TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Education shows students what the world is like, and all the opportunities that there are. The purpose of this is to prepare students for their life by giving them experience in different subjects and perspectives, learning the importance of each, which creates a foundation of knowledge. With this, students can reflect on their educational experiences and use it to decide what they might like to do with their future. This foundation can then be used by students to form educated ideologies and knowledgeable opinions to make positive changes in the world.
I want to be an art teacher so that I can share my passion of art with students, encourage limitless creative thinking habits, and show students that art is more than just drawing realistically. I was inspired to pursue art education because my own experiences with art classes in K-12 were lacking and the arts were undervalued in my schools which silently sent the message that art could not be made into one’s career or future. As a future art educator, I want to help make a difference by changing this stigma and promoting arts in school so that they may be taken seriously. I want to reveal to students the true power and value art has, and the importance of it in every culture around the world throughout all of time. Students should know that one can build a career and a living with art if they choose to. Art is key to understanding the world as much as any other subject, and it also goes hand-in-hand with every other subject. Art is all around us, in everything, and I want to teach students to see it.
Through art, I want to teach students how to think critically of their surroundings. By looking at advertisement, logos, propaganda, and other aspects of visual culture students will notice how their thoughts are being controlled by these constant bombardments of information. By realizing this, they will learn how to think for themselves according to their morals. They also learn this during critiques in which they carefully observe works of art and pick out the elements that are being used and describe what they feel as a result. They notice what works well and what could be different. This contemplation can then be applied to various areas outside of the classroom such as societal matters, the environment, and their community. With this, students are not just gaining the technical skills of art, but they learn how to communicate, collaborate, and constructively criticize while gaining a greater awareness of the world around them.
In any subject, meaningful learning happens when students can and care to apply the material covered. In this, the students understand the importance and relevance of each topic, and how it may be useful for their future. Learning occurs through reflection, so students should think about the impact of their learning on their life and write about the experiences they have had with it. This way, if they don’t learn anything else, they are at least learning about their self which is always meaningful. In an art class, meaningful learning occurs through the process of choosing a subject or material, working on a project over time that the student cares about, displaying it, and “critiquing” or reflecting on it. In this, the student learns about their identity and what they care about while applying the elements and principles of art design, and other techniques in the creation process. Through this, they learn how to persist and overcome challenges by finding creative solutions. They learn how to give constructive criticism to others and how to self-evaluate to be stronger in the future. Meanwhile, they are learning about the importance of art, different aspects and variations of art, and how to talk about art by experiencing it first-hand and reflecting on it.
Effective teachers enable meaningful learning. Enthusiasm, knowledge, reliability, understanding, listening, and leadership are all aspects of an effective teacher. Effective teaching occurs when the material is presented to the class clearly and concisely resulting in student success. An effective teacher gives students the opportunity to contemplate the material, apply the material, and reflect on the material in terms of their own life and future. An effective teacher also uses a variety of teaching methods to engage students with different learning needs and learning styles by acknowledging diversity in the classroom. Effective teachers gauge where their students are in terms of the curriculum and adjust it to meet the needs of the individual student. This could look like checking in on some students more than others, spending more time or less time on a certain topic, different activities, or different demonstrations. Because effective teaching is fluid and ever-changing depending on what the students need, it can look like a lot of different things.
As an art teacher, I want to be an inspiration for students to look to, as well as a resource for students to come to. With this, they can learn from my demonstrations and apply it to their own works independently knowing that I’m there for them if needed. I want students to have the freedom to work independently and make art that deals with topics, styles, and techniques that are meaningful to them. I want to be facilitator of this process to ensure that students are passionate about what they make by discussing with them one-on-one about their sketches, ideas, and thoughts to make sure that they are headed in a good direction. However, I want to be assertive enough so that the freedom I allow is not abused, and that class time is being put entirely towards the artwork. To do this, I will set the tone of my class to be efficient, and I will have the lessons well-organized with a clear timeline for students. Students will learn habits of coming into the class and sitting around the demo table on demonstration days, working on their projects right away on work days, and hanging up their work on the walls around the room on critique days. As an art teacher, I want all my students to have the opportunity to finish a meaningful work of art and have it on display showing them that anybody can be an artist.
