Well, here it is June 10, 2011 and I am about to enter my final post to this blog. I just now looked at a couple of numbers I thought were particularly significant. The first is that today in the stats of the blog I see that to date there were exactly 4000 views of this blog since August of 2010 when I started it. I don't know how successful that number is in relation to other blogs, but I am encouraged that so many of you have taken the time to take a look at our art work. Each time I look at the stats, I am amazed at the wide variety of places in the world where this is viewed. Russia, Slovenia, Australia, India, China, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Suriname, South Korea, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Brazil, Nigeria, Canada, United States, Hong Kong, and Poland to name a few. I have told my students all year long that you have been out there seeing what they have been doing and how I have enjoyed bringing their art to you. The other significant number I saw today is that this will be my 88th posting to the blog. I had thought when I began that I would try to post at least once for each day I taught. Since I am a half time teacher, I only teach 90 days out of 180. So I aimed for 90. But those of you who know me personally know how meaningful the number 8 is to me. So, since we DID miss a couple of days to ice storms, I will find this post to be achieving my goal and ending on the double 8 as well.
As I think back on the experience of dreaming up and putting into place this year's curriculum, I feel as though I have benefitted greatly from the process. I'll never know what sort of long term impact it will have had on the students I had in class. Many of them said they enjoyed the class and the process. I can only hope that the idea of intrinsic motivation that I harped on all year will mean something to them in years to come. Who knows, maybe they'll contact me through facebook years from now and tell me how it helped them in their careers. Watch me hold my breath. For me the important thing was to see the individual effort and satisfaction of doing a good job I saw as they completed each assignment. They would ask my opinion and I would ask them, "do you like it?" They invariably said yes. Then I would say, "you did a good job and should be proud to what you accomplished". Notice how "grades" did not enter the conversation?
The doing of the blog was quite challenging. I would usually sit down on my day off and put together my notes. I din't get into recording the students working and their work until well into the second unit.
At first I was very bothered by the lack of comments. I would knock myself out putting together a movie, or a slide show, or just some great art works...nothing. Overall, there were 25 comments over the nine months and 4000 views. My daughter, Kateri, who works for a radio station, said not to worry about it, their shows get no comments either. So I concentrated on the number of views and stayed encouraged and motivated. Thank all of you for being there.
I have prepared a 10 summary/review of the year and am posting it here. Just me talking about the year and the lessons. It may dawn on me to add to this blog later this summer. If I do, I hope you are a follower so you will know about it. Until then, or until next year, so long.
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