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Artistic Statement
In class we discussed the differences between reality and fiction and how our realities can be influenced by our desires or what we see on television or read in books. The purpose of my alternative project is to present my goals for teaching in a unique, creative way, and to delve into the gradations of real and imagined that form the basis for my goals. Since I have not actually had a classroom of my own, I fear that I have an imagined reality of what my experience as a teacher will be like. Nabokov’s fiction, according to Dowling (1), has layers that are “peeled back” and a more fundamental reality is found underneath. My project explores my still imaginary view of the classroom and suggests the possibility that why lies underneath may alter that view. Can I remain motivated despite the possibility that my imagined classroom is pure fiction or do I have the means and stamina to create my own reality? Jeet Desai wrote “fiction has the power to motivate people.” This statement directly speaks to the educational profession because the idealistic teacher starts each year motivated by a long list of worthy goals he or she hopes to accomplish. However, so many new teachers leave the profession within the first five years (almost half!) because their idealist vision was crushed by the realities of school budgets, No Child Left Behind, bureaucratic systems and low pay. For my final project, I decided to use a program called Glogster and create a glog, which is a electronic/interactive poster. My poster is designed to show the ''visionary or imagined goals'' teachers such as myself have, and then link them to the “realities'' of public school education. In addition, I have enjoyed finding many of the ironies, as did Nabokov, that exist in this real and imagined world. For instance Nancy Sander finds the irony in the Zero Tolerance policy that calls it a crime if a student put a plastic bag over the head of a teacher, but not one if they let an asthmatic child struggle for air as he runs to the nurse's office for his inhaler.
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