Every art student deserves an education that is intentional, well designed, individualistic, and of a high quality.  As an art educator, I believe I can facilitate the sort of class room that not only educates students but forms them into mature and insightful adults.  I am excited to create an environment that is open, safe, and rich in educational content as well as relevant to the students lives both in and beyond school.
            Focus of an art lesson should go towards creating students that are intentional in their work. The process and design intent are something that should be celebrated and promoted.  Art educators are facilitators of knowledge rather than all knowing dump-trucks that pour knowledge into a student.  I believe the student that understands the how and why of something builds and retains knowledge beyond the classroom. Rather than regurgitating names and dates, a student with built, intentional knowledge can discuss and question works of art. I feel providing students with the tools to question the world around them gives them the ability to apply knowledge across various platforms and references.
            With the advent of the internet, teachers have more resources than ever before. With a click of a button, lesson plans and units go from some of the greatest minds onto your HP Inkjet. Because of this resource there is never a reason, an art classroom should ever be poorly designed or taught.  The difficulty in this resource is twofold.  We must realize that although there are lessons online created by amazing, creative, and brilliant people, so too are there lessons created by the subpar, dull, and biased.  Beyond being able to parse out the excellent, not all brilliant lessons apply or are relevant to all classrooms.  I believe an art teacher should spend the time and effort in writing relevant lesson plans while utilizing the ideas and goals of others.  We should be standing on the shoulders of giants, not sitting somewhere in a front pocket because at least it’s higher than the ground.
            I believe a teacher’s main goal should be to invest the time and energy into their students to create an environment that is tailored to the needs of the individual. Students are diverse and each one comes with a different set of needs. Far too often, educators group students into predefined categories before getting to know them.  This results in rigid curriculum that may work one year but fails utterly the next. Rather than blaming the new group of students, the curriculum should be reevaluated.  A lesson or unit should be reworked every time it is taught.  Learning should be tailored to the current student and adjustments made.
            All students deserve a quality education.  My goal is to provide it to them. Quality will be defined in many different ways throughout my career; however, the quality shouldn’t be diminished but rather tailored to fit the situation. Students should always be challenged. Expectations should always be high. Learning should always be complex and involved. Students and their individual needs should always be first.