After taking some time off early in the summer, I usually go back go to my classroom for a couple of days in mid-summer to begin to get ready for the upcoming school year. This summer, that entails finishing some painting in my classroom.
During the summer of 2016, the school district that oversees my independent charter school did a compliance sweep of the entire campus. According to the district, all classroom walls MUST be bare within 24″ of the ceiling. In years past, my classroom walls were covered with posters, going all the way to the ceiling. This was due in part to my dislike of bare walls in a classroom, and my dislike of the “institutional white” paint prevalent in so many schools, including my own. Admittedly, the look that I had cultivated was a bit cluttered, but, at least, it was dense in an informational sense.
But, because my classroom was out of compliance, I had to make some changes. First of all, I stripped off all of the posters in my room at the end of the summer in 2016. This not only meant removing posters from all of the walls, but also from cupboards that were covered by rather cheap looking, old, white, foam board.
Second, with help from my school’s generous Booster Club, I commissioned a local artist, who had done other projects around campus, to design and paint a new look for my classroom. We decided to completely paint over the “institutional white” with a dark purple to mimic the night sky. Texture would be added with airbrushed stars.
The artist also began work on two major themed murals in the room. The first is a not to scale model of the Solar System along one wall, beginning with a highly detailed painting of the Sun in the back corner of the room. The planets were subsequently painted to scale in size in relation to the Sun, but not to scale in distance. Each planet includes some basic information such as mass, orbital period, and so on. The artist will finish this portion of the classroom with a description of how far from my room each planet would have to be in relation to the size of the painting of the Sun.
Below this mural, I decided to place the posters that I had originally taken off the walls, but I mounted the posters onto new foam board for portability. I have more posters than I have room for below the mural, even after culling the posters down from my original amount; so, I will rotate these posters throughout the year as units and themes change in my curricula.
The second major mural is a timeline of the Universe from the moment of the Big Bang to the present day. Right now, this mural consists of four major components with, at least, two more components to be done. That should be finished, according to the artist, by the time that school starts in a few weeks. Lastly, a couple of individual paintings on the dark purple background near the front of the room will be done to complete the new look.
As for my cupboards that I’ve previously mentioned, during the school year last year I had those re-covered with brand new, clean white boards. Subsequently, I re-postered those cupboards with a much cleaner look. I’m very happy with the results.
Although I’m not much of an artist, I can, at least, put base coats on bare walls, and I did some of that this summer to complete the painting over of the “institutional white.” Once again, I’m very happy with the results, and I expect the artist’s remaining mural work to be done soon.
The view from the front door.
The view from the front corner.
Looking towards the front of the room.
Looking towards the doors.
The re-postered rear cupboards.
The Sun.
The Big Bang. More detail will be added.
The large scale structure of the Universe.
The Milky Way Galaxy to the stars nearby…
…to the Solar System and the present day.