I've learned a few things these past nine months. Being a teacher is a lot like being a parent. The months fly by and the days last forever. But I really like the job. I can count on one hand the times I have been really upset, mad, or frustrated with it all. And that is pretty good for any line of work.
I love the celebrity status I have when I walk around town. It is fun to hear my name being called out from across the town square, or at Basha's or CVS, ( unless I'm buying tampons or picking up my BCP. Not that that has happened. . . )
And I love that my friends tell me their kids come home and actually talk about what they did in art that day. And they tell their parents about composition, visual texture, vanishing points, horizon lines and how they got to see a painting that was really, really old. (It was done in 1978.)
But my favorite part is how I get to show the students that they have ownership in what they create. There is never a black and white answer like in math. I could tell every student in the class to draw and elephant and they would each draw a completely unique one. And they would all be right. I love how I get to be the teacher that doesn't have to say: "You must do it this way." Instead I tell them that they are the artist and the decisions are theirs alone.
Next year I am going to introduce an art history component to the curriculum. I have this fantasy that my fifth graders will get to middle school and high school and the art teachers there will start talking about Degas or 2 point perspective. And my former students will just smile and say: "Mrs. D already taught us that."
Hey, a girl can dream.
you can do it! I learned more about art history from my Morley School Art teacher than any other. At the end of the year he took the 6th grade class to the Met in NYC to see some of the paintings we had learned about. Loved that Art teacher and REALLY wish my kids had one 1/2 as good.
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