As I gear up for summer program, I will be taking a little time to reflect on my past year. My bosses at work have kept me on as a teacher, although I smell the terrifying and exciting smell of change in the air.
On May 22nd, my students (and I) participated in the 2011 Art Car Parade. You can catch some parade pictures here and the winner’s list here. I blogged about the build process here. The cost of this project: $30. Re-used lumber, re-used paint. I even got to reuse the sheet metal screws from my last Art Car project. I only spent my budget on screws and liquid nails (great stuff).
A project like this, building a mocked-up moving land shark, is a lot of fun. I get to teach some basic power tool skills, my students have to work as a team and learn some important life lessons: patience, dedication and the realization that sometimes, things are worth doing because they are simply worth doing well. How does this translate into academics?
Well, I’m not always sure. My students drafted designs, researched mechanical difficulties in Ford trucks, measured and cut numerous parts. Will this show up on a bubbled-in test? No. According to Texas’s education standards, I may not have taught them anything that can be measured – and therefore, I didn’t teach them a thing. If I could post a picture of my students gathered around their Art Car and you could see the look on their faces, I think I could change some hearts and minds. I think I taught them pride in themselves.
Scratch that. I didn’t teach them pride. I found a way to allow my students to build pride in themselves. With their hands, with their minds and with their hearts. And most importantly, with a smile on their faces. And I wouldn’t ever want to quantify pride with a test.
Make it safe & keep the rubber side down.
Filed under Art Car, Classroom Project, Education, Teaching Philosophies
The 16″ childrens’ bike project has cleared my outbox. I’m busy in reflection mode with the students, examining all the different parts of our work for ways to improve the product, teaching and quality next time. I thought the bike itself came out well:
If you’ve followed the blog over the past two months, then you’ve seen some of the progress. If you haven’t, or are interested in doing this yourself, the I’ll recap the project after the jump.
Filed under Classroom Project, Education, Teaching Strategies, Technology, Workshop
What exactly am I to make of this?
It sits in the outdoor storage area at work. What should I turn it into? My co-workers grabbed it on a supply run I wasn’t invited on.
Oh, and the bikes have been delivered, well some anyways, for the chop class. Eventually we will get them in shape to participate in this parade in May.
Filed under Classroom Project, Workshop
Put up an instructable (finally). You can find it here.
Meaning to get to this one. It’s a bracket for the EZpass on my bike. When I remove the tag itself, gives the bike a cafe-racer look. Pretty sweet.
Filed under Workshop
