Sunday Early Edition

Tomorrow it begins.
Oh yeah baby!
We start tilling the land and hopefully in four years society has some ripe crops to harvest.
Generation Disconnected.
The Entitled Ones.
Or something.
Okay, they are not that bad.
If you can get them to take them things outta their ears and take a look around.
Which is my job.
I suppose.
Anyways, getting them ready for the real world, I'm finding out, is a real task.
Most of them have no clue about what it takes to survive out here.
In the real world I mean.
Back at my old school, we used to have college kids come around and do a presentation, a sort of game with fake money, about making a living and how much it takes to survive.
An eye opener to say the least once kids figure out exactly how much money they need to make to live comfortably.
More on this later.
The thing about setting up a new classroom is that you start with a blank slate.
How do you make this a learning environment?
What do you need?
At this point I'm not sure I've seen a really good model yet, one that falls into line with all the things we are trying to achieve.
I'm working on it though.
In working on it, I've been to the office supply place just about everyday, and across the street I saw this:

I'm not sure exactly what's going there as the building doesn't seem to have any bicycle related business in it, but it's pretty cool:

There are some other "words of wisdom" there like "burn fat not oil" etc.
You can read a bit about it here.
The Hele On Kakaako event in the article was put on by the same folks that I worked with on the Hele On Kailua thingy.
I think the point here is that you need to remind folks about what is possible; the more they see it, the more they start to think about it or even believe it.
Which is the same thing I need to do in the classroom.
I think that if I can visually bombard these kids with art, any kind of art, they'll start to see art all around them.
So, my blank slate:

My not yet finished bombardment treatment:

I was thinking that I'm gonna fill my space first, then slowly move out into the classroom.
I was looking at some posters and stuff, but I think having the real thing is better.
The Honolulu Museum of Art also has a lending library where teachers can borrow stuff, so I'm hitting that up as well.
Immersion is the word I'm thinking about, and hopefully no one will drown.
This year I'm going to work on inspiring and motivating, so I hope this works.
Stay tuned.