Education is meant to engage critical thinking, self-directed learning, and how to be a participating member of the community.  As a teacher, my role is to help students realize their potential and find empowerment through learning. As a visual arts teacher, I have the opportunity to allow students to pursue their interests and learn in an individualized way by incorporating Teaching for Artististic Behavior and Choice models that naturally differentiate learning targets and encourage material exploration.  Through creating norms and practicing Visual Thinking Strategies, I hope to cultivate a space where students feel safe and confident to express themselves. 

In my classroom, I want each student to see art as an approachable avenue for expression, idea generation, and problem solving.  Students will be provided the opportunity to explore different materials from two-dimensional drawing, painting and collage, to using ceramics, fibers, and other materials for three dimensional works.  Exploration and practice with material is scaffolded into my lesson plans that are based around the Maine Learning Results and National Core Art Standards. I am also interested in bridging lessons with other subject areas like Language Arts and science.  In working closely with the teachers of other subject areas and classroom teachers, we can make for learning that is being supported in multiple classrooms to increase knowledge transfer. 

   In my teaching practice, I am dedicated to creating an inclusive classroom environment and curriculum.  I plan to approach equity and diversity in two ways: building a strong classroom community and representation.  The importance of a strong classroom community is to make everyone in the classroom feel comfortable and empowered to participate in the classroom.  I plan to create this environment through weekly activities that incorporate Visual Thinking Strategies that allow us to build a classroom dynamic around positive feedback while looking at a piece of artwork. The goal is to lift up each student’s voice and create a community in which each person feels like they are being heard and valued. 

 Representation will be shown with artist examples and languages that reflect the students in my classroom and the global society.  I will look for new ways to incorporate more voices than just my own for content such as read-alouds and music.  My art room will be arranged and adjusted to fit the various abilities of the students so that each student is given their best opportunity to succeed.  Within representation, is the importance of students seeing their own work on display.  I will seek opportunities to display work within the school community and extend to the wider community as well. 

 In planning for my teaching practice, I am very much approaching it as that: practice.  I am dedicated to making students' educational experiences positive and to help shape them into engaged members of our society.  Practice means that I must continuously try new approaches, reflect, and modify my own instruction in order to grow alongside my students as an effective educator.