Thursday, 21st of September, 2006
2:41 pm on the 21st of September, 2006That was a good day! ?rd year graphics first off, most of the class are getting to the stage where the ask for help out of habit and when I go to help they tell me exactly what they are going to do and it’s the right thing. Easy. Start on something different next week, maybe sectional drawings.
Then S2, thisis a class that have been copying out of books for too long while their usual teacher has been off. The main problem is that I can’t teach them practical work unless there’s a qualified tech teacher there, but today I hedged my bets that the teacher would be back next week and started them marking out their material. I managed to spin out the lesson so that they were occupied the whole time and were doing something more relevant than other periods. It was pretty satisfying to be able to come into a class and just teach it without having to have spent a long time preparig and just wing it. Obviously not the best practice when I’m going to be getting crits but it is more like the real teaching world.
Then S2 after break, unfortunately the PT was called away for personal reasons and missed the lesson but I was able to get them started on written work that they had started on Tuesday - again I couldn’t teach them any practical things.
Next period I had off to prepare for things so I made up a sheet of six isometric cubes and made a sample sheet of them rendered in different materials.
After lunch it was a joyous S4 class in the library. These are a buch of kids who have sat and done next to nothing on their folio for about three weeks. The other class is far ahead. I tried being a bit more authoritative with them this time, there are a group of about 4 who talk constantly so I tried standing right by them at the start and jumping straigh in when one of them talked, it had no effect whatsoever, the one I would be talking to would just answer back or try to justify their shouting or occasionally be quiet while the others just carried on talking. It was infuriating, the other teacher doesn’t have much luck with them either - it’s a constant stream of low level interruptions.
I got to finish off the week with S1 graphics though and that was fun. I started off by reminding them of all the different things toremember while rendering and got them to render one of the cubes in pencil with different sides darker or lighter depending on the light direction - they managed very well. I got as far as doing an aluminium block and some started a piece of pine when I was reminded that we onl;y had a couple of minutes left. There was a little difficulty getting them to stand around the table so everyone could see each time but with a little pestering they got the hang of it.
