Whirling Dervishes==> Whirlwind semester

I came to Cairo to complete my student teaching. I came, and did so much more than that. This experience has blessed me, pushed me, and pulled me in so many ways. My placement at Cairo American College, working with Joan, Neil, Michael and the rest of the CAC staff was the most amazing blessing to start with. I cannot fully express my gratitude at being in such a professionally minded atmosphere, quite the transition from undergraduate work. I observed and learned from example how to demand the best from my students as well as myself. My students were absolutely incredible, literally unbelievable at times, and will always hold a place in my heart. Cairo pushed me to accept and acclimate to change. Pushed me to yet again shed my personal bubble and immerse myself in a new culture and language. Then once I allowed it to push, I felt it pull me in and capture my attention and appreciation. My experiences at CAC are too numerous to even begin to count; from back to school night, to my after school program, middle school play and talent shows, parent teacher conferences, setting up art displays, creating progress reports, revising standards, and chaperoning on the prime trip to the White Desert as well as the outing to Islamic Cairo. While this list goes on and on, the list of experiences and accomplishments outside the walls of CAC continues even further to Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel, Alexandria, Nuweiba, every corner of Cairo, museums galore, the khan, Cairo Tower, faluca rides, family dinners on Fridays, the street of the tentmakers, jazz concerts at the Citadel, numerous trips to the best sobia shop in Zeinab, womping in the waadi, and on and on to the top of Mt. Sinai. I will never forget these 5 months spent living up every moment of Egyptian culture and will truly miss this life I’ve found. I leave knowing that I will return again, insha’allah.

Camping with 21 kids...

...Is an adventure. I spent the past four days hiking and camping in the White Desert of Egypt with a group of 8th grade students from Cairo American College. To be honest, I was blessed with a slightly lethargic group---I would have liked to have hiked longer and faster but we kept at a nice pace to observe the scenery and I got to know several of the students really well through long chats. We spent the week with an incredible tour guide, Ziad,

and had two jeep drivers and camel tenders with us to set up camp and cook great food each day. I slept under the stars, we scattered our sleeping bags all over the camp sites and soaked up an amazing night view of more stars than I've ever been able to see in my entire life. The whole desert by day looked like the moon, crazy white rock formations all around... really beautiful.. .

The week without technology, bathrooms, or beds led to a certain amount of complaining by the tweens, but by the end of the week, everyone had come to realize how great it was to be away from the fast paced world we live in. Personally, I loved it. I love getting away, cutting off connections that make life so hectic from day to day... I listened to silence (though often mixed with middle school chatter), sketched and journaled, and really took advantage of the Arabic speaking camp crew to learn more and more Arabic. I was actually understanding a good deal of conversations they had around the campfire the last night.... that's a good feeling. Definitely added kindling to the personal spark to learn the language that already existed within me...

It was nice to get away, but nice to come home last night too... My friends greeted me and welcomed me back home with a night out catching up and eating ice cream :) It's nice to be missed......... that's another sure sign you've made a home for yourself..... Already less than a week away until my next big trip all over Egyptland--Luxor, Aswan, Sinai.... Time to throw the hands in the air for the downhill plunge and laugh and exclaim my way through this month....

The moments I live for.

"This class is about your own art. We learned to think out of the box. And how to use a different media in one masterpiece of art."
-6th grade mixed media student reflection
(possibly my favorite student if we teachers were allowed to have those)

"Miss Martens, why do you call it a piece of art?..."

...It's a masterpiece.

I have done it. I crossed that bridge, made it over the hump... Training wheels are falling off, wings are ready to fly. It's been a wonderful week as a teacher with classes filled with magical moments. The last few weeks have been such a weight...so busy, stressful, felt like nothing really quite went as planned (see, why plan?? jk). Somehow though, I pulled myself back together, woke my classes up, shifted us into the perfect position to make not just good art, but great art.... As my brilliant student in mixed media put it this week, they aren't "pieces" of art... they are masterpieces.

I really pushed my students this week.. more than I perhaps normally would have been comfortable pushing... and they responded... by turning their pieces of art into masterpieces. I am so proud of the art they produced, the way they worked, and how they allowed my guidance to move them forward. They proved that they have truly absorbed what I have been teaching them these past 6 weeks, and that it has made an impact on how they think not only in art but in so many parts of their lives.

I have always lived by the motto "it's about process, not product"...but this week I pushed my students and myself to not allow a weak product to represent such a rich process... Middle school and high school students alike, we're on a good page now, moving in a very good direction and pace... These kids are thinking like artists. And that my friends, is the ultimate goal.

Middle school art display is up and looking good for parent teacher conferences tomorrow. I think they'll like what they are seeing....

Reaching the top...

after the first two month climb through this student teaching experience. I'm liking the view so far (both in teaching and many views of the Cairo cityscape I've found) I've hit halfway in my teaching placement (actually half way plus one week).. I have two.5 weeks left of full time teaching in my classes to really wrap up some lessons, before the month of November traveling arrives and these last 9 weeks are going to *fly* by with a flash. I'm starting to actually seriously make a "to-do" list of things to visit here in Cairo before I leave and considering actually planning out when to do them to make sure I fit them all in.. though.. we all know how my planning goes...........

I've had a few really wonderful moments outside of the classroom with my students the last few days... Moments where I see them in their day to day activities (volleyball practice, soccer games, MS play, HS Green Team visit to the Garbage City recycling center, even simply buying ice cream at the mall)... It's connecting with students inside and out that really truly makes the link between teacher and student strongest.

This week I have parent teacher conferences to prepare grades and student reports for, projects to finish and display for said conferences, and new projects underway in my high school classes. Plenty to keep me busy, on top of that pesky teacher work sample still plugging along not quite complete.....it will be done November 1 though... that's the personal deadline, 10 week-ish-deadline from UNI, day I leave for the white desert, and day Kristi arrives from UNI (whom I'm hoping can take my lovely little beauty of a paper back with her)...

“Adventure is a path...

...Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

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So. I'm in the full grind of teaching 6 separate courses, in 3 separate classrooms, in addition to my after school art program and parent teacher conferences right around the corner when grades come due. On my toes? I think so. Treading water to stay afloat?... Perhaps...It's just one of those weeks where a few extra inspired words never did anyone harm... Those of you who have traveled may relate to these words as I have... There's more where these came from here... enjoy!

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“All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.” – Paul Fussell

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard

“Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” – Paul Theroux

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

I am teaching here, I haven't forgotten that part...

But sometimes my updates may make it seem as though the whole Student Teaching thing is taking a back seat to my social exploration lifestyle. I will admit, things have been going really well these last 7 weeks of teaching...but it's getting to be more and more of a reality every day... With mounds of planning and preparation building up and trying to keep on top of all of the meetings and communications with the middle school, high school, and my cooperating teachers..Most of my student teaching friends are ending their first placement and switching over to their new classroom right now for the second 8 weeks, but I've got my unique situation where I'm teaching in both rooms for 17 weeks so there is no switch over...just adding on...

I've worked in the elementary during a few planning periods, and starting this week I'll be teaching silk painting in the other middle school art room-a first for me. I'm excited but it also requires prep time and figuring out what and how I present the information to the new group of students. High school gave me a really rough time on Thursday. It was last period, Mr. Crouch was gone for the day, and they just decided to find their attitudes. I was really frustrated until I realized it was a surprise and blessing that I hadn't been challenged like that before. Just another moment to learn from and reflect on.. And all the more motivation to come in this week with my A game on... A recap of my teaching so far,

I've taught Exploratory Art with 6 graders (just switched to a new group of students this week). We made "Me Stars", Kaleidoscope Kites usin oil pastels, and their own sketch books. The new group is making altered books... (Had to adjust my oil pastel lesson to use white and paper clips to scratch away areas that got too muddy and thick with pastels)

My middle school mixed media class has been working on their altered books for several weeks. We've explored collage, texture, color, using a variety of media and writing...I've been using the school flip cam to record discussions during this class for documentation...

Middle School sculpture made clay seascapes and now we're working on our recycling bobble head project with plaster and mixed media...(I learned you should not give students water before they cut their plaster strips or you'll have a messy ocean of plaster covering the tables)

High School printmaking made graffiti tags and now are learning relief printing; using styrofoam to learn the process and the qualities of a good print...it will be leading into another form of printmaking along the theme of 1000 awesome things...



Ceramics created textured tag mugs, classical pots, and are currently learning to glaze (assuming anything I told them sunk in on Thursday)... I'm working on lining up a guest artist to come in and talk to the students about her work next week.

It's keeping me busy.. the big thing I still need to work on is documentation and the busier I get, the less formal, written out planning ahead I do... I continually need to keep myself in check and think through details over and over... I am hoping/assuming this will get easier/better/more of a habit the longer I teach.......

Of all the days to leave my camera at home...

today was absolutely PACKED with priceless incredible moments as a teacher in Middle School. My mixed media and 6th grade exploratory classes went so. so. well. Group diaglogue, students teaching one another, lightbulbs clicking, discussing global issues spontaneously, connecting art to other subjects... and of course.. the twinkle in my students' eyes.......

It was a very good day for Miss Martens...

From 6th graders to 6 year olds...

Today I my prep periods with lunch to go shadow and help in the elementary art rooms for the first time. I was able to sit in on KGE and 2W art (kinders and 2nd graders). What a switch. I used to swear I would teach elementary art; through field experiences I have grown to love middle schoolers more and more (and am continuing to here at CAC), but working with these tiny little paint shirt clad students was really a wonderful trip back to raw creativity where water bottles full of neon pink and green are used to splatter paint watermelon backgrounds.



Next thoughts in life: get cracking on that TWS, long holiday weekend for Eid (look for a sad end of Ramadan/end of my favorite lantern filled midan post this weekend), Egyptian Museum and other touristy site to see this weekend, and lots of lots of lesson plan/evaluation writing to get ready for turning in grades next week and preparing for my whirlwind of a month in October...oh. did I mention the real world is rapidly approaching and I need to get my resume in shape and start looking for jobs and applying for overseas recruiting fairs.. oh yeah.. that too........