Educational Philosophy

I have been teaching art at WHBUFSD for twenty years. I currently teach at the elementary school but have taught students at all levels both within the school system and privately. I believe that we are all born artists. I believe creating any kind of art can be joyful and inspirational. Creating feels good and as we create we learn through the process. I believe that art is a tool for self expression and a way to enrich learning across the curriculum. Students retain information on a long term basis when they are actively engaged on the level of application and synthesis of ideas. The creation of a work of art offers the student this opportunity. For more information on the subject you may refer the why section of our Proposal page from the Just Imagine Website.

When a student views a work of art by a master painter and recreates or reinterprets that style of painting or subject matter he demonstrates an ability to relate to the work and make it his own(G1-1). Click here to see examples of this from our Just Imagine website where students in the third grade learned about artist Henri Matisse and created paper cuts which were on display in our lobby at the WHB Elementary School.

My goal as an elementary school art teacher is to help student artists think about thinking, problem solve and find creative expression of ideas through art. In the work of art (above left) a kindergarten student portrays her family, home, and car the way she envisions them. By creating a work of art a child allows the viewer a glimpse of world form their individual and unique perspective. The child processes information of interest and describes emotion, knowledge, and understanding through the work of art. This type of learning is based in constructivist theory. The key notion in constructivist theory is that people learn best by actively constructing their own learning process.