Cooperating Teacher Lesson Observation Form: Fill & Download for Free

By far, the most appalling things I’ve seen other teachers do happened during my student teaching experience (that what teachers call their apprenticeship) at a Chicago public middle school. My cooperating teacher (mentor) was very nice to me, but she also happened to be the union rep for the school, and I witnessed a lot of her coworkers complaining about really petty things to her.Among the appalling behaviors there were:A teacher who refused to sharpen 25 #2 pencils for her students to take a standardized test, because those pencils were supposed to be sharpened beforehand. They were the official testing pencils that came with the other testing supplies. The entire class began their test 15 minutes late as the teacher, who had an electric pencil sharpener on her desk, sent the pencils to the office to be sharpened, because that was their job, not hers.An hour-long meeting with about 20 teachers. The entire meeting was to plan how each teacher was going to get their 15-minute breaks during standardized testing the next week. The possibility of working through a break, just once, to make everyone’s life easier, was never raised. At that point in my life, I was still working as a retail manager as well. We routinely worked 6–7 hours before getting our first break. These teachers… they were being asked to proctor a 2.5-hour-long test without a break, and they couldn’t do it. They weren’t even teaching then… just proctoring the test. Literally just being the adult in the room, making sure no one was cheating.Teachers who, knowing weeks ahead of time when their principals were going to observe their classes, showed up that day with amazing, small-group interactive lessons (what principals want to see), when literally every other day they just teach from the book. Although, I guess “showing off for the boss” isn’t too appalling. It was just shocking the first time I realized what was going on.A teacher who gave a test one day, then, the next day, asked the handful of students who passed the test to work on an unrelated billboard display in the hallway while she gave the rest of the class an easier test. That billboard display was something the teachers themselves were supposed to do. This teacher just outsourced her work to her students. One of those student’s parents wrote a well-worded email to the teacher and the principal complaining about that… complaining about his daughter spending a whole class period working on a billboard when she should have been learning. The principal apologized on behalf of the teacher, because the teacher didn’t see anything wrong with it.My oldest daughter went to a Chicago public high school. I didn’t teach there, but I was a teacher (at a different school) while she was a student there. At her school, some appalling things I witnessed were:A mandatory orientation for freshmen and their parents. Within 15 minutes of the orientation beginning in the auditorium, the students were ushered out of the room to tour the school and meet some teachers, while the parents sat through an hour-long presentation that was all about how to get free things from the government. It had little to do with anything we’d need to know to help our children, and everything to do with how to take advantage of every possible way to get money from the government.The school refusing to give me my daughter’s report card until I filled out a parent income level form. I finally signed the form, but left the income level blank (it’s none of their business), and they gave me her report card.Upon entering the school for report card pick-up (they did it in the evening, and all parents were expected to come into the school to get their child’s report card and talk to their child’s teachers if needed), being told that I needed to “sign in.” But there was no sign-in sheet. It was a sheet expressing support for the teachers’ union in their negotiations with the city at that time. That was three or four threatened teacher strikes ago now. This is why I’m wary of any statistics of support for the union from parents. I wonder how many parents were tricked or misguided into expressing that support.

I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting. I don't have a higher degree because I got sick of going to school. I didn't want to play the gallery game, either. But I think I am an adequate draftsman. My Drawing I professor Lou Kohl-Morgan was excellent. I also studied with John Laurent, Sigmund Abeles, Bill Scarlatto, and John Hatch.MaterialsHere is another answer I wrote about what to buy when you're starting out:What do I need to buy if I want to start learning how to draw?Exercises and Study PlanWhen I was studying art in college, we had 9 hours of class time each week and were expected to put in at least 18 hours a week of work outside the classroom on our assignments. Lou had us draw something really simple to see where each of us was at before we started. She had us do it on a piece of bond paper -- in addition to the large pad of newsprint she had us get a pad of bond paper to do more detailed work but nothing fussy. Later on in the semester we bought special paper to do more studied drawings. But in the beginning, you have to get physically coordinated, so cheap paper and lots of it is what you need. The simple drawing is a baseline to give you a sense of accomplishment later when you look back on it.Next, you can get a collection of boxes and set them up with a timer and make yourself do 15 minutes worth of 3-minute sketches. Place yourself in different positions relative to the group of boxes -- looking down on them, looking up, looking at eye level -- to get a workout with perspective. This is all warm-up. Making art is physical and you need to stretch first.During the exercises you are aiming to improve the connections between your perception and how your hand conveys what you see. Speed is the essence because it bypasses the brain's tendency to over analyze and it is the way you can draw a scene that changes rapidly. So when you are drawing, draw like your house is on fire.Lou had a dress form that she brought to class for us to get used to the idea of the human body existing in planes. Later she brought in nude models. The students in the class were more nervous about the nudity than the model was. Nobody drew the naughty bits in Drawing I. Not even I.At the end of this answer is a list of books that have excellent drawing exercises.MethodsThe course would introduce several ways to tackle a drawing but you have to get familiar with the tools first. For beginners who tend to work too tightly I recommend working with softer pencils in the B range and charcoal. Charcoal is so fugitive you can wipe it away rather than use an eraser. It is great for doing gesture studies, or quick sketches of the human form in motion. There are excellent white chalks that you can use on black paper for dramatic scenes, and sepia and terra cotta Conte crayons you can use on buff-colored charcoal paper to begin approaching the use of color in your work.Hard pencils of the H classification lend a more silvery look. If you play with paper and graphite you'll discover you can only get so black with any given pencil and then the paper gets overloaded. You want to avoid this by choosing the right blackest black to work with.HistoryStories about artists that the teacher conveys while the student is working are important fuel for the new artist. Looking at art that demonstrates achievement in an area in which you need improvement is very important in avoiding reinventing the wheel. On the other hand, it is often very instructive to actually copy a master drawing. At the end of Drawing I I copied a Da Vinci. While looking for the image I copied, I found this fantastic site: Technical Art HistoryCompositionHere the student would learn about creating a tool to envision a composition from a realistic scene. It is a simple window cut into a sheet of paper, held at arm's length so you can see the scene in front of you as an image in a blank space.I didn't study any particular theory of composition but let nature teach me and probably picked up some theory from books I read several decades ago. If you make the eye go to the upper right corner, it gives your picture "speed" because the natural inclination for the symbol-trained eye is to go to the right. It has to do with handedness, I believe, as well. If the composition is oriented to the left, it tends to have more tension.Composition goes beyond arranging items in a scene on the picture plane. It involves how the artist uses tone, line, and mark making to move the viewer's eye around the image. Color is also a composition element but when you're beginning to draw it is best to limit yourself to the few colors I mentioned here to avoid getting overwhelmed.PerspectiveWhen doing representational art, perspective is key in creating a believable atmosphere in your work. The course would explain how parallel lines converge at a vanishing point, conveying distance and the viewer's position in relation to the picture plane.There is also atmospheric perspective which is easiest to observe at the beach or on the ocean. Everything closest to you is vivid while everything in the distance is pale by comparison.Contour DrawingI'd probably start a student with contour drawing. Line is so important in composition and perspective. A classic challenge to take on is a contour drawing of a chair. Focus on the negative space -- the "not chair" -- while drawing (contour drawing lesson - Google Search).Mark MakingAfter you've got a few contour drawings under your belt, explore mark making (mark making - Google Search). Build a landscape with a variety of different types of marks to practice.Line ArtHere is a great page about drawing images using just line: Line Drawing: A Guide for Art StudentsRendering ToneLearn how to build tone with either soft, smooth shading technique and the right materials, or mark making. Blending techniques.Paper and Other Drawing SurfacesYour choice of paper makes all the difference when creating a fine art piece. Learn about the different materials used in paper making and how they affect the look of a work.Scaling DrawingsAlthough you can now take pictures with your phone of subjects that may interest you as a way of taking notes for your work, you can also sketch out an idea and decide you want to make it larger (or smaller). If you don't have a scanner and your printer output is smaller than your final size, you need to learn how to scale your drawing and project it onto the larger surface.Introduction to Figure DrawingAt the end of the course we got into doing gesture drawings of the nude figure but didn't focus so much on the nude until the next semester. It is necessary to learn some anatomy to understand how the human body is put together. I used to have a Gray's Anatomy but you really learn best from observing the body in action.Reading ListDrawing on the Right Side of the Brain: The Definitive, 4th Edition eBook by Betty Edwards: BooksDrawing the Human Form: Method Sources Concepts by William A. BerryThe Natural Way to Draw - A Working Plan for Art Study eBook by Kimon NicolaïdesWays of Seeing: Based on the BBC Television Series by John Berger

Look to yourself for solutions.So many problems seem to re-occur at times, and places. They are usually created by negative thoughts of one kind, or another.Blame is often looked for, and assigned.Oh, it’s their religion, or its their social status, their caste, or it’s their economic system, or it’s their tribalism, or it’s just what they do, or it’s their lack of religion, or its their educational system, or its their politicians.These blame targets can also be in the personal realm. The problem is my religion, the problem is my lack of religion, my parents, my teachers, my caste, my income, my girlboyfriend, my wifehusband.If you want to do more than assign blame, and skate on, take a look at what some very caring, smart people have observed.You can help yourself in the processIf the common elements of many of these problems are examined, a pattern emerges.People forget that we are each unique, or people forget that we are an aspect of everything. Forgetting the uniqueness aspect ignores reality. Forgetting the connectedness aspect also ignores reality.Reality doesn’t like to be ignored, and bites.Both are true, simultaneously.People easily forget that causes produce effects, and try to get away with doing negative acts, without understanding that what goes around, comes around.Humans know that life is temporary. That one recognition creates a biting sadness that is covered over, and never goes completely away. It is the source of most music, art, and poetry.That realization is also the reason we have so many diversions to try to escape the sadness.These lapses in reality cause problems directly. They also hinder the search for solutions.There is a way to overcome these lapses.Use Commonsense.In order to optimize life, the basic relationships of life that apply to every particle, and every being, are kept in mind.Anyone can improve his/her life by making better decisions. We make better decisions when we focus more on the enhancements that make us human.We spend most of out life doing what is necessary to maintain our lives. A large part of the remaining disposable time is spent in dressed up versions of instinct driven nest material acquisition, and reproductive-drive games.Some of the remainder of time-energy is actually spent exercising the enhanced abilities like communication, cooperation, cogitation, coaching, and compassion.They are what enabled us to get out of the caves, and into glory centers.Those times are better when pure humanism is strengthened by consistency with the following points.Nam- 1. Keep your brain in the game.Myoho 2. You are unique, and so is every other being. Being unique does not mean you can live well all by yourself.Renge 3. What goes around comes around.Kyo 4. Lives change, and Life goes on.The Nam Myoho Renge Kyo are the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese words that summarize points 1 through 5.They are spoken repeatedly in order to create synaptic connections that keep the mind rational, and lead to frequent winning.If you forget any one of those, you will have collisions with reality. If you never forget any one of them, you will win more often.It helps to have a short, convenient form of these principles in order to infuse them deeply into your life.wilrang88OrWilliam Who controls you?