My Concession Blog
So, clearly I lost the "who can blog everyday for the longest" competition. It really was for the best of reasons. No, my computer didn't break down. I wasn't trapped under a bookcase. I didn't lose all mobility in my fingers and find myself unable to type.
I was out drinking.
It was Friday, and it was just some after-work drinks, but then I looked at my watch and it was 3:15 am. How does that happen??? Anyway. I decided to take the rest of the weekend off as well, since I really had nothing to say besides apologize to the ether for my Friday Night Sloppiness. So Kudos to mynewshoes and ipj for making it to the final round.
For those of you following Lauren's professional life, you may find yourself wondering "After work drinks??? Since when does Lauren have work to have an after of?" Well, last week was mid-season teaching artist training for a certain theatre company that I love. I love training. It's sort of like actually working, but its also a lot like playing. We all do different games and activities and talk about how much we enjoyed them and ways that they could be improved or modified and fit into a lesson plan. My career rocks. Pretty soon I'm going to actually be doing the games and activities with the little ones, but for now I'm just training with other dorks like myself who somehow stumbled into playing for a living.
This weekend I'm doing some more training. Not for anything in particular. There are three companies from around the country that have gotten a humongous grant to develop a standardized model for teaching artist training that can be used by companies all over. They are coming to New York this weekend and using TAs from my company and another NYC company as guinea pigs for the model. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about standardization, so I may end up problematizing for them a little bit, but I am excited to be on the edges of a national discussion about solidifying the field. So I'll let you all know how it goes.
Further notes on Lauren's professional life: still no phone calls or emails from the people that I'm supposedly doing my thesis project for. At my advisers suggestion I sent them a very excited email today about how great it is that both of my proposals that I spent so much time on finally got approved, and isn't it wonderful that I can officially start as soon as their ready.* I'm not worried...but waiting sure is hard work.
*a dicey punctuation issue that I feel unable to address
posted by laurenj @ 2:43 PM
4 Comments:
Besides the punctuation, you may have used the wrong their (perhaps they're would be what you are looking for).
Your job does sound like fun though.
I am humiliated. I cannot believe that I teach the leaders of tomorrow.
Hmm, I was going to make a similar comment.
Do try to be that free-thinking "problem" child in the standardization workshop thingy. Standardization can often lead to mediocrity so give 'em something to fight for. That sentence kind of went downhill.
I was part of the intitial two meetings of said TA training...but in that, the point was never that the form become codified, but that the training respresented a shared experience that creates a general understanding of what you can expect a TA to know. Not training that makes everyone behave in the same way, but training that initiates a common vocabulary.
Of course, what became very clear was that many administrators have little understanding of what it is actually like to be in the field regularly or how curriculum development is not always education. It also became clear that my hometown is one of the few that promotes individuality...and has no TAs on staff.
I have much, much more to say about this, but the comments section is not the place. So, y'know, maybe some emails and phone calls are in order. Because I got some info, lady!
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