Another Random Blog Post

I have lots of thoughts swirling around in my head, and they probably don't all belong in the same post.  If I were more dedicated, I'd separate them out.  As it is, you just get a hodge-podge for a post.

First off, I've been thinking about my job, lately.

I still like teaching art.  That will probably never change.  But there are times when it starts to feel like it is not enough.  I love teaching the 5th and 6th grade classes.  The are so fun and I really feel like they are learning significant art skills from me.  Third and fourth grade are OK, because I can start to teach real skills with them, even if I won't see results from those lessons for a few years.  Kindergarten, First, and Second grade are the worst!  Those kids are just so little and squirmy!  They have no attention span, and many of the projects I do with them are frustrating for me.  They feel less like art lessons and more like play time with paint... x30.  Classroom management becomes more important than the lessons themselves.  Or rather, the lesson is about how to manage your behavior around all this fun stuff, not art itself.

So, I look forward to my 'big kids' and dread my 'little ones'.  The morning is full of 'big kids' and awesome lessons.  The afternoon is all about the 'little ones' and just surviving the next big mess.  Of course, the 'little ones' think their lessons are awesome, too.  I'm the only one craving more.

I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if my job did not involve caring for other people's offspring.  If I could be paid for work done in an adult setting.  As my own children get older and older, the divide between my home life and work life grows ever wider.  Everything happening at home is done at an adult level.  At work I have to remind myself sometimes that they are only little children and I have to shift mentalities to deal with them.  Sometimes I wish I didn't have to make that mental shift.

I daydream about going back to school for my masters degree.  Most teachers work on a masters in the field of education to move themselves up the pay brackets.  Most of my coworkers are either working on or have their masters.  I'm not interested in another education degree, however.

I want to get a Masters of Architecture.

The only problem is money.  That particular masters program would take me 3+ years to complete, because my undergrad is not architecture.  Working a job and that particular masters program at the same time is not realistic.  Three plus years of graduate level tuition is not realistic.  Starting a new career at this point in my life is not realistic.  Leaving a secure job of any kind in this economic climate is not realistic.  None of it is any kind of realistic.

And so it is just a daydream.




The second thing stewing around in my head is the economy itself.  I got to thinking about the past vs. the present.  You know, my parent's life as breadwinners and my own.

Dad never went to college.  He worked hard all those years to earn enough to support a wife and six kids.  Mom stayed at home and raised us.  We were solidly middle class... with only one wage earner supporting a family of EIGHT!

I graduated from college.  Bill and I both work.  We only have three kids.  That's a family of five.  We are solidly middle class, but only because we are both working and we only have to support two kids right now.

HOW DID MY PARENTS DO IT?!?

They were able to do it because the cost of living was much smaller back in the day.  The income to cost of living was much more comfortable back then.  Today, the cost of living has skyrocketed much faster than income levels.  According to one article I read recently, an average worker of today needs to make about $25,000.00 more per year than a worker did a generation ago, just to make ends meet.

That's just depressing.

It's getting harder and harder to stay in the middle class.





The third thing rattling around in my head is about the tutoring sessions I'm doing.

I hate how powerless I feel in the face of learning disabilities.  To look the same child in the face day in and day out and see that she has not absorbed a single thing I have been trying to teach her!  She is so far behind the learning curve that I fear for her future.  We have been working with money this week, trying to help the students understand about adding and subtracting money, the idea being to help them realize it is just like any other adding/subtracting... just with a decimal thrown in.  Most of the kids in the group are plugging away at problems, only needing help here and there over decimal placement or borrowing/carrying over types of stuff.  She sits there with a deer-in-the-headlights sort of look on her face and waits for me to come work one on one with her because she can't do even the most basic addition.  I ask her, "What is 3+2?"

Her response is "2?"  So I have to help her find the answer of "5".

I ask her, "What is 6-0?"

"0?"  You can see that she has no idea, so she just parrots back the last number I said, hoping it might be the answer.  Not even saying "if you have six gumballs, and I take none of them away from you..." works for her.  She just doesn't know.  I once spent an entire session just with her, because the rest of the kids were no shows.  By the end of the session, she was doing simple adding ALL BY HERSELF!  I felt great!  The very next day she remembered none of it.

And so it goes.

As part of our money unit, I built a little 'store' in the back of the room and gave them all fake money to spend.  They had to choose two items from the store and add up how much they would cost.  Then they had to round up to the next dollar.  So, if the two items cost $12.76, they were supposed to bring $13 to the cashier (me), but they had to know how much change they were supposed to get back, because I might try to trick them and only give back a penny!  Most of the kids struggle with the concept of change.  This little girl struggled with all of it.  She couldn't add her two items together.  She couldn't figure out what the next whole dollar amount should be.  She couldn't remember what denomination each coin was worth.  She couldn't add them up to the total she needed, anyways.  When it was time to pay, she just brought up her whole wad of cash and handed it over with no idea of how much she'd handed me, or how much she was supposed to get back.

Aurgh!

And yet her teacher says she is showing some improvement from attending my tutoring sessions.  So I keep at it, hoping someday it'll make a difference.


*****

Editor's note:  Apparently, I made an error when I stated that my dad never went to college.  My Mom sent me an e-mail to set me straight.  Dad did, in fact, go to night school, and spent many a night/early morning writing college papers.  He gave up his studies 3 semesters short of the diploma because it was too much of a strain to try to go to school and support a family at the same time.  Having said that, it doesn't really change the point of the post.  My Dad was able to comfortably support a large family on his earnings without a college diploma back in the day.  While my Mom stayed home and cared for the kids.  I just don't think the same thing is doable anymore.