Philosophy of Teaching

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“Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”  I remember this being said to me many years ago, before I had started my learning journey, by a friend of mine.  I think he meant well by it, maybe he hoped I would pursue art as a career.  Or maybe he had a different perspective on teaching (and teachers) than I, we both had the same teachers in school.  But it stuck with me, always in the back of my mind. Is teaching an easier road to take?  I wanted to teach art so that I could inspire future artists, not because of any lack of skill in my own art.  

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During my Undergraduate Degree, I have seen that Art Teachers are multi-faceted educators and artistic individuals. We are creative, intuitive, sensitive, articulate, and expressive. We also need to be structured and unstructured, original, nonconforming, innovative, investigative, introspective, and inquisitive.  We need to be versatile, to have knowledge in many different skills and mediums. To be able to teach these skills from scratch by scaffolding the learning.  We need to be mindful and actively work with each student's individual learning needs and capabilities.  We need to make it fun, experimental and to be experiential, leaving enough space for self-discovery.  To encourage collaboration, to show the potential for creativity in self-expression and to teach students how to be reflective with their own, and their peer's work.

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I want to teach my students to be more observant and open-minded, to have the emotional and intellectual capacity to deal with any situation.   I want them to see that art is not just one isolated subject, that it is not just cross-curricular, it is everywhere and is everything.  I want my students to have the visual language to discern this truth.

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My teaching style is a combination of student-centred, kinaesthetic, differentiated and inquiry-based learning.  I emphasise the importance of conversation in the classroom, implementing Chaos Theory with set parameters that can give rise to unpredictable  and surprising results.  Learning occurs in a non-linear way with students and can engage with quieter students better when combined with written tasks.  Adaptability is a vital skill to being a dynamic and effective Art teacher and I intend to bring an open mind and positive attitude every day I am in the classroom.

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