ARCHIVE 12: January 2010

DAVID'S PERSONAL NEWS PAGE
and JOURNAL

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In this Archive:

January 27, 2010 - San Diego: First Week of Classes

Well here we are after the first meeting of all of my classes.  Holy sardine cans, Batman, we are full to overflowing in nearly ALL of the class sections.  Having to cut back on sections has really created a problem, especially as the reputation of the program grows.  We will have so much more room in the new building to handle it but here it is craziness.  We have had students out in the hallways in a number of the classes. 

This was the first CYA meetings where we are mandated to make sure students have copies of the syllabii and rules of the class especially on matters such as grading and attendance and behavior, etc. as well as go over it verbally.  It is a major drag and since so much of it is identical for all of the classes, being district general rules, it give a new definition to the term "booooooooooring."  Yet each semester seems to provide a student who makes us add a paragraph detailing a rule we thought should have been so obvious as to not require expressing it.

My favorite are students who think that a photo class would not require a camera.  We get that question every semester.  Or those who think a fun vacation is an excused absence.  Oh well...  Starting today my classes will be in "learning" mode so it will be fun.

We got a little mroe rain last evening but thus far the morning has seemed to be clear.  I know we need it and also that it will create some gorgeous wild flowers a month from now but I think I'm done with being a drowned rat for a little bit. 

January 21, 2010 - Monsoon in San Diego

Interesting weather.  A series of storms blew in from the Pacific one right after another.  There are four total and the third one is, at the moment letting loose with buckets of water and gale force winds.  At times I cannot clearly see across the street, my front yard and walk are now part of a hydroponics experiment, and since Monday the 17th, my pool has gone from about 5 inches below the rim to about two and is still rising.  There is one more coming after this one finally passes. 

This much moisture in the form of snow would have us all buried in it.  I'm wondering if the snow is making it to the Cuyamacas and Mt. Laguna... hmmmm.  This isn't rain its a monsoon.  A new report said the south bay area was under a tornado WARNING and a funnel cloud touched down in Santee.  Of course it hit a trailer park.  They always do it seems, as if all of that aluminum somehow attracts them.  When I was a kid it always seemed odd that if a tornado was going to hit anything it would be a trailer park.  Weird.

Next week Spring Semester starts so the rest of this week will be taken up with school, department, and other meetings.  What fun.  However on Tuesday I met with PACE, a public Access production company and fielded questions about various areas of production from scripting to lighting to field production issues.  I had a great time and got some very nice "thank you" emails from them as well.  They are really a good group of all volunteers who give their time to produce public access programming.  I hope I was of some help.  If it were not for teaching schedules I'd readily get involved with them.  By the way, they are looking for someone who can help their members use Final Cut Express so if you know of someone who would be willing to do that please let me know and I'll put you in touch with them.

I have finished the prep for the class materials in Blackboard and told the district to go ahead and turn on the classes.  In the next day or two they will connect with the mainframe and populate the classes with the students on the roster so they can access it.  For any teachers out there who read this, I'm telling you, doing a web-enhanced class is terrific.  Students can access materials, turn in projects, take tests, any time and from anywhere there is internet access.  And the teacher can grade in interface with them with equal flexibility.  

January 16, 2010 - San Diego: Text and Reference Book Ordering

The Spring Semester is just around the corner and I've been working on getting materials online and readily available for students.  I want to make as much as possible available anytime and from anywhere for them.  In keeping with that, I've just added a page to the site where I've listed text books and reference books for my students (and anyone else interested) including links where they can order them directly from Amazon usually at prices discounted from normal retail.  Of course once on Amazon one can then order anything else they would like as well. 

I was constantly asked about additional reading materials and what I would recommend for particular topics so I have started this list.  As I read new material if I think it has value for students I will add it to the list.

On the text book page there is a starting index of categories so you can jump right to the section that interests you or, of course, you can scroll down through the full listing to see if anything jumps out at you.

To access the page there are links all over the SDCC page or you can simply click here to go to the book list page directly.

January 7, 2010 - San Diego: Location Scouting

I went location scouting with a friend to check out a number of possible locations for the video photo training project.  We checked out places in and around Balboa Park, and both San Diego and Mission Bay.  In the afternoon we were looking around the tidal estuary  backwater of the San Diego River and saw a group of Egrets in the marsh.  Larger adults were having a chat, probably about the beautiful day, the quality of fish, the economy, and handling the kids, while a younger one was practicing its fishing techniques in the low tide. 

The bird's aim was pretty good but its  selection needed some practice as it consistently struck and came back up with weeds and leaves from the water.  

He would chew on the leaf for a moment before spitting it out and then do a quick look around, I assume to make sure no one of importance saw it (the humans with the weird attachment to their faces didn't really count) .  Then he would intently stare at the water again just knowing some tasty morsel would swim by then, imagining himself to be a coiled cobra, BAM! he would strike.

I never saw him (or her, how do you tell???) actually catch a fish but he patiently kept after it and there wasn't a safe bit of refuse in the area.  He was not the least intimidated with size either; he would take the big leaves with the little ones.  If someone would have given him a waste bag he would have thoroughly cleaned up that area of the marsh.

Obviously there was no way to escape the need to take a photo so I dug out a camera.

We watched them for several minutes.  The individual I was focused on was, between leaf gathering, also doing some short hops in and out of the water and land.  It was like watching a kid playing in a puddle.  A few ungainly flaps and he would be on the muddy shore, look around, flap again and be back in the water and so utterly pleased with himself.

The scouting trip turned up several locations for various modules to be located.  Now all that remains to get underway is to gather some help, practice the presentations, and go do it. 

I discovered in looking at the locations and envisioning the finished product, that I have a very conflicting set of interests.  On one hand everyone is telling me the  modules need to be presented by whoever is the author/instructor of the material and since these first ones are from me that would mean I ought to be on camera.  But I have, at least for the scripts as I write them, a fairly complete "vision" for how they should look and that makes me want to be the one to direct and shoot them.  Obviously I cannot do both and create something better than the usual ghastly talking head that I keep seeing where the camera is planted on a tripod and the poor viewer is forced to watch a deadly boring bit of nearly static video that should have simply been a PowerPoint presentation in the first place.  I confess I've not yet worked out a solution...

January 6, 2010 - San Diego

Well, it is the new year, 2010, and I confess I am beyond happy to see it arrive.  This should be an incredible year: the new photo facilities will become a reality by the end of this semester; my web based coursework should be well underway this year; and who knows, perhaps other parts of my life will see some nice things as well.  So here is a virtual toast, albeit a few days late, to this brave new year... Welcome!

For my students, as you may be painfully aware, the Spring semester will start in about 20 days, give or take.  I have just uploaded the new course outlines/syllabi on my SDCC page on this web site for the courses I will be teaching in Spring.  These are Photo 143 Intro to Digital, 200 Lighting, 204 Creative Techniques, 243 Advanced Digital, and 245 Landscape.  To get a jump start please download and read them.

With the extreme belt tightening due to the budget crisis in California it has meant that we have had to slash sections of courses and that has resulted in more students trying to get in fewer classes.  With the new building we can raise caps but for this last semester in the old "T" building we still have serious room constraints.  With the budget issues looming large the district is hammering us on holding to caps.  The state does not pay for students over the caps (of course they are not paying anyway but that is a different issue) so the district and school is really cracking down on caps, add and drop dates, and all rules that provide a way to lower the student count and costs administratively.  As instructors we are being held accountable for following those rules... something toward which we, in the photo department, have always had a somewhat cavalier attitude.  Not this semester.

I'm telling you this by way of a cautionary note.  When you commit to a class pay attention to the dates and times of the class meetings: we are supposed to automatically drop students who do not meet attendance/tardiness guidelines as spelled out in the catalog.  Excused absences are for true (usually medical) emergencies and that does not include vacations or fun trips.  Incompletes are only for late-in-the-semester medical emergencies that keep the last or last few assignments from being completed. Prerequisites are there for a reason and the culture of crashers is going to be in some considerable trouble finding class space.  Sorry.  Welcome to the real world and a real college/university approach.  The new building will allow us to raise our class caps but will not effect the other issues until the budget crisis is finally resolved and the district, along with others in the state, is back on secure, stable footing.

So please, if you want to take one of my classes, go to the SDCC page and download the course outline and read the basic rules.  Read the student guidelines in the College Catalog.  Those documents and the ground rules laid out in the first session of most classes are the rules of the road and our ability to ignore or sidestep or dance around them has been severely curtailed.

Personally I think it is a good thing.  Education is perhaps the most important function of government right after or maybe even in line with providing for the common defense.  It is education alone the can provide the foundations for local, regional, and national growth and prosperity; it is education that can allow a populace to create something worth defending; it is education alone that can demonstrate to the population how to inform themselves to make good decisions in a Republic form of government and to question based on their own experiences even what their instructors have concluded and taught.  Education, when it is well presented is not about giving students the bottom line, categorical answers, but, in the end, giving them the tools to think through issues for themselves and to find the best solutions for their own lives and needs. 

Too often we teachers slip into thinking we only need give the bottom line as we know it.  Goodness knows life for an instructor would be easier if that was all we had to do.  It is easy to forget that, for example, my bottom line is derived because of my life's experiences and it may not yield the same results as it would had I been in the shoes of someone else.  But too often we confuse the "school" with the resulting and pottential "education." Contrary to current popular thinking here I do not believe that resulting education is a right, I think it is something to be earned.  When it is simply a right then it becomes painfully obvious that a huge majority of students no longer take it seriously.  And why should they?  They have nothing immediately of their own at risk and they have not had the educational experiences to show them the future that is seriously at risk. 

I have had students come up at the first of a class and inform me they need an "A" in the class.  They are quite put out when I inform them that all they need to do to get it is to earn it but they are not entitled to it without that effort.   Simply sitting in a classroom for the requisite number of hours does not an education bestow on anyone no matter how cheap it may be.  This is serious stuff.  Your futures, and with them the future of your own lives, your family, your town, your state, and your country are the stakes and no less.  How can it possibly get more serious than that?  Some governmental authority may provide a classroom and some warm bodies in front of it to present stuff, but only YOU can provide for your own education by completing the loop that makes it all work.  Education is a participant nor a spectator sport.

There is an old saying: "If you want to get what you have always got then continue to do what you have always done."  Treating education as an entitlement has, in the past 40 years, taken us here in California from being the bright spot of the country to being nearly a laughing stock.  If you, the student, want to really help raise that back out of the swamp, then you need do one thing: take it seriously and devote yourselves to earning the best education you can pull or pry out of the system.  With bigger classes teachers are overwhelmed.  They will naturally give more attention where they see results and less when they see efforts being expected and still thrown away.

Don't accept just bottom line thinking and the instructors' conclusions but demand the tools to reach your own conclusions, solve your own issues and needs so that when you run headlong into the real world (or it runs into you) and find it does not precisely correspond to how problems were presented in classrooms, you will have the skills and knowledge to adapt and thrive.  Use this as a chance to truly make yourselves good, perhaps great, at whatever houses your passions for the future.  There is no shortcut save hard, dedicated practice.  Too many studies have shown that no evidence exists to support the idea of innate talent. (Here is one of them.) 

That is good news however because it means that the only constraint to your achieving your educational goals is... you.  Not the system, not the instructors, not the textbooks, just you and your degree of dedication and commitment to the often difficult task of earning the results instead of feeling entitled to them.

I believe that there is no reason under the sun that every student in our program could not become GREAT photographers except their own willingness to commit to the very difficult effort and work required.  So turn this crisis into an advantage, use the apparent weaknesses in the system as sources of strength to encourage, or force if necessary, your efforts to become great at whatever you desire.