My Teaching Philosophy

“There are only two ways to live your life: one is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle.” - Albert Einstein (?)

 

Though it's doubtful that Einstein actually spoke this quote – and a reasonable responding argument for a third, middle-ground way of going about living – for me, I choose and prefer to wake up each morning to meet more miracles than I can count.

 

I believe that guiding young people toward recognizing what is meaningful to them and expressing that meaning through artwork is a miraculous thing.  As a human being first and a teacher second, so I see my students first as human beings.  The classroom I open up belongs to every student that passes through my door, and ensuring that this safe space remains a nurturing environment is of my highest priorities.  I acknowledge the role I have not only as a leader, but as a learner among my students.  I strive to balance the joy and responsibility of my position with an open mind and humble heart, because everyday I grow rigth along with them.  It is privilege to be a part of their journeys and to have them all in mine.

 

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." - Jimi Hendrix

 

I believe that the honing of technical skills and the development of independent expression go hand-in-hand in the arts: technical skills empower students to immerse themselves and grow confident in media, and through curricula built up from Enduring Ideas (Stewart & Walker, Rethinking Curriculum in Art) that originate not inside the classroom but within and around and between us all as people in the world, students find meaning to drive the application of those skills.  

 

An education in the arts is not only important – many things are fairly important – but also just.  In my own biased opinion, participation in the arts is a natural declaration of a human soul that there is meaning in the world, and meaning worth sharing.  Meaning, like art, can’t be for just one thing – art is all at once for beauty, for expression, for leisure, for experimentation, for tradition, for discipline, for community, for activism, for understanding, and maybe even for no known reason at all.  By bringing together diverse artworks and their creators into our classroom, I hope to show students how these reasons for art have always belonged in human lives, and belong to them, too.