ome of my philosophy of teaching has changed since I first taught in 1985 but my belief in children has remained. When I was in high school I thought that I wanted to work with mentally handicapped children. My school offered the opportunity to work in a classroom for one semester for two hours each day. There was one elementary class of mentally handicapped children in my town and my friend held that placement for the first semester. I found a placement in another elementary classroom where the teacher had set up her program to model the open classroom that was the thing in the early seventies. What began as a second choice became a first rate experience for me. I still draw on the experiences that I had with this gifted, caring, intelligent teacher. She believed in her students abilities to understand complex material when presented in an interesting hands on manner. One night she gave me the opportunity to prepare an optics lesson. The source she gave me to work from was a high school physics book. I learned a lot about optics and I learned a lot about what went into preparing a dynamic investigative lesson. It was in this classroom that I realized that I enjoyed teaching the children as much as I enjoyed learning from them. This is a lesson that has been repeated often throughout my teaching career. I was able to work in the classroom with the mentally handicapped children the next semester.

ow I am completing my thirteenth year of teaching art. Some of this time was in elementary, some in middle school and some part time. I have taught in a variety of socioeconomic and geographic settings. Currently I am a teacher at a school where technology is paramount. I feel that much of what I thought is important in education is finally coming together in this setting. My art program correlates with the classroom units of study. In this way I am able to teach art history, art techniques and concepts and create artwork by drawing from and building on knowledge the students obtain in other subject areas. This makes for a cohesive program where subjects overlap and knowledge is validated in a variety of settings and from many points of view. Because of the technology I have available to me I am able to teach more efficiently.

ne technology I use in my art room is the video camera and television/vcr to project my demonstrations, images from books and other visuals that would be too small for a large group to view. I have also used this technology to video tape guests and lessons that I teach. Borrowing the projector I have been able to show students artwork from the Internet that I did not have art prints of, including work of The Highwaymen.  In my classroom I also have a iMac.  I have used the video camera to tape lessons that involve step by step directions and play them while I walk around to assist the students. I see the computer use extending into bookmarked sites on the Internet (this site) and using a graphics tablet to draw with.

believe that all children have the ability to succeed if given the right environment and the right guidance. Every child does succeed in the art room. Teaching is paramount to the students' success. Children caring about what they do and working together is part of the formula.