Student-Centered / Context-Specific / Interdisciplinary Restorative / Trauma-Informed
The foundation of my teaching is building genuine relationships with my students, so they feel seen and heard. This cornerstone is critical for establishing an emotionally safe environment that is necessary for the art-making process. This type of safety not only allows students to take healthy risks that promote growth and self-discovery but also permits the process to unfold successfully–– this includes mistakes, persistence, critique, revisions, reflection, failure, and the will to begin again. While I actively seek to learn who my students are and what they value, I facilitate openings for students to build relationships with one another. When they do this, a classroom community is developed through active discussions, group work, restorative circles, and team-building exercises. This intimate knowledge allows me to differentiate and scaffold to meet their needs, values, and interests. To me, art is a vehicle for exploring, discussing, and making connections to ideas and questions at the crux of humanity; therefore, my curriculum is inherently interdisciplinary. Each unit of instruction is grounded in a big idea for students to investigate and make meaning of– this is the landscape's horizon as one looks out from a vista. Throughout the experience, while one walks the journey, students utilize multiple modes of inquiry to increase chances for connection-making and to account for the diversity in learning styles. The terrain of the landscape we walk is the social and cultural context in which we live and the visual and material culture that mediates it. Each turn along the trail has artistic choices within parameters for students to make. Their decision-making ability builds their artistry, sense of independence, and assertiveness. It enables them to work through creative problem-solving. This entitles them to feel themselves walking their journey while I guide— trailblazing towards that horizon.
Nonetheless, I am walking alongside them, and we journey together. When we arrive at that horizon line, we have new skills in artistry and fresh ideas or ways of being. We realize another horizon has emerged to walk toward, always becoming. This journey I take my students on is designed to be an immersive, multi-sensory experience involving the body, mind, and spirit. I want students to walk away with an exciting, thought-provoking, challenging, and joyous experience. The visual arts have always served humanity to provide enlightenment in simple and grand pleasures as well as questions. Today's youth face immeasurable obstacles; between the ongoing climate, political, social, and cultural crises, students need opportunities to creatively think outside the box to imagine new ways of being that are more sustainable and just. They also need tools to celebrate and enjoy all that we have and dream of. Students will exit my classroom with creative, dynamic, and exciting works that discuss big ideas relevant to their personal lives and their communities. They will also leave with a toolbox of technical and cognitive skills that artists utilize throughout the artistic process. Most importantly, they will leave the room with a more complex understanding of critical human questions and a stronger sense of their own worth.
Farming as a Metaphor for Teaching Philosophy
In a previous version of myself, I was an aspiring farmer. I feel deeply connected to the earth and found peace and joy in fostering an ecosystem. The web of aliveness between soil, air, water, plant, insects, fruit and so forth is mysterious and alluring; I am a small part of that network. When farming your observation skills are highly active; I noticed the way plants responded to my care (and to the environment at large). I also came to learn that while my hands are involved, the plants are their own entities, they are growing on their own, manifesting their dignity. Read the full metaphor.
Love and Logic Classroom Culture
Fay & Fay, 2016, Page 43.