Throughout my personal exploration of making artwork and by watching my students create art, I have learned a lot about myself and how I would state my philosophy of education. I believe art education is very important to students today because it is a hands-on class, where students get to explore materials and creatively think. Now more than ever, art classes are needed to help our students: critically think, socially engage with their peers, be creative, and emotionally escape today's issues or personal struggles. I believe creating a single piece of art is very similar to educating students: the first step is finding something that inspires you or intriguing lessons. The second step is getting to know your audience/students and building relationships with them. The last step is having and providing the opportunity to create beautiful art in a welcoming environment.
Creating interesting lessons for an art class is very important. I believe lessons for an art classroom should be engaging, fun, relevant, and meaningful. Creating fun and engaging lessons allows for high levels of student involvement and achievement. Engaging lessons spark students’ interests because they will strive for a deeper depth of knowledge if they are engaged in the process. Students will also push themselves harder on their artwork if they connect to the art projects. I also create lessons that allow me the opportunity to help each student one-on-one. I believe individual teaching and learning allows for the proper accommodations and modifications to be made according to each student’s artistic level. I think that providing students with very individual help daily allows for a meaningful education.
Building relationships with students is core to teaching artmaking. If I can build meaningful relationships with my students, then I believe my students feel most comfortable receiving art criticism, praise, and advice. Building student relationships comes easily to me. I build relationships by checking in with students daily, asking them questions about themselves while they are creating art, and always providing positive praise and feedback about their artwork. Building relationships in an art classroom also helps create a healthy classroom environment.
Creating beautiful artwork in a welcoming environment is very important to my philosophy. I want my students to strive for their best and to take their time when creating. I always teach my students the importance of having great craftsmanship. I always tell students it is better to have something well-crafted than something rushed that they are not proud of. Lastly, having a welcoming classroom environment where students are supported and feel comfortable asking for help is important to me. I always create a welcoming environment by treating everyone with kindness. Kindness can be shown in many ways to students through supportive actions and by holding students to high expectations and by holding students accountable to school expectations. I want all students to see my modeling of kindness while they are at school, to always leave my classroom feeling as though they were supported, and be held to high expectations in order to become a productive member of society.
-Sheri Parker