Counting down

The countdown is definitely on. I've posted information about my Fellowship on the board at school. I've been passing out the URL for this blog to anyone who cares to follow along. I've had my students helping me figure out the exchange rate from dollars to Euros. They've been assisting in figuring out my budget. We've talked about Barcelona, Spain, soccer, and more. Almost all of their work is returned. Looking around my classroom, I'm about half finished. I'm hoping to finish up tomorrow. I must have everything in my room boxed and put up by the end of the day Thursday. Friday morning the contractors come and start moving furniture and boxes about, so there won't be any more opportunities to straighten anything up after Thursday afternoon. I've been online looking at Barcelona info, collecting apps and ebooks, and generally setting up to go. I have apps that translate Spanish to English and back again. I found a children's app for learning Catalan. It works for me! All my travel books are loaded in to my various i-devices. I'm looking forward to this weekend when I can truly focus in on this trip. By this time on next week I'll be on my second day in Barcelona! Gaudí, Picasso, Miró, Dalí here I come!

Technical difficulties

It always seems that technical malfunctions happen at the worst of times. I try to remember to never say, "Let me show you how easy this is . . . " or "Let me show you how well this works . . . " I am absolutely sure that those are the famous last words of someone who met their demise strangled in a mass of cords and cables. Right as I'm testing out gear, in between all the tasks that have to be completed before the end of school and my departure for Spain, my e-mail decides to malfunction. My primary account was determined to neither send nor receive mail. ARGH!!! I went on line. I checked the help desk. I followed directions. I printed out pages of instructions. Nothing, nada, zilch, zip, as a matter of fact, things only got worse, if that was possible. The final instructions said to delete, yes, you heard me right, delete the account and start over. After much nail biting, lip chewing, file moving anxiety I pushed the button. You guessed it, it was not a success. It was an abject failure. Oh, the account was deleted alright. The problem was I couldn't set it up again. I got message after message telling me that either my user name and password was incorrect. I could go no farther. I was finally reduced to calling the tech help line and relinquishing control of my computer to a perfect stranger. Ruth walked me through the whole horrid ordeal. In a few short moments she had me up and running again. I spent this morning, before the frantic e-mail fail, setting up techno-gear and accounts for the trip across the pond. I'm ticking off the items on my plan. Data plan, check. Text messaging, check. E-mail, check, thank you, Ruth! This time next week I'll be on my way to Spain!

Good news from the Fund for Teachers

On 29 March 2012 I was sitting in the Fort Lauderdale airport feeling like something the cat dragged in. I'm compulsive about being on time so I had a while to wait before my flight. It had been a rough trip all around. While the turn of events in Florida had been better than I originally expected, it wasn't good news. With nothing better to do, I begin checking my e-mail. My whole day changed when I read: "Fund for Teachers Fellows, Congratulations! Fund for Teachers is incredibly proud to call each of you a 2012 Fellow. We wait with anticipation to hear more about your incredible journeys this summer." I had been making plans to spend my summer cleaning house, but all that changed with that one simple message. I could clean house after I got back. I had received my third Fund for Teachers Fellowship! I wish I could show you in vivid detail how much the Fund for Teachers has meant to me so far. I'll give it a try, but I really can't do it justice. In 2002 I received my first Fund for Teachers Fellowship. I asked to go to Europe and see the artworks that I teach about first hand. I had been to Mexico before and I once went to Canada for about fifteen minutes, but that was the farthest I had traveled from home. The Fund for Teachers had said to plan my dream professional development and I did. I never believed that anyone would say, "Yes." I think the hardest part was realizing that now I really had to go! Lo and behold, off I went! I spent a month touring Europe, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Nice, Venice, Orvieto and back to Amsterdam. I traveled alone. I purchased round trip airfare and a Eurail pass and off I flew. It was the most eye opening trip of my life. Traveling by train and booking a room through the tourist office in each city kept everything exciting. I returned home with a wealth of new experience and knowledge. I brought back souvenirs and materials to use in my art room. I brought back a new self-confidence. If I could undertake this trip and survive, I could do anything. Most importantly, I had a new found empathy for my Spanish speaking students and their parents. This first Fellowship opened the flood gate. I saved my nickels and dimes all the next year. The summer of 2003 I returned to Italy, spent time with a friend in Orvieto where she taught me to knit, and looked at art in Florence and Rome. My second Fellowship in 2007 is documented in this blog. I followed in the footsteps of Georgia O'Keeffe across the Texas Panhandle where she taught art and on to Santa Fe, New Mexico and beyond. The next summer, 2008, I received a Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund Fellowship. I spent eighteen days with a group of American teachers as guests of the Japanese government. You can find that trip on this blog also. I want to thank Raymond Plank, the man who founded the Fund for Teachers, and all the donors who make these fellowships possible. You have no idea how much your contributions mean to the teachers who received Fellowships. The effects of your giving ripple out from teachers through their students and the community. From the bottom of my heart, thank you one and all.

It's been a little while, but here I go again!

Here I am again. I didn't realize how long it had been since I'd logged in here.

I've been so busy that a lot of things fell by the way side. I've been on my school's Shared Decision Making Committee for the past three years and I've been one of three area representatives for Area 6 of Texas Art Education Association for the past six years. I'm lead specialist/core enrichment teacher on my campus and I've spent this last year serving on the Student Performance Work Group for my district. I was chosen TAEA Elementary Division Outstanding Art Educator of the Year for 2011.

There's been a lot more going on than all of this, but what I'm really excited about right now is the opportunity to go to Spain this summer courtesy of the Fund for Teachers. I'll be in Catalonia to study Spanish, Catalan, Modernist architecture, particularly Antoni Gaudí, and the lives and work of Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Salvador Dalí. I'll be focusing on the ceramic and mosaic works of these artists. I plan to use Barcelona as my base of operations with trips to Reus, Mont-roig, Figueres, Cadaqués, and Mallorca.

Once back stateside I'll be developing lessons for my art room incorporating ceramics, mosaics, math and science.

Stay tuned, the journey has only barely begun.