Artfully Appreciating Teachers

Since today marks the beginning of National Teacher Appreciation week in the United States, I thought it would be apropos to write a post (or maybe several, depending on what this week has in store for me) dedicated to the work teachers have done and continue to do, in order to ensure that students have opportunities to flourish personally and professionally.

Being an educator is an elaborate profession because you not only need to have proficient knowledge about a particular field area like art, science or physical education; you also need a resounding understanding of humanity. Teaching means tirelessly working to ensure that learners have the tools, knowledge, resources and confidence to be liberated, informed and empowered to make transformative changes to their lives and the lives of others in their community (and by that extension, the world at large). In the words of bell hooks (1994), “education as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn.”

To become a teacher you need to anticipate creatively restructuring and re-presenting material every single time that classes are in session. This is because each of our students comes into school with different lived experiences, prior knowledge and cultural identities. Teaching efficiently means designing curriculum and teaching in a manner that acknowledges how social and emotional intelligence is just as important to learning a subject as the actual discipline-specific facts and formulas are.

My journey into arts education was not the typical one, but just as there is no one model for learning, there is not a single formulaic path to become an educator. Educators are a special type of profession because we generally hone our knowledge in one specific discipline, and then are required to transform the complex understandings of that subject into an approachable and developmental appropriate framework that can be embraced by students who do not (yet) have the same years of field experience. The idiom “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach,” is easily one of the most misunderstood and untrue statements in modern human civilization. The line comes from Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw’s 1905 satirical stage play Man and Superman. It was never truly meant as an attack on actual teachers, but rather a critique of revolutionaries who use rhetoric in favor of pragmatic action. The phrase has therefore been used out of context ever since by anyone seeking to make an uniformed attack on teachers, and by extension, the public education system. Its hypocrisy is exposed when we recollect upon our own experiences in school and define moments where certain teachers inspired a particular passion and path that helped lead to where we are today. Many educators come into teaching from other professions, with the common denominator being the passion for helping others achieve pragmatic and empowering realizations that they too can live multifaceted lives through the acquisition and spread of knowledge.

This is what Farhad B. Naini, a practicing dentist, oral surgeon and educator reflects in his short-essay “So, those who can’t do it, teach it?” Naini (2006) writes that:

“Most of us, looking back over our training, can attribute our choice of specialty to one or more mentors—teachers so enthusiastic and inspirational that they instilled within us the desire to better ourselves and thereby better serve our patients. They taught us to think for ourselves. Most of us will also admit that these inspiring individuals were not just devoted teachers but had notably inquiring minds and were almost always exceptional clinicians.”

Naini’s statement speaks to my pathway towards being an educator after years of working in the fine arts field as an arts administrator, curator and gallerist. When I was looking for a way to incorporate my prior content specific knowledge into a teaching methodology, I learned that as long as you have the passion for your subject matter and the motivation to work cooperatively with students to facilitate and empower their development of knowledge, skills and purposeful awareness; the results will come as you build classroom experience.

In the fall of 2017, I started my second semester of the graduate K-12 art education program at Brooklyn College. This semester was most transformative for me because I was getting training as a teacher in both elementary and high school classrooms, while cramming my head with information about the history of education and pedagogical theory. At first, this was a chaotic and nerve-wracking experience, especially since I entered the arena of art education coming from a background that was largely in the fine arts field. I had far less practical teaching experience and training than most of my classmates. I was a bit apprehensive and timid at first. I felt out of place. However, my professors, Linda Louis and Toby Needler encouraged me to combine my prior knowledge of art history and my professional experience as a curator, cultural administrator and arts writer with the experiential education I was receiving in art pedagogy. I also took a class on visual culture education with Dr. Cheri Ehrlich, where we were prompted to use a digital media platform to document our journey becoming art educators. And that, dear readers, was how this blog came to be!

Aside from fulfilling an assignment, the blog was initially about finding my comfort zone to approach topics related to teaching and learning, but it has evolved into a resource that has helped a variety of individuals integrate contemporary art practices into educational frameworks and vice versa. I realized I could reflect on my background in contemporary art and art criticism, in order to provide a perspective that is relevant and accessible to educators and fine art professionals alike. As an arts writer, curator and educator, blogging enables me to contextualize my prior art related experiences and knowledge into a pedagogical and critical framework that seeks to broaden the discourse about the benefits of art-centered learning.

As an arts educator writing a blog about the symbiosis of contemporary art and education theories and practices, I pull from a wide cohort of educators, past and present, in order to bolster my own teaching skills and better understand the relationship between education and cultural progress. In addition to writing about educators, I decided to create a series of portraits depicting some of many of the educators I have discussed in Artfully Learning blog posts. Every portrait is accompanied by a quote on education that has been accredited to the individual. “The Educators” series is currently being made into several audio-visual episodes, which combine the artwork with the scholarly and editorial content of the blog. All of this interrelated content is my way of showing how education is ingrained within the foundation of society at large, and how teachers are doers who help choreograph societal progress.

I am going to try and post throughout the week about my own personal appreciation for the educators who helped me become the person I am today. Although I will single out specific people in my life, I am extending this gratitude to each and every teacher of the past, present, and future. 

Educators, thank you for your service! 

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References, Notes, Suggested Reading:

bell hooks (1994). Teaching to Transgress. Education as the Practice of Freedom. Oxfordshire: Routledge.

Naini, Farhad B. “So, those who can’t do it, teach it?.” BMJ : British Medical Journal vol. 332,7535 (2006): 219. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1352056/