Is Teaching Low?

Brief little rant: I'm currently a Toddler teacher and it's NOT okay what teachers get paid. I realize to most that Toddler and teacher do not go together in the same sentence and that to most I'm not teaching them addition, or how to analyze a story, or grammar, but those people would be wrong. Toddlers learn differently than school age children do; and so I teach them differently than school age children need to be taught.

When I leave that building at the end of the day, I'm not going home as just another citizen. I'm going home as a teacher. When I go out in public, I'm going out as a teacher. Those children and their families recognize me as a teacher. When I get on my computer, I'm getting on the computer as a teacher because I am dedicated to what I do and I enjoy researching how to teach better or to share information with others (teaching).

What strikes me is that this level of dedication: the fingerprinting, the censoring of yourself, the background checks, the moral compass that becomes habit to wear, is not rewarded in our culture. It's not valued as it should be. Teachers are expected to do this because they love doing it regardless of the money. Doctors and lawyers who are also dedicated to serving the public to varying degrees are paid a mint. It just makes me wonder what makes something important or not, what makes something low brow or not?

Updates, updates, updates: What I Finished, What I'm Doing Now

 Months ago I posted about having my first freelance assignment: my aunt asked me to design a business card to send along with all of the blankets she crochets. The final result is above. She really wanted blue and yellow as her color scheme and I think the simplicity of it really works. The font at the top is fun and the important information is legible. I enjoyed this project because it was a small scale. In the past, I worked pretty large. Two of my final pieces in my BFA show were 8 feet tall and the rest were usually between 3 and 4 feet in at least one direction. This was small and had a purpose so I had to consider the hierarchy of the elements I used, placement, etc. This version is more standard, but works with the intention and purpose of the card. My favorite:
 

 

I think this one is more dynamic, but didn't have the color scheme. I loved playing with the yarn and the lyrical quality it had, but I think my aunt was worried about the legibility of her name and I agree with her. It seems legible to me because I made it and know what it should say, but I can totally see how someone else might have a hard time with it. The design on the top won her over and she was very happy with how they came out.

As of now, it's crunch time for my Otakon cosplay. This year I'll be doing two outfits: my costume from Halloween (I was Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time) and Nia Teppelin from Tengen Toppa Gurren Legann.

 

Nia Teppelin

Nia has been a tough little cosplay, mostly because with working and planning and finishing certification, I haven't had time to devote to it and creating the pieces simply takes time. I bought the gems for the jewelry from a pretty awesome site if you plan on buying a decent amount of gems (I think the minimum order is $25-$30) http://www.allstarco.com/ and will be using those with craft foam to make Nia's pieces in all her princess-ly glory. The craft foam made me a little worried, but I used this tutorial: http://entropyhouse.com/penwiper/costumes/helmsdeep.html and they know what they're talking about. I'm only at the sealing part and I'm already sold. I never thought a sheet of craft foam that cost about a dollar and some plastic gems could look like real jewelry but it does. Gaudy, but that's on the character designers of the show.

I have her wig (that I feel gorgeous in!) which just needs the bangs styled, the shoes which need white straps and gems, the hairpiece needs to be made, and the real kicker: the dress. The seamstress I wrote about earlier is willing to meet up with me, but I feel the only hard part about this dress won't be making it (like Princess Bubblegum with her puff sleeves and peter pan collar) but will be making the pattern. I don't know where to start. Luckily she's willing to help me again! Otakon is in just over a month, so hopefully everything turns out in time.

843

    I wanted to talk about this piece because I've been thinking about a lot of things lately, but to sum it all up, I've been thinking about what I find important and how I spend my time. Last night a friend of mine came over for dinner and the discussion lead to academia and how he was always successful in that way because it was important to him and was the only way that he received praise. Any topic somehow revolving around academia, successes in school, etc. always makes me uncomfortable because people are usually surprised that I did poorly in school, including college. I only feel compelled to share this information if I'm participating in a conversation that requires me to share (and I've never been good at lying unless it felt absolutely necessary) or someone makes a comment that is supremely stupid and assumptive about intelligence or smarts in relation to grades. People ask why; they ask how. I wonder this myself sometimes, because there certainly are many reasons why school did not rank more highly for me, but in the interest of keeping it brief and not telling my complete life story, I'd say real life just got in the way. I had other things to take care of, spoken or unspoken, they were things I felt responsible for and had to take care of so school typically fell by the wayside especially after middle school.

    This piece is personal and insightful to me because there is way more to it than meets the eye and that was absolutely my intention. It is unassuming, the colors mostly pastel and safely barricaded within sterile melamine shelving. It's called 843 after the store number of the Wawa I worked at. This is the organization of their sandwich station which I still remember: Top Row (L to R): turkey, chicken salad, provolone cheese, sweet peppers, bacon, tuna salad, turkey. Middle Row (L to R): italian meat prep, roast beef, american cheese, pickles, american cheese, ham, italian meat prep. Bottom Row (L to R): lettuce, tomato, banana peppers, mayonnaise, onions, tomato, lettuce. The piece was roughly 4 ft x 8 ft. Not an evil place, but a place I felt trapped at. I was working two jobs equaling 40+ hours while going to school full time and trying to keep an eye on my dad as best I could because we couldn't afford a visiting nurse and he had been recently released from the hospital. I would drive home on my breaks and before/after classes to give him his pills, feed him, clean up a mess if there was one.  I don't honestly remember how I slept, though I must have managed some because I remember waking myself up folding my bedclothes the way we would wrap up the sandwiches.
    
       While in school I kept the story to myself because I had conflicting emotions about sharing it. I wanted to be cryptic and being so made me feel elusive while maintaining my privacy and hiding my shame that I was overweight, worked in fast food, and had things outside of school that I felt responsible to take care of. I'm sharing it now because it's in the past, I'm making my peace with it, my father has passed, and I'm free from several of the burdens I had then. I also feel the piece means nothing really without the story. People like a locked door, but they like it more if they know where the key is. They want the whole thing and can only stand being teased for so long and really, what is it but a bunch of colored squares without knowing what they represent? What is it without knowing why they represent food and what food means as a lifeline in that I worked with food all day to afford food and care for my family?

      The piece was thrown away. I left it hanging on the wall of sculpture building in my school because I had no way of removing a piece that large. They kept it up for at least a year after I graduated. They'd removed it sometime around 2010.