Being an educator is similar to being an artist in the sense that both professions are not just careers, but lifestyles. By definition I am both an educator and an artist. I don’t really care about the titles, but what I happen to do has been defined as such. Art and learning are similar because they both have knowledge components that are both intertwined and dependent upon each other..... Learning the knowing through the doing.
Most of my art comes from the uniqueness of the people around me. Everyone has so many complex layers to them. Each person sees the world differently from me and every time I observe a person I learn something new. The people I care about the most are the people I find myself wanting to tap into the most. Sometimes I tap into these people by creating art about them or doing collaborative pieces, each form is used as a process to become closer to those people, whether in my heart or in a literal sense.
My philosophy on learning is based on my experiences: my formal education and what I have absorbed in the process. In order to understand how I became an educator in the first place it is imperative you understand my history, because that is what influenced, shaped and formed who I am today.
My parents had the most influence on me and still do. They married young and in ways I feel like I grew up with them, but understood they were much older and wiser than me. I feel like my household was not typical. It was clear that my parents lived a faithful and Godly life and made decisions based on their beliefs. They made the home I grew up in comfortable and conducive to supporting me and let my interests in art grow and develop.
From birth until now I watched my parents live their lives together always being conscious of their actions. They understood that their actions taught and influenced me and therefore always understood how important their behavior was, they practiced what they preached.
I moved to New York City when I turned 18. I attending Fashion Institute of Technology for two years then transferred to School of Visual Arts where I graduated with my BFA with a concentration in painting and minors in art therapy and art history in 2000. When living in the city I was immersed in the art scene and learned from many artists. Getting to know the political side to the art scene was very unattractive to me. After graduating I moved to western Massachusetts where I got a part time job working as an art therapist/ counselor and a paraprofessional in a special needs classroom. I took the job at the high school because it had good benefits and hours, I had no idea it would influence my life as much as it did.
I soon fell in love with my students and found my calling to become a special educator. I worked primarily with a young lady named Angie. Angie was cognitively delayed and suffered from depression, but was a pleasant, talkative young lady who loved to draw. My first assignment was to be her one to one paraprofessional in a visual arts class. The art she was creating absolutely blew me away... It wasn’t just the art she created, but the things she said where so honest, innocent, profound and beyond anything my imagination could produce. I soon found that I felt that way towards all the students in that classroom.
I started working an after school program where I would collaborate with the students to create paintings together. I also started integrating art into their curriculum by creating visuals in science, history and reading. I started staying as late as I could to watch and learn from the head teacher of the classroom, who was going on almost 30 years of teaching. She taught me a lot of the basics. The following summer I got my own classroom and have been working as a special educator ever since. I went to Endicott College and received a masters in education in moderate disabilities and visual arts and learning, and UMASS Lowell and studied behavior intervention in autism/ autism specialist.
I feel that when working in the field of special education treatment is vital to the students’ learning. If the treatment is not appropriate then the student may not learn, or could even be harmed. For example if a student has a disability that causes him/ her to behave in a certain way, and that behavior effects their ability to learn, therefore I believe in is my job is to extinguish the behavior enough to teach them a skill. I can’t teach unless a student is teachable. I believe everyone is teachable, but sometimes I have to pull out my knowledge and creativity to figure out how instruct them.
When I am in a room full of students I am being watched constantly by them. They not only listen to every word that comes out of my mouth, but they watch everything I do. What I do is a form of teaching, modeling behavior. I am constantly aware of my decisions and my actions when I am in the classroom. I believe in what I do, this is why I feel that being an educator is a lifestyle.
My artwork has evolved more into the experience of working with others in a creative environment. My classroom has become that creative comfortable environment. This environment is conducive to my students’ needs and growth. I try to teach them the skills they need to know to become as successful and independent as possible. Although I understand the science behind my students’ disabilities, my creativity in the methodology in which education is delivered is my art.
I believe that there is art in everything thing around us. Often artists are inspired by nature and objects of our world. People are also part of the nature of our world and are complex and beautiful. Each person is a unique individual with layers of unique stories and thoughts. People are what inspire me and I am immersed in the experience of helping my students to learn each day. Just as they learn from the behavior I model to them in the classroom they also say and do things that teach me. To me education and learning is the process of give and take. Growing up with spiritual parents who practiced what they preached and understanding the principals of applied behavioral analysis has shaped me into believing that how I teach involves not just them looking and learning from me, but from me also learning from them.
Most of my art comes from the uniqueness of the people around me. Everyone has so many complex layers to them. Each person sees the world differently from me and every time I observe a person I learn something new. The people I care about the most are the people I find myself wanting to tap into the most. Sometimes I tap into these people by creating art about them or doing collaborative pieces, each form is used as a process to become closer to those people, whether in my heart or in a literal sense.
My philosophy on learning is based on my experiences: my formal education and what I have absorbed in the process. In order to understand how I became an educator in the first place it is imperative you understand my history, because that is what influenced, shaped and formed who I am today.
My parents had the most influence on me and still do. They married young and in ways I feel like I grew up with them, but understood they were much older and wiser than me. I feel like my household was not typical. It was clear that my parents lived a faithful and Godly life and made decisions based on their beliefs. They made the home I grew up in comfortable and conducive to supporting me and let my interests in art grow and develop.
From birth until now I watched my parents live their lives together always being conscious of their actions. They understood that their actions taught and influenced me and therefore always understood how important their behavior was, they practiced what they preached.
I moved to New York City when I turned 18. I attending Fashion Institute of Technology for two years then transferred to School of Visual Arts where I graduated with my BFA with a concentration in painting and minors in art therapy and art history in 2000. When living in the city I was immersed in the art scene and learned from many artists. Getting to know the political side to the art scene was very unattractive to me. After graduating I moved to western Massachusetts where I got a part time job working as an art therapist/ counselor and a paraprofessional in a special needs classroom. I took the job at the high school because it had good benefits and hours, I had no idea it would influence my life as much as it did.
I soon fell in love with my students and found my calling to become a special educator. I worked primarily with a young lady named Angie. Angie was cognitively delayed and suffered from depression, but was a pleasant, talkative young lady who loved to draw. My first assignment was to be her one to one paraprofessional in a visual arts class. The art she was creating absolutely blew me away... It wasn’t just the art she created, but the things she said where so honest, innocent, profound and beyond anything my imagination could produce. I soon found that I felt that way towards all the students in that classroom.
I started working an after school program where I would collaborate with the students to create paintings together. I also started integrating art into their curriculum by creating visuals in science, history and reading. I started staying as late as I could to watch and learn from the head teacher of the classroom, who was going on almost 30 years of teaching. She taught me a lot of the basics. The following summer I got my own classroom and have been working as a special educator ever since. I went to Endicott College and received a masters in education in moderate disabilities and visual arts and learning, and UMASS Lowell and studied behavior intervention in autism/ autism specialist.
I feel that when working in the field of special education treatment is vital to the students’ learning. If the treatment is not appropriate then the student may not learn, or could even be harmed. For example if a student has a disability that causes him/ her to behave in a certain way, and that behavior effects their ability to learn, therefore I believe in is my job is to extinguish the behavior enough to teach them a skill. I can’t teach unless a student is teachable. I believe everyone is teachable, but sometimes I have to pull out my knowledge and creativity to figure out how instruct them.
When I am in a room full of students I am being watched constantly by them. They not only listen to every word that comes out of my mouth, but they watch everything I do. What I do is a form of teaching, modeling behavior. I am constantly aware of my decisions and my actions when I am in the classroom. I believe in what I do, this is why I feel that being an educator is a lifestyle.
My artwork has evolved more into the experience of working with others in a creative environment. My classroom has become that creative comfortable environment. This environment is conducive to my students’ needs and growth. I try to teach them the skills they need to know to become as successful and independent as possible. Although I understand the science behind my students’ disabilities, my creativity in the methodology in which education is delivered is my art.
I believe that there is art in everything thing around us. Often artists are inspired by nature and objects of our world. People are also part of the nature of our world and are complex and beautiful. Each person is a unique individual with layers of unique stories and thoughts. People are what inspire me and I am immersed in the experience of helping my students to learn each day. Just as they learn from the behavior I model to them in the classroom they also say and do things that teach me. To me education and learning is the process of give and take. Growing up with spiritual parents who practiced what they preached and understanding the principals of applied behavioral analysis has shaped me into believing that how I teach involves not just them looking and learning from me, but from me also learning from them.
