“I can’t do that!” “I’m not artistic, I can barely draw a stick figure.” These are a couple of statements that I hear the first time that I talk to students about art and these statements challenge and fuel me to teach art. Creating artwork is a muscle memory just like learning how to write an essay or hit a baseball. It is something that you must learn, practice, and master over time.
Teaching Philosophy
As an art educator, I am always looking for ways to improve my knowledge and skills. I model this by being a student myself and seeking professional development opportunities that allow me to better serve my classroom. My aim is to instill an excitement for Art within my students through my passion for teaching and learning that I bring to every lesson.
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In sum, I believe in the constructivist approach to education, emphasizing a learner-centered classroom that builds and expands their knowledge and understanding of the world. Implementing this educational theory can be seen in many different teaching practices in my classroom.
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IMPLEMENTING MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
I have three goals in my classroom. The first is to provide students with the technical skills and knowledge of materials necessary to understand the full range of possibilities offered by the media covered in class. This aspect points to the idea of “craftsmanship.” The issue of craftsmanship is relevant to both traditional and digital forms of art. I teach students that craft is an issue that cannot be avoided, while simultaneously stressing that media is secondary to the conceptual structure of the work.
The second goal is to introduce students to the idea of visual analysis regarding both their work and that of others. Students are taught numerous ways to judge visual work through the analysis of visual components, composition, color theory, and the elements and principles of design. In addition to the individual work that students will create, all my classes include group work that underscores the significance of communication and knowledge of past and present practice in the field. In this respect class discussions are important, centered around critiques and other class activities, for example: slide presentations, field trips, assigned readings and research projects. Where apt other questions and ideas related to the class are examined. These might include the question of what determines the value of a work of art, social issues raised by work made in class, the responsibilities of the artist in society, the relationships between art and craft or between visual imagery and verbal expression.
The final goal, as a teacher, is to move beyond the purely aesthetic questions and introduce students to the critical analysis of their future work. Students learn to think carefully about all of the decisions that they make regarding the materials and technique they use then relate them to a historical and theoretical context. Furthermore, students learn to express conceptual objectives for their artwork. While the class assignments act as a jumping off point, I stress that their work should foremost be personal, and the process of actually creating the work should teach them something that they didn’t already know. The art that students had planned to make will inevitably be changed by the events during the physical realization process, when this happens their work is communicating with them, so that one piece will lead to the next. My goal here is to have students begin an on going body of work that is both an expression and means for development of their ideas and interests. This is how art becomes ingrained in students. It is also the first step to becoming an artist.