the globe. The students will be mapping their postcards.

There will be a dead line for the Flying Saucer Envelopes. The students will decide on that date, depending on how long they would like to keep the project going. The last person to receive the envelope on or nearest to the deadline date must send the Flying Saucer Envelope back to the students (with a postcard too).

If you have a friend around the globe that would like to participate in this student project, please let me know and send me their snail mail address. I have a few that I can get started with, but we need a whole bunch so that that all students will be able to participate.

Thanks for you support!
Jacqueline Malanga

If you or someone you know would like to donate money to my students for art supplies please visit the website below. Thanks!

DonorsChoose.org: The Second Version of Brownsville

Source: www.donorschoose.org

I asked my students what they could do to make their community a better place and what it would look like if they could change it anyway they wanted. They used the edge of small pre-cut card board pieces dipped in black acrylic paint to stamp out the lines of their new Brownsville. ...

The Role of Art in Fostering Social Change

The Rural Haiti Gallery & Panel Discussion

Host:	The Rural Haiti Project
Type:	Music/Arts - Exhibit
Network:	Global

Date:	Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Time:	6:30pm - 8:30pm
Location:	DickBlick
Street:	1-5 Bond Street
City/Town:	New York, NY
	View Google Map

Email:

info@ruralhaitiproject.com

Come view artwork from the children of The Rural Haiti Project, and participate in a panel discussion with our guest panelists!

The guest panelists include:

• Jacqueline Malanga//Art Educator

Jacqueline Malanga is an art educator, who believes the purpose of art education is to empower students to learn and develop through the communicative and expressive practice of art making.

• David Belle //Founder of Cine Institute of Jacmel Co-Founder BRANDAID Project

David Belle is an award winning film Producer and Director who uses the power of cinema, integrated educational programming, technical training, and media production support, to educate and empower Haitian youth.

• Lichiban//Visual Artist, Illustrator, and Curator Lichiban draws inspiration from her childhood memories of Eastern-European folktales and animations, studies in Sufism, travels to war-torn countries (Bosnia, Kashmir, Eastern Turkey), volunteer work with refugees and trauma victims. She remains a humanitarian with a commitment to further the evolution of the heart.

• Rasu Jilani//Brand Owner & Project Strategist

Rasu Jilani dedicates himself to a number of socially conscious initiatives, including significant work with Brooklyn's emerging artists and a dedicated role in reversing the plight of today's underserved youth.

• Moderated by: Sandra Amarie

Learning to Laugh

My dear friend and roommate Simone has a gig tonight.  She's playing at Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and has been practicing all week for her set.  It's a delight to have live music in the house.  She has the most beautiful voice and had been rehearsing one particular song that I now have stuck in my head on a daily, if not hourly, basis.  

The first line is "Learning to laugh, as if I don't care, who overhears my curses or my prayers?" I'm glad this first line is on loop in my brain going into my first full week of school, as it is going to be used as a learning tool, or perhaps even a sanity managing tool.

A few years ago, I was told by my professor in school to learn to laugh a little bit more, not to take myself so seriously and to keep my "curses" to myself while in my first few years of teaching.  I realize that after dealing with the first three very confusing, stressful and chaotic days of trying to put together an arts department for the upper grades, learning to laugh is vital.  There have already been overheated debates, fightin' words and those who choose to walk down the path of latent unprofessionalism.   The new principal won't budge on a few issues and is holding on to her inflexibility like a child clutching the last remaining treat from her Halloween booty bag. 

I've always naturally taken the role of mediator in the lives of others and have often found myself looking to my left and right at the opposing forces that have not a clue how to work things out for themselves.   I found myself in this situation already this week and indeed had iron out some ruffled feathers.  I was able to walk away virtually unscathed, however, I made sure to share my situation with another of the arts teachers in order to completely get it off my chest. She made me laugh and we continued to laugh together at the absurdity of what was happening and what we know will continue to occur throughout the rest of the year at PS 298.  

So, thank you Simone for the loop of "Learning to Laugh".  I vow to play this song over and over in my head before every class or meeting, to take it's advice and let the ridiculousness of disorganization, unprofessionalism, and chaos morph into laughter, allowing my curses to go unheard. 

Getting what I need to get what I want

I'm not one to back down from an issue if I feel it is unjust.  My Italian friend's parents told me this summer that as a person of Calabrese ancestry, I'm hard headed.  This is true. They knocked the table with their knuckles and nodded their heads in agreement.   As a matter of fact, I get even more diligent when I can't get what I need in order to do the job I want to do.  

A professor of mine once said that art students have to get what they need in order to get the results they want in the art classroom.  I think the same phrase applies to an art teacher in a school that has virtually no money to support their art programs.  I need supplies to get what I want.  What I want is to have my students excel in the art classroom.  What I want is to be able to do my job.  What I want is a copier that works.  What I want is to not have to pay for copier paper out of my own pocket.  

What's a carpenter without a hammer?  

What's a mechanic without a wrench?  

What's an art teacher with out paper? 

Drawing paper is the one thing I need the most.  I've already doled out the cash for lots of other supplies.    My principal, after my diligent and yet gentle approach to asking over and over again for paper, finally responded with a "it should be doable".   

I'm grateful for my paper.  It will get me through.  It will get my students through. They're grateful for what I give them and what I share with them and that's all that matters.  

Letting the Unconscious Make Decisions

There are times when I have a gut reaction and completely ignore it. This "gut" knowledge that comes from the unconscious mind is meant to be a telling sign that there is something one should pay attention to.  I vow to pay more attention to this concept over the next ten months-inside the classroom and out-as I delve back into the world of art education. 

Malcolm Gladwell states that there are moments when too much investigation into something yields misconceptions and false outcomes.  Going with your gut is essential to survival in and out of the classroom.  So, it's imparative that I state here my very first gut reaction upon walking back into PS 298 this past Monday to set up my  art classroom: this is only a job and not a career. There I said it. Am I invested? Sure.  Everything I do, I do with aplomb. Where does this leave the idea of job versus career?  Once again I must bring up the unconscious mind. Do I trust it?  It's so fickle when exposed to different environments and subjects like summer vs. school year.  In the summer, yeah, I don't want to go back, what am I doing? I should be focused on my art and launching my art career. Right. Right.  

(I actually vow to do that this year, that is certain.  It's been a long time coming.  Once I get over the first day, it'll fly and be even be fun at moments, a lot easier than last year, easier enough to get a little more accomplished in the realm of my desirous career-art making.)

Today, on my third day of cleaning and organizing,  I saw the gleaming face of a student visiting with her mother, taking care of business before the REAL business starts next week.  When she saw me she started smiling, pulling on their mother's sleeve, saying with excitement, "Mom, that's my art teacher!" When this kind of stuff happens I have this overwhelming feeling that I'm doing the right thing by walking into one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in NYC just to expose students to the glory of art making, to show them what is possible and to uncover talents and ideas that lay dormant until drawn out.  

I realize that there's a dichotomy going here.  There is the life of the teacher, the one's that hooked on serving others; something my friend Anthony calls being a civilian.  Then there's the other life, the one that exists after 3pm, the one that exists on the weekends and during the long glorious days of the summer. So when I walked into school this week, I realize that this job is the one I should be doing right now, despite all of my complaining.  I spend a lot  of time fighting against the idea of being a teacher. Yet, when I'm have moments like the one I did today, I'm contented.  

Going into my second year of teaching in Brownsville, I realize there are somethings that are going to be a lot easier are there are somethings that are going to remain the same.  I know what they are.  It's my turn to take a step back, become less involved, to allow myself the freedom to approach what the rest of my life is about-those times after 3pm, the art work that I do, the friends, family, and intimates that I have in my life that are just as important.  There will always be a Brownsville, there will always be violence, there will always be a need for a sucker like me to launch head long into teaching art to the beautiful little faces that actually really appreciate it.  

I told a friend recently that I think I actually enjoy telling others that I work in Brownsville.  I makes me feel like a badass.  Perhaps I am.  Who knows?  What I do know is that when my feet hit the newly polished floors of PS 298 today, my gut said "This is good".  It took three days to get me there.  I've been going on all week to set up my room, meet with my Principal, and setting my mind to school mode.  Now that I'm over the hump, I know that this year will be riddled with new adventures, inside the classroom and out. 

Stay tuned for what those adventures are. 

In Anticipation

After a long hiatus, I have decided to return to the blog.  Although a colleague and I decided today NOT to begin discussing school issues, curriculum writing, lesson plans, and the like quite yet, I can't help but harbor a sense of anticipation for the new school year.

I checked my NYC Department of Ed email today for the first time in a while and saw that just yesterday I received an email from Materials For The Arts.  If you don't know about MFTA, they're a charitable organization that donates materials to schools and organizations.  It came with a listing of direct donations for the classroom that immediately piqued my interest and pointed me in the direction of having new materials for my students come fall.  I received a smart board last year through the generous donation of my principal-who is now subsequently retired-yet, it did not come with a much needed digital projector, nor the computer to run them both. I was bringing my old apple ibook in for a long time and it finally kicked the bucket. I can't bring that in, nor will I bring in my new, beautiful, macbook I just purchased.  On the direct donation list today was an apple computer and lots of other goodies that I hope are still available-including a ceramic kiln.  I cross my fingers. 

My students are dying to do research and have very limited access to computers in their homes or even the shelters where some of them live.  They crave information as much as I do.  They deserve technology in their classroom.  This will not only give them the tools they need to enter society, but it also allows me access to information that I normally have at home where I do a majority of my research, planning and curriculum development.  I will be able to give them power point presentations on a regular basis and this really excites me.  I have used this medium in the past to teach and find that I'm at such a loss without it.  

I'm eager to get the materials that we need to continue on the path of learning in the arts.  It excites my students and I know that I will be able to give them more of what they need.  So, instead to talking to colleagues about these issues, I will put it all down here and get myself ready for another year in Brownsville-mentally, physically, emotionally, with determination, intent, compassion, understanding and unconditional love.

New York City Schools Make Me Sick-Literally

It all began in February of last year at PS 295. I was "student teaching" pre-K through fourth grade art. I was working in a veritable petri dish of germs-working with little ones is like that. It started with a tickle and then a sniffle, and a fever which led to a hacking cough. After a while, it felt like someone was sitting on my chest and I couldn't breathe. This had never happened before. I'd been sick in the past, sure, and I would always get the same thing. It would always follow the same pattern, but this time it was different. I went to the doctor and she listened to my chest with a stethoscope, but heard nothing. She heard my complaints and said "Let's do a chest x-ray just in case". Ok, I was game. I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I had been student teaching the entire time and not taking any time off while sick. I wanted to make sure I had my student teaching hours in so I could complete this requirement for graduation. I was also taking grad classes, teaching yoga and waiting tables part-time. Two days later, the doctor called me back in to tell me that I had pneumonia.

What? We looked at my chest x-ray and she pointed to the infiltrates-damn them-and gave me a medicine cabinet of drugs to help me fight of these foreign particles in my left lung. Now I was forced to take time off. Because I was jacked up on steroids, wired and couped up, I spent the entire week painting. I was incredibly productive, and to be honest, I have to thank pneumonia for sending me in an entirely new direction with my work. Thank You, Pneumonia.

Cut to November, same year, I'm now working in an elementary school full-time, PS 298, where I am currently employed. I was hired in mid-September and had spent the first two weeks getting my room together, not teaching a single class until the first week of October. I was totally fine with that. The art room had been moved and I had to continue shifting about all the materials from one floor to another. I was making the room my own and getting myself mentally prepared for what I was about to get into. If I only knew...

It was a Tuesday morning, third week of November-I know this because I usually get up on Tuesdays at 5am for an early meeting at school and I wasn't feeling quite right that day. I was sitting in the meeting, starting to notice some changes in my body-aches, pains, shortness of breath, fever-y yuck yuck. Hmmm. I continued my day, my week, plowing through, getting my work done, being the responsible art teacher that I am. When Thanksgiving came around, I had a really bad fever, super high, but I went to my aunts house anyway, not wanting to miss out on the fun and my loving famliy. The rest of the weekend was spent in bed, watching some film noire pics and drifting in and out of wakefulness. When Monday rolled around, I felt good enough to go back to work, thinking, "I can handle this-it's just a cold-whatever!" And work I did. The whole week went by and by Thursday, my mentor told me that I looked like shit and that I should got to the doctor. Now that I was working for the DOE, my insurance had changed and I no longer had access to my old doctor and I really liked her. Now I had to find someone else, which I did and she's not so great-I'm in the process of looking for a new one. She's dismissive and wasn't really paying heed to my complaints. I told her that I already had pneumonia once that year, just eight months prior and she swore up and down that I didn't have it again. She listened to my lungs and heard nothing. Same as last time. I was beginning to think that this archaic form of health assessment was a crap shoot. She ordered an x-ray and told me to take the next day off. The following week she got the results, I went back in to hear the good news-I had pneumonia. Again. I hope she felt like an ass, because she was so certain that it wasn't pneumonia. I told her that I knew what it felt like at this point and she flat out told me it was impossible. Oh really? She prescribed some anti-biotics and an inhaler and sent me on my way. I was told to take some time off from school and to come back in a few weeks to make sure my lungs were clear. I pretty much taught the entire first half of the year under these conditions.

It's now March 2009 and I've been in pneumonia recovery since about January, but it's been slow. Very, very slow. I have a really hard time breathing most days and have been using an inhaler to assist me when it feels like I'm going to run out of air. I don't get it. I am a very healthy person. I practice and teach Bikram yoga. I eat well. I don't smoke. I only have a couple glasses of wine when I actually partake. For the most part, I sleep fairly well. Two weeks ago, it felt like it started all over again. I went to the doctor in a panic, thinking, OMG, this can't be round three. It wasn't and my lungs are clear. The x-ray result turn around was fairly quick and I was only given a very low dose of anti-biotics. What's going on? Why am I this ill for so long? All these questions started running through my head.

My pharmacist and I are now becoming friends. The last time I was in, he told me that he didn't want to see me anytime soon. I had been trying a myriad of inhalers, but nothing was helping my breathing. I went back to him after my last visit to the pulmonologist with a steroid script in hand, knowing that this would work, as it did during my first round pneumonia. Predinose wasn't administered to me the second time and I think that's why my recovery has been so slow.

Whilst my pharmacist and were having a chat, a man stepped up to the counter to pick up a prescription. He heard what we were talking about and put in his two cents. He was a plumber, but formerly a maintenance man in old building and told me it was probably where I was working that was making me sick. He asked if the school building was old and, I said yes, of course it is. The heat is always overbearing, so much so that I have to open the windows even when it's below freezing outside. He mentioned that there's probably still asbestos in the building and, as confirmed by my current roommate, who is in PA school, that there's a chemical they pour into the hot water pipes to keep them fluid that has been noted to be an lung irritant and to cause asthma. That very day, my lung doctor told me that I now have asthma and that it was likely environmentally based-meaning, my school was probably the cause of my breathing problems. I mentioned that I was also working in an elementary school when I got pneumonia then first time. It was an old building as well, during the cold winter months, where the heat was cranking and the widows were open.

It's the schools, I'm now certain. I was suspicious of this, but after my doctor and the maintenance guy telling me it was the schools, I began talking to other teachers in my building. One of them told me that in her old school, they found black mold and she was sick all the time. No one knew why until an air quality test was done and it revealed this dangerous irritant. Now, it's my turn. You can actually order air quality tests on line. Also, my lung doc gave me a peak flow meter-a breathing test to take with me to school and on really bad days, I have to document how much air I'm actually exhaling. I'm also to test and document my breathing on really good days. She believes that if there is a strong variability in the readings, that it is in fact my school that 's making me sick. I intend on purchasing an air quality test and giving it a whirl. I'm certain it will reveal some hard core irritants. The week I was out of school, mid-winter break, I had no problems. We'll see what happens in a few weeks during spring break. I'm sure I'll be fine. In fact, when I'm home I have no issues.

Now I know, New York City schools do make me sick.

In the event of crisis, break glass.

The snow brought a little too much joy at 6:30 Monday morning. Because I have no television to find out if school was actually canceled, I wasn't certain about my approach to the day. I woke and blindly trotted my way to the shower, just as I always do, and as I was running a brush through my hair, post lathering, I received a text from an old friend and fellow teacher, who might I add, also experienced far too much excitement over the snow day; the first in many years that NYC canceled school city wide. Both she and I have been on similar paths over the past three years, educating ourselves on education through our own particular programs-she a fellow, me returning to finally get certified through the state.

I've asked myself this before, but today I realized I had to reconnect with the question "What is teaching?" I don't feel that I'm teaching very much at my current school, though where I've taught before, I felt that I most certainly did. Right now I feel more like a very expensive babysitter, who every once in a while has a moment where a squitch of teaching comes through.

My first attempt at teaching this morning was defeated by three students in my sixth grade CTT class-collaborative team teaching for those of you not in the know. This is a combined class of special ed and regular students who have two teachers in the room with them at all times, making sure that all forms of learning are being addressed. I was unable to even talk, let alone conduct a discussion about the new topic we're covering. Of the three that were making the most noise, one is a new gang member and has gotten increasingly more disrespectful as the year rolls on. I have tried in vain to teach this kid, but he won't allow it. So be it. I've let it go. Or have I? I try all the time, but this morning, he had to be booted from the room. He and his cronies wouldn't stop disrupting the class, so I kicked them out. They kept at it for a while before I broke. I know I'm not supposed to do this, but my school has left me no choice. Many teachers at my school do the same, as administration doesn't seem to enforce consequences; the kids just laugh at you when you try and implement some form of repercussion. Well, not all of them, just the knuckleheads. If there were some form of consistent consequential action regarding behavior, maybe those few remaining kids in the class would be taught, maybe they would learn something.

So, what is teaching? The dictionary definition of teaching is to impart knowledge of or skill in; give instruction in. Synonyms range from to coach, inform, enlighten, indoctrinate, tutor, train, to edify, illustrate and imbue. It's already known to me that the some of the skills I'm giving them are merely how to be better people in an area that is suffering devastating poverty, virulent crime and unimaginable depression.

Where does the "real" teaching come in? Where's the juicy stuff, that's full of fact, speculation and concepts in art where decisions are made in the absence of rule? If there's a way to integrate the two, then I would be able to hit a home run. However, I'm still trying to figure that out what that magic formula is. For years, I've known that personalization is what gets to the root of learning in this environment, and that knowing your student's interests will provide an enormous amount of learning potential. Yet, even when I'm showing the sixth graders interviews of prominent African Americans, like Chris Rock, Sean Combs, Keenan Ivory Wayans, etc, of the Black List, you'd think, that for one moment, they'd stop and express a modicum of interest...One student did. She's consistently interested. Maybe I'm teaching just her. As a teacher you always hear people say "If you can reach one student a day, you're doing your job". Really? One? Screw that. I don't believe it.

On that note, I'm going to stop. I've been up since 5am and need to rest before I try again tomorrow. More later. Ciao.

Rockaway Avenue and beyond

For years I've kept journals. I have stacks of them, really. All of the information that I poured into those specially selected notebooks has been used for my own selfish, therapeutic reasons. In retrospect, they did a world of good for my growth and development. Perhaps the reason why I currently feel slightly detached from specific forms of growth is because I've stopped journal writing and instead have spent the past three years writing art studio lesson plans and papers on artistic and cognitive development.

Well, that's all going to change.

Having spent the past six months teaching elementary art out in Brownsville, Brooklyn, I feel it's time to put it all down. Perhaps my emotional development in relation to what I go through on a daily basis will leap forward because of the wonderful world of blogging.

After teaching privately for Creative Classrooms Teaching Artist program in a pleasant, little Catholic school in the Bronx, I now have the ability to see the stark contrast that is provided by the New York City Department of Education's public schools. I wish that I could say that I know what I'm doing and that I'm being critical because of my years of experience, but I don't and I'm not. My words are here to provide laughter, enlightenment, and to keep it real; in other words, to provide a mirror for my life, your life and anyone else's who thinks they've had it rough.

There's a lot of joy that comes from teaching out in Brownsville, as long as one keeps it real and you don't front like you know what to do when a student tells you that you were born out of your father's nut sack or when an emotionally distraught six year old is kicking your classroom door in, pounding his fists on the door, calling me a fucking bitch, and with all of my strength, I can't quite hold the door closed. I often don't know what to do in those extreme cases and have gone home crying thinking that there must have been something, anything, I could have done to help that child. As a first year public school teacher, I'm up against some of the most challenging moments of my life.

I would like to share some stories with you-mostly because my friend Jess thought that they're worth writing down and sharing with others. She's been a great sounding board on days when I thought I wanted to quit my job and run for the hills-or move to some sleepy town in Maine where I could teach art and tend cows and pigs.

Please check back regularly and subscribe. There will be more soon.