At OTES there was always lots going on! Different lessons for each grade level and some of them intertwined into one large project (like the mural students did). With a little over 500 students in total we had classes on a 6 day rotation.

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My time here was filled with natural light, both indoors (as seen by the giant skylight in our classroom) and outside in the school gardens or the forest. This light was important to my experience here because it reminded me of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Although light is not listed as biological need on Maslow's pyramid, I believe it is essential especially in any place like Maine with its dark and cold climate. 

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Each day at OTES was jammed packed with a variety of art projects from nature mobiles to crazy cat paintings, a diversity of students, and of course, a couple of melt downs. Melt downs are more frequent in this age group and I found it helpful to be consistently reminding myself of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Sometimes a kid would be upset and they just needed to drink some water because they were dehydrated. Other times they were really just hangry (angry because they were hungry) or tired because they haven't slept. I did my best to understand each melt down I approached. I feel that I left OTES with a pocket full of new tools to use as a teacher including this steady reminder of what it means to be a healthy functioning human and how I can make that a natural part of student's weekly art experiences. 

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