I believe that my primary purpose as an art teacher is to help students feel comfortable in the creative and critical studio environment, whatever form that may take now and in the future. While my methods include rigorous formal instruction, my underlying goal is not to create traditional artists. As I have become a more experienced teacher, I have revised my approach and clarified my objectives. The longer I have worked with students, and the broader the population, the more my experience has expanded my assumptions about what I can expect from students and why.

 

I have taught studio coursework in nearly every traditional media, from ceramics and sculpture to printmaking and painting. More recently, I have been excited to teach new media such as digital photography, illustration, design, and coding. When teaching new learners in all media, my approach is the same: provide students with the foundation to navigate the medium and then support their efforts to become more independent. By asking questions and reinforcing students’ discoveries, I help them realize that their own inquiry can empower them to experiment using new methods. Because of this, my projects have open-ended elements, which result in a much more diverse spectrum of student creations. I also draw inspiration from a range of sources and take an interdisciplinary approach to instruction. For example, after watching the film Koyaanisqatsi, I created a project about balance and variation that challenged students to find inspiration from the evolving landscape and then navigate between 2D and 3D design.

 

My classes also encourage young artists to think about their identities and ponder how those identities inform their art. Addressing issues of difference with students in the art classroom – an environment that traditionally allows for individuality and multiple interpretations – encourages and nurtures this expression. My projects give students the opportunity to educate others about their experiences and issues of personal importance. Their education should include opportunities to document, manifest, perform, and record these experiences, and the art classroom should naturally foster this self-expression. In my mixed-media course, students begin the term with a discussion to help them begin to think thematically about their artwork. From that discussion and subsequent mind map, students determine a theme that guides their art throughout the term. By working within the context of the project’s concept and materials, students are challenged to think deeply about the many ways to approach and interpret their selected theme.

 

For intro-level art students, I’ve found that art appreciation and creation—within the classroom and beyond its walls—are ways to demonstrate that we can encounter the foreign and unusual and learn to understand it. Many students may be confused, bored, or offended by certain works or styles of art when first viewing them, a tendency that we acknowledge and discuss. But after learning more about their origins, the environment in which they were created, and what the artist is trying to communicate, the works stop being frightening or bland or puzzling. I encourage my students to apply this experience to other parts of their lives, so that they can understand and appreciate new materials, people, or situations that they encounter in the future.

 

As young artists become more experienced in the classroom, they gain exposure to artwork by artists of wide and varied origin and experience. They learn to talk about the artist and her work, developing the language for criticism and analysis as a way to view and discuss historical works, local and contemporary works, and the work of their peers. The classroom dynamic reinforces that few can create art in a bubble, and the expectation is that we are all capable of giving and hearing feedback. Creating a culture that achieves this with respect is one of my primary objectives as a teacher, as this practice is at the core of an effective studio environment.

 

I take pride in my experience, patience, presence, love of content, willingness to reflect and revise, and real affection and appreciation for my students. These strengths give me the confidence to deliver a clear sense of purpose and value in the classroom. When I see the dramatic individuality of different solutions to a class project, the reluctant willingness from a student surprised by the encouragement to try something new, the relief and reengagement from a student when I respond with humor to her fatigue, I know that I am not just teaching art, I am teaching growing artists and critical thinkers.