| | This past week I had two job interviews. The first was at Northridge High School. It's located in Middlebury, IN (about 45 minutes east of South Bend and where my brother and his family live). They're building a brand new high school, which will be pretty darn big and decked out with ALL the amenities. There are 4 art teachers at this school, with 4 or 5 art rooms. It's massive. The school system is great and it would be a very nice job to get.
The second interview was at Peru High School (Peru, IN), which is about an hour and a half North of Indy. I have never seen anything like this school. They have the largest private collection of Oriental pottery (Meng/Ching Dynasty type stuff) in Indiana. Not out of high schools...in the WHOLE state. They are 1 of 2 Indiana schools with an art gallery, primarily used for student work. They have a huge collection of original works by artists such as Dali, Picasso, and Miro. And they use these artworks to teach. Not looking at them through glass cases or anything like that. Getting up close and personal to show techniques, color, whatever. I about pooped myself. They have a group of art restoration experts come in every year to put on a bit of a workshop in their gallery. Students get to talk to them and find out how to make lots of money while working with art...I know, it sounds underhanded, but we need more restorers. Then there's the art program itself. It's divided between 2 teachers: the department chair handles the 2-D classes, claiming to hate clay. He has a large room with space for models. Often, his students are allowed to roam the downtown area in order to draw from life. This is the first time I've heard an art teacher talk about the importance of students drawing from life (not using photos). The other art teacher (possibly me...) is primarily a ceramics teacher. Now any of you from Messiah know how much I LOVED ceramics my senior year. For those who don't know, that was sarcasm. I hated ceramics. However, I've come to realize that it was probably due to my having to take it while I worked on my senior show in 2 concentrations. I don't HATE it. And if I got this job, I'd be able to teach however I wanted. So I could do a lot of handmade sculptural ceramics if I wanted. On top of all this, Peru High has on average a dozen Scholastic Award Winners in Art every year. Most schools (even ones twice as big) generally have 1 or 2 winners (if they're lucky). This one had 12 this year. And a junior came in first at the National level. A sophomore came in 3rd! It's nuts.
So needless to say, I WANT the Peru job. The Northridge job would be nice too, but the Peru one would be too good to pass up. I will find out sometime this week if I get a second interview at either of these schools. |
| | Posted 6/16/2008 8:44 AM - 33 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment
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