Learning is a life-long experience, but one begins to understand learning when they enter school. Learning exposes people to vast amounts of knowledge, and is valuable to the growth of oneself. Learning is successful in the traditional sense when it leads to an understanding of something new, but is most successful when passion is born from it. I became passionate about art when I learned about it in school. Because of that, I want to be an art teacher that imparts that same passion on my students.
I believe that a teacher is the most influential person in a students’ life, because learning guides students to who and where they want to be. Teaching is meant to present students with many possibilities for their lives, and I believe that a teacher’s job is to show their students those possibilities. I want what I teach to be constantly changing and fluid like the world is. I want my students to not feel limited by what I teach, but rather walk away with a sense of ultimate freedom. A freedom of having multiple life paths and an understanding of all the places they could go.
As an art teacher, I believe that there should be both structure and spontaneity. Structure in the sense that learning about the history of art and art techniques is essential to understanding what art is, but spontaneity in the sense that art should also not be contained. As a student, I enjoyed art because it was what I made it to be. I want my students to do the same. Students are more motivated and connect better with their work when it is something personal and derived from themselves. I will teach content with structure and teach creativity with spontaneity.
