A letter from a recently laid off Arts Teacher.

[gxnelson]

It's a powerful read.

My principal hugged me yesterday as I left school after hours. It was a deep hug of regret and understanding. She does not want me to go, although it has become clear that I will be going, and no longer be under her watchful and guiding eye. She does not choose to let me go, nor does she choose to keep putting papers in my mailbox that say, "RIF teacher" and "Displaced". She won't have to after June. After June, my ten year relationship with Canterbury will end. I began as a theatre teacher, and when I became a credentialed classroom teacher, I continued to volunteer with the theatre program while teaching full time and raising my own children. I have ELD 2-5 students in my program and children receiving RSP services as well as parent volunteers with limited English and fluent English. We all act, paint, build sets and celebrate Canterbury Elementary School's community together by putting on original plays.

The art teacher at Canterbury does not want me to go either, because I integrate art lessons into my classroom. I use clay and glaze to teach chemistry, geology and botany to kindergardeners. I teach setting, character and story structure using water colors. Many teachers at my school do this. They are willing to be trained and absorb the new. They know that it is through training in the arts and teaching through art that tolerance, good character, problem solving and higher level thinking are instilled in children. If our society wants scientists and mathematicians who think out of the box and keep us competitive with other countries, then infusing arts instruction into our schools is more vital than ever. Eliminating all formal art instruction and professional development destroys the chance for this generation of children and youth to develop into the kind of inventive thinkers that will help our society achieve. I have two children in LAUSD being directly affected by this trend. Through the years I have noticed that the science and math teachers with a wide scope of life experiences and artistic interests and training have engaged my own children much more fully than the teachers who have a narrow scope of their subject and their students. My arts training began as a toddler and continued throughout my entire life, and I am a better elementary school teacher because of it. It gave me the multicultural outlook I have today.

I should be teaching next year at Canterbury Avenue Elementary School. The principal, the parents and the students want me to stay. What a world you have created at LAUSD where the participants have little voice. I can sense the learned helplessness in these children as it dawns upon them that the quality and well being of the staff that teaches them matters not to those in charge. They understand now exactly how your bureaucracy and society view them and it is an understanding that comes with insecurity and dread for the coming year.

Cooperate, collaborate, create!

 

[Sunni Man]

She just needs to go back to school and get a "real" degree in a subject that matters.

Like in science, biology, chemistry, math, etc.

 

[gxnelson]

IF you actually read it, she does have a "real" teaching credential. And, that's really not the point of the letter.

 

[Sunni Man]

IF you actually read it, she does have a "real" teaching credential. And, that's really not the point of the letter.

She is just whining because the school doesn't want to pay her to teach the kids Art.

Let them learn "art" at home with a box of crayons and some paper.

Because they need to learn "real" subjects in school.

 

[gxnelson]

Right because learning out of a book is a great way to engage kids....

 

[Ariux]

What a nincompoop that woman is.

 

[Cenotaph]

She just needs to go back to school and get a "real" degree in a subject that matters.

Like in science, biology, chemistry, math, etc.

Art... any art... whether it's the visual arts, music, theater, or architecture has played a tremendous role throughout human civilization, and to see someone dismiss that "subject" as being nonessential/unimportant brings me great pain.

 

[Katzndogz]

In other news, Planned Parenthood opened an office in an LAUSD high school. That's where the money is going.

It isn't that I question the expenditure of funds for a creative arts teacher, of course I do. It has gotten so bad, that social programming classes are even squeezing out other social programming classes. That she incorporates chemistry into clay and glaze classes doesn't mean she is a chemistry teacher. She is an arts teacher and teaching art is a luxury that even proponents of gay history no longer can afford.

This teacher had a choice, she could have been a chemistry teacher but chose to be an arts teacher. She made a poor decision. Who is going to pay for her poor decision?

She has several options, go to a private art school and apply for a job. Take on students privately and have her own school. Or, she can go back to school herself and find a more worthwhile subject to teach.

 

[Cenotaph]

In other news, Planned Parenthood opened an office in an LAUSD high school. That's where the money is going.

It isn't that I question the expenditure of funds for a creative arts teacher, of course I do. It has gotten so bad, that social programming classes are even squeezing out other social programming classes. That she incorporates chemistry into clay and glaze classes doesn't mean she is a chemistry teacher. She is an arts teacher and teaching art is a luxury that even proponents of gay history no longer can afford.

This teacher had a choice, she could have been a chemistry teacher but chose to be an arts teacher. She made a poor decision. Who is going to pay for her poor decision?

She has several options, go to a private art school and apply for a job. Take on students privately and have her own school. Or, she can go back to school herself and find a more worthwhile subject to teach.

How is teaching art a luxury, and how was becoming an art teacher a poor decision?

 

[gxnelson]

You guys to realize she's an elementary school teacher and not a high school teacher right???

 

[Katzndogz]

In other news, Planned Parenthood opened an office in an LAUSD high school. That's where the money is going.

It isn't that I question the expenditure of funds for a creative arts teacher, of course I do. It has gotten so bad, that social programming classes are even squeezing out other social programming classes. That she incorporates chemistry into clay and glaze classes doesn't mean she is a chemistry teacher. She is an arts teacher and teaching art is a luxury that even proponents of gay history no longer can afford.

This teacher had a choice, she could have been a chemistry teacher but chose to be an arts teacher. She made a poor decision. Who is going to pay for her poor decision?

She has several options, go to a private art school and apply for a job. Take on students privately and have her own school. Or, she can go back to school herself and find a more worthwhile subject to teach.

How is teaching art a luxury, and how was becoming an art teacher a poor decision?

Because of budget cuts she lost her job. Schools cut the luxury classes first, art, music, then sports programs, surprisingly, even schools try to keep core subjects. She chose to be an art teacher, she got let go, it was her decision to be an art teacher. The thing speaks for itself, she chose poorly, res ipsa loquitur.

 

[gxnelson]

In other news, Planned Parenthood opened an office in an LAUSD high school. That's where the money is going.

It isn't that I question the expenditure of funds for a creative arts teacher, of course I do. It has gotten so bad, that social programming classes are even squeezing out other social programming classes. That she incorporates chemistry into clay and glaze classes doesn't mean she is a chemistry teacher. She is an arts teacher and teaching art is a luxury that even proponents of gay history no longer can afford.

This teacher had a choice, she could have been a chemistry teacher but chose to be an arts teacher. She made a poor decision. Who is going to pay for her poor decision?

She has several options, go to a private art school and apply for a job. Take on students privately and have her own school. Or, she can go back to school herself and find a more worthwhile subject to teach.

How is teaching art a luxury, and how was becoming an art teacher a poor decision?

Because of budget cuts she lost her job. Schools cut the luxury classes first, art, music, then sports programs, surprisingly, even schools try to keep core subjects. She chose to be an art teacher, she got let go, it was her decision to be an art teacher. The thing speaks for itself, she chose poorly, res ipsa loquitur.

I began as a theatre teacher, and when I became a credentialed classroom teacher

A regular classroom teacher, let go because she integrated arts into her class. She taught the core subjects but the school didn't think she was valuable enough.

Not an art teacher. Just a teacher who decided to use art as a way of teaching.

 

[Cenotaph]

In other news, Planned Parenthood opened an office in an LAUSD high school. That's where the money is going.

It isn't that I question the expenditure of funds for a creative arts teacher, of course I do. It has gotten so bad, that social programming classes are even squeezing out other social programming classes. That she incorporates chemistry into clay and glaze classes doesn't mean she is a chemistry teacher. She is an arts teacher and teaching art is a luxury that even proponents of gay history no longer can afford.

This teacher had a choice, she could have been a chemistry teacher but chose to be an arts teacher. She made a poor decision. Who is going to pay for her poor decision?

She has several options, go to a private art school and apply for a job. Take on students privately and have her own school. Or, she can go back to school herself and find a more worthwhile subject to teach.

How is teaching art a luxury, and how was becoming an art teacher a poor decision?

Because of budget cuts she lost her job. Schools cut the luxury classes first, art, music, then sports programs, surprisingly, even schools try to keep core subjects. She chose to be an art teacher, she got let go, it was her decision to be an art teacher. The thing speaks for itself, she chose poorly, res ipsa loquitur.

It's a poor choice from a perspective concerned with financial security, but not so much from a perspective that is more concerned with pursuing an interest or passion.

Anyways... you didn't answer the first part of my question. How is art education a luxury?

 

[Sherry]

Where is your link, please??

 

[Kiki Cannoli]

Surely Sunni you don't mean what you write. Mosques are beautiful creations inspired by man's imagination.

 

[Sunni Man]

Not an art teacher. Just a teacher who decided to use art as a way of teaching.

In other words; she refused to teach what the school was paying her to teach; and the way the school wanted it taught.

So she got fired.

Good riddance.

 

[gxnelson]

Not an art teacher. Just a teacher who decided to use art as a way of teaching.

In other words; she refused to teach what the school was paying her to teach, and and how to teach it.

So she got fired.

Good riddance.

Right.... because it's impossible to integrate art into learning. Every draw a map of the solar system? Or use cut out shapes to understand fractions? That's art.

 

[gxnelson]

Surely Sunni you don't mean what you write. Mosques are beautiful creations inspired by man's imagination.

Sunni does and Sunni is a troll half the time.

 

[Sunni Man]

Art... any art... whether it's the visual arts, music, theater, or architecture has played a tremendous role throughout human civilization, and to see someone dismiss that "subject" as being nonessential/unimportant brings me great pain.

Naw, that's just your boyfriend packing your fudge causing you great pain.

 

[Rozman]

If she had a clever way to show 3rd graders how to put a condom on
and show the students it's really cool to be gay,she would have a job for life
in our liberal school system.