Teaching Philosophy
As I mentioned in my About Me section, my teaching philosophy has been influenced by my experiences teaching in South Africa.
I believe every student has the capacity to make meaningful work if provided with new opportunities to engage with media. During my volunteer program, the students came from a background of extreme poverty and had very little prior experience with formal art making. Because of this, all of the students were very engaged in the art making activities. When I taught “Saturday Art School” I brought this idea of engaging with materials in new and different ways into my classroom when I had students create Claymations. Most of the students had used all of the materials we were using before, but not in the same way we were using them (to make a Claymation), and the result was a high level of student engagement.
I believe it is important to integrate technology into the classroom when it is available. Bringing technology into the art room is one way to get students, who do not usually enjoy art-making, engaged in creative, art-related work. My experience working with Information and Technology Services Lab Consulting at Penn State has given me a plethora of computer and software related knowledge and ideas for ways to utilize this in the art classroom such as graphic design, photography, and editing. I was able to bring several of these ideas into my classroom while teaching “Saturday Art School”.
I believe in allowing students to document their own art work. When cameras are available, I think it is valuable to bring them into the art classroom and allow students to document their own work and their art-making practice. This allows teachers to see what parts of the artwork the student places value on.
I believe when students are engaged in an art-making activity, classroom management is no longer an issue. What I have noticed throughout all of my past teaching experiences is that when students are invested in their work, there are far less classroom management issues than on days when students are not as interested in the assignment. In addition to this, I believe if students are engaged in what they are making, no task is too difficult or advanced. Initially, I was unsure if making a Claymation would be too advanced for third to fifth graders. It was not. I think that was because all of the students were extremely engaged in the assignment. Any problems that arose while they were creating their Claymation were quickly resolved through the student’s creative thinking. Because students were so invested in what they were making, they did not give up when they found certain aspects of the project to be difficult. It is my goal as an artist educator to create engaging projects for students.
I believe the art classroom enables self-guided exploration and learning in ways other subjects might not be able to. It is the art teacher’s job to make interdisciplinary connections. The arts can function as a bridge to connect to other subjects and explore topics in greater depth. This teaches students how to think creatively; the first way a student thinks of to do something is not always the most efficient or successful way. Students who gain success through trial and error in the art classroom will bring that attitude into other content areas and will not give up if they do not initially succeed.
Last, but certainly not least, I believe there is a balance of learning in the art classroom. For everything I teach my students, they teach me something too.