Teaching Philosophy

Teaching art is not about teaching someone how to draw or paint.  Teaching art is not about showing someone the artwork of Vincent Van Gogh or Georgia O’Keeffe or Rembrandt.  Teaching art is not about helping someone make something pretty.  Students experience all of these things when they are taught art, but it’s not what teaching art is about.

Art in the classroom is about the students as artists.  They learn how art connects with them and how they can use connections with art to give their lives meaning.  They can connect to artworks and artists to discover meaning relevant to them and they can create meaning for themselves through their own art.  Teachers in the art classroom guide students toward the discovery of meaning and help them to understand what they discover.

Teaching art to me is about helping students discover who they are as artists through a process of experimentation with art media and experience with artists and the art they make.  Art teachers use professional artist examples, they use their own art as examples and they use successful student art as examples to teach students the how and why of artmaking.  Art teachers use art to teach young artists.