In my kindergarten art class, sunlight dripped through the paint-colored windows. I learned the primaries: red, blue, yellow. I could make the whole rainbow out of these three colors. I spent my childhood making maps, to hide stolen secrets, pinky promises, and buried treasures- these maps were elaborate, hand-drawn mazes that lead to nowhere and everywhere all at once. It was a time of magic, and creativity, a time when I truly believed I could accomplish anything I set my mind to. After spending years and years of Art classes where my teacher had us trace magazines, I felt as though the creativity for art had drained out of me, I didn’t doodle or paint or draw, I didn’t know-how without a real-life picture to anchor to. It is a wonder that Art wiggled its way back into my life at all but despite this, I have always been creative, I just expressed it in different ways. In middle school, I was not doing well in my art class, at all. I sat bored, uninterested, and nervous, and my poor Art teacher tried everything she could to try to reengage me in her lessons. I shrugged her off every single time, the idea of creating was tempting, it was something I loved doing, but the idea of having to make art, of having no idea where or how to even begin making my ideas appear visually made me want to chew my fingers off. Instead, I  poured and poured all of my creative energy into writing, I wrote everything from poorly written song lyrics to horror stories, to fanfiction.  But one of these stories was a children’s story I had been working on since elementary school. This story was titled “The Adventures of June”, June for anyone who may be wondering was an Egg and she went on marvelous adventures in the grocery store ranging from braving the freezing wastelands of the dairy island- whose biggest attraction was the Great stone Sherbert Mountains to visiting Herbacia, the land of vast green rolling hills and getting her very own pickle dog sidekick. It was a joy to write and was a series of stories I shared with just myself, tucked away in a notebook. My English teacher, however, was someone who believed in my writing and also in the arts and collaboration of different subjects. Unknowingly to me, she had known I was struggling in Art class, I had no idea that teachers know and talk to each other about their students and she had both watched and read snippets of these stories while I worked on them during class, and one day she pulled me aside to discuss them. I was terrified, my heart was racing and I assumed I would get reprimanded for working on something other than my classwork, but instead, she asked what I had been writing. I told her about my children’s story, June’s story, that it was unfinished, but it was something I had been working on for years at that point. She wasn’t mad or upset the only thing she asked was “who is going to do the artwork, all children’s stories need artwork?” I was stumped, I hadn’t even considered the illustrations for this story at this point. I could not imagine letting someone else near this story, it was mine, what if they got it wrong? What if they didn’t know what June’s mom looked like, or what if they made Mr. Gherkin the wrong breed of pickle dog? It was then that I decided I had to do my own illustrations, she suggested that I have a discussion with my Art teacher and see if for our upcoming drawing assignment I could work on creating my illustrations for this story. And of course, she let me, she was so excited that I was making something I think she would have worked with me to create any idea I had, but she was especially excited about the prospect of me making a series of pieces. She talked to me about all types of things, scaffolding me with all the knowledge I would need, all of the things I had missed out on in elementary school. We went over storyboards, comic books, illustration, art history, types of lines, colors, she brought in storybooks in styles that she thought I could explore for this project. Anything and everything I asked about she had an answer to, and if I got too overwhelmed with making my Art and instead chose to work more on my story, or to pick out scenes and describe them with my words first she never got mad or pushed. She allowed me the time and space to create something I was proud of, and something that unknowingly to me fit rather well into our curriculum. This is a moment that always stuck out to me within my Art education as something important. It is a valuable lesson that I can now look back on as an educator myself, I was an incredibly difficult student, not because I couldn’t make art but because I did not want to, I was stubborn and frustrating. But all it took was one thing that interested me and I was ready, it took me back to kindergarten where I could make the whole rainbow and you gave a valentine to everyone in the class, back to a time of magic in Art and wonder. Someday I may have my own Malea and this moment is something I can look back on when a student is disengaged, and instead of getting frustrated, I will understand that there is probably a reason why. And by understanding this, I can implement other knowledge like Tab and choice-based education strategies to hopefully reach and engage students who like me don’t know where to start.   

 

This moment highlights two things that I think are very important in Art Education, firstly a student-centered learning approach that is approached in the way of differentiation, by allowing me to be self-directed rather than taking a discipline-based education approach, I was more engaged in Art than I had been since kindergarten. But also, an integration of cross-curricular activities, such as literacy and numeracy. This is colorado is part of grade-level expectations, however, this is something I believe to be crucial to the learning environment. Not every student is going to learn the same way, we can see this when we talk about things like interpretive learning strategies each student comes to the table with not only different experiences but in my case different creative outlets or passions. The student who loves Math may not know that Math and Art do overlap until you reach and show them that, just like I was unaware that English and art overlap until my teachers were able to reach me. These students whose passion may not automatically be with Art can be assisted by adding these small changes to lessons, by letting them create and frame their learning just like how my teacher did with me, which I am aware of now as an educator in terms of differentiation and approaches to creating lessons for students. 

 

This week I added some graphic figures using more collage, and mixed media. I wanted to continue with the distortion, referencing this foundation that I am building upon and that is changing each week, layering it to show the layers building within my learning. But I also wanted to represent my change in perceptions with these figures and depiction, a metaphor for me both looking back on the past and seeing something new now that I am an educator myself, and looking towards the future. I chose to do these symbols in red as a contrast, red is a bold color that tends to draw the eye of viewers, and I am planning on doing washes of colors over this layer as I continue to build. But for now, I wanted something that stood out from the rest of the piece, this contrast to represent this metaphor of change and this sort of bold chance that is represented in my past and in my future. 

 

The more I look back on my past as both a student and an educator, the more I am starting to feel more concrete in not only my choices but also in the things I am drawn to as a teacher. I know that I value choice-based education strategies, that I am hopefully going to work up to having TAB class structures within my class. I know that I value literacy and numeracy integration, and meeting students at their level and mode of learning. I know I value teaching and focus on the process of Art Education rather than the product. I could probably go on and on, but what I am learning most is what I value and want to implement and mirror within my classroom.