Fat Chance

Controversial Topics

The first two hours of school are my least favorite, mainly because first hour I have P.E. (it's pretty low key though, because of the type of kids that normally go to school here) and my second hour I have English, which I have always sucked at. 3rd, 4th, and 5th hour are pretty basic: Home Ec, Algebra and U.S History. But 6th hour, the last hour of the day, is God's gift to my fucking life. It's basically the only reason I don't flunk out of school entirely. And this heavenly class is Ms. Moteriellos Pottery Class.

I've never really been an artistic person. I've always sucked at drawing, painting, and anything and everything we had to do in previous art classes. The art teacher that we had throughout middle school was very old and uninteresting, just like the material that she taught. I had always just barely passed her class, even though my average grade for any other class was an A- or higher.

Now, the tables were turned. In High School, every student is required to take some sort of Art elective. Fortunately for me, there was more to chose from than just the average middle school art classes.

The first choice was something called Basic Art, which is exactly what it sounds like: painting, sketching,  drawing; the works.

The second choice was Animation, which is a class where you learn the basics of how to do animation. I originally wanted to be in that class, but because of budget cuts, only 5 students could be in the class, and by the time I signed up, over 20 kids had already tried to get in before me.

The third choice was Pottery, which at the time, I was not interested in. I just had a bad feeling about it. But since I didn't want to do basic art stuff, I had no choice but to register for pottery.

Now here I am, a little more than a semester in and it's my favorite class. I'm pretty sure I would die without it in my school day. Pottery was a lot more interesting and fun than I thought it would be. You get to work individually and hands on (obviously) with your project, and its actually pretty easy to do. I've aced every project we've done so far, mainly because I have so many cool ideas for sculptures, plus the way the clay feels in your hands is soothing as hell. But the main reason why Pottery was my favorite class is because of Ms. Moteriello herself.

Ms. Moteriello is by FAR the best teacher I've ever had. She's super intelligent and creative, unlike my middle school art teacher. She gives us assignments that really make us think outside of the box and pushes us outside of our comfort zones. Not only is she a great teacher, but a great person.

Something about Ms. Moteriello makes me feel comfortable and at ease. The way she looks at you while you're talking and how incredible understanding and kind makes me believe that she truly cares about her students, and not just because she thinks she'll get more money that way. She just cares about us as people, not just as students in her class.

Sometimes I wonder how someone as talented and professional a teacher as Ms. Moteriello can be teaching at a charter school. It must be depressing to waste your gift as a teacher on students who are too mentally challenged to appreciate it.

That's what I'm thinking about as I make my way to her classroom at the end of the day. I always get way too excited when walking to Pottery class, thinking about my current project. I get especially excited when we have just finished turning in a project and are about to start a new one. It just so happens that today was one of those days. I couldn't WAIT to get the topic for the next assignment.

Ms. Moteriello always comes up with the best most creative projects for us to do. For example, for our last project, we had to sculpt something that was important to us. I chose to sculpt an iPod to symbolize music since I'm nowhere near talented enough to sculpt Rihanna.

As I walked into the classroom, I noticed that I was one of the first people to arrive. I walked over to the art table to and sat down, setting my heavy backpack down next to me.

For the first time in a while, I look around the near empty classroom. Besides the main table that I'm sitting at, there are 10 different pottery wheels scattered around the classroom. Posters of quotes and pictures that students have drawn plaster the walls. There are a few pottery and art related awards of Ms. Moteriellos hanging on the wall, once again reminding us of how qualified she is to be our teacher.

I looked around the room again, except this time I was not looking at the non living objects in the room. Even though more than 60 percent of the students at my school are in wheelchairs, none of them are in this class. In fact, most of the kids in this class are pretty normal looking.

I would even go as far as saying that most of these kids have no reason to be here in a charter school. For example, the girl that sits next to me sometimes when we're on the pottery wheel, acts and looks just like someone from my old school would act. She's quiet and keeps to herself most of the time but she sure as hell isn't anti social. I see her all the time walking with her friends and laughing. None of these kids, including this girl, have any visible physical or mental disabilities, but then again not everything is what it seems. Maybe it's low grades that land these normal kids here. Who knows.

Suddenly, the bell rings and the last of my classmates slide into their seats, hoping to remain unscathed by tardies. Lucky for them, Ms. Moteriello hadn't yet entered the classroom, even though the class period has already begun. After a few more minutes of muted noise from impatient students, Ms. Moteriello finally blessed the class with her appearance. "Hello Guys! Happy Monday!" she gushed. Although it may seem like a typical way for a teacher to greet her class,  the way Ms. M spoke to us made us really feel her true joy. "How was everyone's weekend?!" The same kids that had lamely shrugged their shoulders not even an hour earlier to the same question now eagerly raised their hands, hoping to get the teachers attention.

After hearing about everyone's weekend, Ms. Moteriello got down to business. "Alright, everyone, here's what's going to happen. As you all know, the final project from last month was due last Friday, which means today we are starting a new project!" She said it with such extravagance that nearly all the students felt the need to applaud. Ms. Moteriello giggled. "Glad to know that you all are excited. This project is going to go a little bit differently than the last one. Instead of me giving everyone the same topic to sculpt, I'm going to pass around this jar. Each one of you is supposed to pick one slip of paper out of the jar and that's what your going to sculpt. No picking again. No trading topics with anyone else. You must sculpt what you chose on your first try."

After her speech, she set the jar right in front of me. "You get first pick, Quinn. Make it good!" Smiling, I grabbed the jar. This was so creative of Ms. M, I never would have guessed her to do this. Before I reached into the jar to chose, I shook it up, just to randomize the topics. After I felt like it was probably shuffled, I reached into the jar and grabbed a folded slip of paper. Before I even opened it, Ms. Moriello bent down and whispered, "You're going to do great! I can FEEL it!"

As soon as she passed the jar along to the next person, I decided to open my slip of paper while my eyes were closed, and I would open my eyes on the count of three. I closed my eyes and opened the piece of paper between my fingers. I counted silently in my head. 'One, Two, Three!"

I opened my eyes and couldn't believe what I saw. This topic was totally controversial, something that anyone would have a hard time grading. It was indecipherable to the human brain, something incoherent to many. I think my topic would be hard to sculpt for even the most talented artist, let alone me. But here I was, just a lowly high school student, getting this topic for her pottery assignment that I had one mere month to complete. The topic written on my slip of paper looked short and simple, but was far from it

Love.

That is what I had to try and sculpt.

Fucking Love.