Longfellow Middle School Update

My job at Longfellow is going very well. My site supervisor, Rita, and I have been working together to do either a lesson on bookmaking/story writing or collaging. I have several ideas floating in my head about what ideas I want the students to convey through bookmaking or collaging, and what techniques I would like them to learn.

I have been learning new ideas and teaching methods from other CSF's. Hearing the negative and positive things about other CSF's experiences helps me view my experience in a new perspective, and it also helps me decide what I should and shouldn't do when teaching the students. Hearing other CSF's talk about their experience gives me new insight about my experiences.

The students at Longfellow always teach me a lot. There is a very diverse group of students this year, and we are teaching very different classes as well. I have been challenged with how to approach teaching new students and helping teach new subjects. Many of the students have been in our art class for two years now, but there are a lot of new students as well. I have been trying to get to know the new students.

My site supervisor has always helped me with new ideas I have for projects. She is very open-minded to any project I would like to do with the kids. She helps me decide what is the best way to approach the lesson, how I should present the project and what materials I should use. This has been very beneficial to my experience at Longfellow, and has taught me a lot about teaching.

This semester at Longfellow has been going very well, but the program is sadly losing a lot of its funding next year, and many of the arts classes are going to get cut. We have been having a hard time deciding what we will do next year, if the programs get cut. Since I have been working at the site for a year and a half now, I have become pretty attached to it, and it's very sad the program will be much more limited next year.

- Danielle O'Malley