So now as I approach the busiest time of my working year, this blog becomes about the Art of Time Management as much as about the Art of Teaching! As I work forwards into the GCSE marking stage of the year, pretty much everything else stops as hours of grading kick in for me…
Yet… I still want the artist to have a little life. As vice versa, he now supports the teacher – offering relief from the comparisons, the backwards and forwards of the order of merit in the course work finally submitted… the pressure of necessity to get it right; to get the best I can for my pupils… whilst they plow on with the pressure and huge ask of the externally set exam…
… Other Year groups also need catering for… as a one man department I cannot stop teaching those who will over the next few years also seek examination… they need feeding, nourishing and challenging. Things cannot stop.
The artist works quietly; occasionally sat at the front of the room, another pupil sharing in the workspace, preparing the ideas and initial sketches for his up coming show in October – which will soon be here… An equilibrium exists for now… balance… teaching and Art harmonized…
Other students come up and question the work… discussion breaks out and new ideas evolve from their curiosity… it feeds their work to, showing them an artist at work… a teacher capable of doing what is taught… an example… an exemplar…
Things start to fit together… sense makes sense… the thoughts and storms correspond at last and slots for various tasks are allocated. Teacher teaches artist and artist teaches teacher. There is an Art in this, a pattern, a formula. Cohabitation is possible… the best of both… like sliced bread…
Structure is imperative. The pupil needs order, so why not the artist? The artist craves that adventure, that discovery. So why not the pupil? (I worry that all I do is repeat everything that I have written before, just changing the words… semantics… but for me this is process… onion skinning… layer removing until I reach that point of clarity that moves me forward… rekindles my confidence, enables my teaching… my learning… my making.
I don’t know how much time I can give to this for the next few months. I will try and sustain one blog per week… if only briefly. This to is a part of my medication. This, my subconscious thought helps clarify and allows me to go home calm and whole… baggage left on the doorstep.
My second blog also needs nurturing. It carries different responsibility… occupies and illuminates the processes that I explore. It is closely linked to this… this being responsible for it’s own existence… besides it has a moral voice within that questions and brings me back in the form of Elena… unlike here… yet still echoes resonance…
Education… timetable!
Timetable? Six 50 minute periods a day. Six different subjects. Six separate opportunities to time manage… Art and teaching linked. Lesson learnt. Solution found… and then the bonus of the “free”… my time… Bo time… playtime… artist time… five times a week… this time…
I have the time.
