I have been a teacher for as long as I can remember, coming home from school I would teach everything I learned to my mom, my stuffed pig, and a rabbit. The first time I ever taught art was not in a classroom, in a camp, or even to a large group of students. The first time I taught art was at my kitchen table to my baby sister, and it was the first time I felt like I knew what I was talking about. This moment in time, this memory is something I remember vividly, my mother had always encouraged my artistic explorations and so it was something I did with my little sister. I had decided on a whim to start taking my art seriously, driving myself over to Michaels craft store and purchasing an eight-dollar watercolor paint pallet, brushes, and a sketchbook. My sister who was about eight years old at the time came bursting into my room after volleyball practice, happily muttering about her day and wanting to share that joy with me. I was staring frustrated at this very bad rendition of a girl with a toaster for a head, the surrealism that would actually develop into a sort of artistic style for me later, mashing humans with things distinctly not human in this odd conglomerate of anatomy. Either way, there we were, me frustrated because I was not happy with how this art piece was coming out, and her with her wide eyes and happy smile standing at my door looking down at me. She asked me then with wonder in her voice what on earth I was painting, and it was after I explained that she asked if she could join me. This was my first art lesson, on the bedroom floor of my childhood home my little sister absorbed all of the information I told her as we dipped watercolors and splattered paint on the carpet, and it was after this that she told me she wanted to be an artist. I like to think sometimes that it was this very moment that inspired her, and this very moment that inspired me in my own way to become a teacher. Now, I know the process of teaching I know that it’s more than sitting and doing Art with another person, know that the process of creation is the fundamentals to making art. I know now that the best way of teaching art for me is allowing students to shape their own learning, applying choice-based and student-centered methods of teaching and methods of inquiry to have them arrive at their own answers and connect to their own learning in a deeper way. But I also know that your own excitement, is something that students can soak up, each child is going to relate or connect or be inspired by something different. For my little sister, it was seeing me make art, its art history, and watching other artists create. For another student, it could be listening to something, getting told a prompt, or it could be interacting with their peers. What I have learned now as an educator is that nobody learns the same and there is no right or wrong way to create or get inspired, there is simply just a way that works for you. 

 

The biggest theory that connects to this change is this idea of constructivism, a theory where students or learners construct their knowledge based on their learning, knowledge, and the best way that they can learn. This knowledge is what changed how I teach art, for some students showing is enough, for others, it isn’t. I consider this now, thinking about what ways I can bridge the knowledge visually, verbally, or physically so students can each learn in the best mode for them. So they each have the same access to that knowledge on an equal footing. 

 

This week, I added butterflies to my piece, simple black and white-colored butterflies in collage rather than painting. I added this for many reasons, firstly, butterflies were used in my nursery and are woven throughout my childhood I cannot see a butterfly without thinking of my sisters laughing as we tell secrets within badly built forts, or stolen pinky promises, and nights undercover whispering dreams and ghost stories. It is a metaphor for my first students, the people to whom I still teach art and other things, the people whom I will always hold up and think about within my creation and thinking of the past. Secondly; butterflies are a catalyst for change, for growth, they represent growing up and this change just with their very being and so I feel as though they are a good representation of my learning as an educator, from that first lesson as a caterpillar to now being a butterfly. And finally, the change in materials again is this representation of change, of knowledge and understanding, and how that has also changed and grown from just painting into other materials as I have begun this journey of being an art educator. 

 

Right now, I feel as though I have grown so much as an educator in my time at CSU. I still feel as though I have so much more to learn, so many different applications of theory and curriculum and grading. I still feel as though while I know what I think I want to apply in my classroom, I still need to learn what works best for me and my talents and start thinking about putting these theories into practice, and the best way to go about doing that. This understanding of change and growth I think is going to set me up to be open to learning and changing to become a stronger educator.