We were lucky to have a special visitor this week. Jacob Ginga, a pre-service Art Education major at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, joined us on both Tuesday and Wednesday to observe our middle school art room in action. Mr. Jake was lucky enough to be in our classroom during clay week, which is a lot like shark week, without the fins.

Clay week takes over the whole room with requisite table covers, tools, and mounds of clay here and there. The best part are the finished projects waiting to dry and then be fired.

I always enjoy having pre-service teachers such as Mr. Jake in my room because it forces me to assess my teaching, lessons, and the learning space, as I look at them through the visitor’s eyes. It was interesting to me that my visitor had a similar retrospective moment. In one of my more challenging classes, Jacob intently surveyed the room and then said to me, “I’m looking around at these kids trying to figure out what I was like for the art teacher when I was this age.”

My guess is that based on his love of art and desire to impart this passion to tomorrow’s students, Mr Jake was not only a great student, but will soon be an excellent teacher. We are so lucky to have had him visit!

Meanwhile, the clay pieces will be fired next week and will be ready to be glazed shortly after we return from the holiday break. They will go home with students during at the end of the term.