Ceramics & Photography

The school [WRHS] has good teachers for these subjects. For ceramics, Mrs. Ridder teaches how to use the clay and manipulate it efficiently. She helps with clay, glazing and wiping off crumbs of clay from a bisqueware project. With clay, she helps you to craft the idea you hope for because sometimes it can be difficult when the clay dries too quickly or isn't easy to manipulate in the way you'd hope to shape it. In the process of glazing clay, she tells students to keep track of the layers they've done by labeling a drawing of the object and checking off each layer they finish. This helps the students to keep track of when they reach three layers during glazing, or if using the squeeze bottle for smaller areas, applying one layer only. This helps her to also grade the project efficiently and know how many layers you've done and if they're in accordance with the requirements. She's very helpful and will assist in anything the student needs help with for their project. It is a bit difficult since it's a form of art, after all. If when you finish glazing, you need help with wiping glaze off of the bottom [which sticks to the kiln if there's glaze on it], she will tell you which parts you should wipe off with a wringed-out wet glaze sponge. She'll go over things and thoroughly explain a tutorial of how to do it before everyone begins their work. In photography, the teacher will help people have ideas for what to do to esnure they get the best possible grade. She suggests what they should do for given prompts [silhouette, macro, long exposure, etc.]. She seems to be very passionate about photography and also has students write in journals when class begins everyday, and these journals give more context to our newly given assignments. In photography, there's often a lot of freshmen, so it can get loud sometimes and they may behave immaturely, but the teacher does control this. In ceramics, the freshmen seem to be a lot less immature and obnoxious, especially since they have to be delicate with their projects.

Communications

This school [College of the Canyons] is a well respected college where students can attend classes even if they're in high school with the Dual Enrollment program. There are wonderful teachers who are passionate about their subjects and teach the students accordingly, giving them all knowledge they need to know to pass. The students are always silent and listen well to the professor, and are far more mature than high schoolers since they're in college. Even when other high schoolers are in the classroom, they behave the same way in accordance with their environment.