Educational Philosophy
An art teacher’s purpose is to facilitate and to create dynamic art making experiences to stimulate all areas of development; physical, cognitive, emotional and social. Art creates an environment for children to process and internalize information in profound ways. I am committed to the potential of enhancing every step of childhood development through the art making process. My priority is to maintain a classroom that is a safe and supportive environment that allows each student to eagerly engage in new mediums and concepts while practicing developmentally appropriate skills.
My educational philosophy is to hear and see and know a child and create experiences that infuse developmental skills and goals with each child’s interest and capability in mind. To build a community within the classroom that fosters and encourages self actualization and compassion to allow for an environment primed for learning and growth. Within my classroom I strive to meet every child where they are and build them up their self confidence through art making and acknowledgment of their unique strengths. Art expands children’s ability to interact with their world when provided with a space that safely allows them to take risks, problem solve while engaging their whole self in the process.
In the past I have transformed my classroom into a workshop of simple machines with a large scale pulley system inspired by the classroom interest and recreated a Koi pond from the community that we had been investigating. We incorporated a wider range of simple tools in our “workshop” to engage fine and gross motor skills. Within these expansions of learning we broke down the steps of inquiry and incorporated this approach with new materials for the rest of the year. Throughout the process of creating each child’s works were displayed with care and respect. Allowing each child to know that their work was valued and taken care of is a cornerstone of establishing meaningful connections to students, teachers and community.
Creating and fostering these experiences of learning and development are my passion.
My professional experiences in studio art, gallery work, creative art therapies, community base art programming and early childhood education have all led to my dynamic understanding that all children should have access to a space where they are guided and encouraged in art making, that the process and product is respected, and the culmination of this exploration ends with them more capable and confident then when they started.
Artful Joy Studio 