STUDENT TEACHING REFLECTION:

Overall, my student-teaching experience has given me the confidence to teach and facilitate learning for a wide array of subjects, media, and ages. Professionally, my ability to adapt my pedagogical and management strategies for different ages, classes, and individual students has heavily improved since when I started teaching. Personally, I feel like this experience has given me a robust understanding of how the arts are just one interconnected mechanism of the greater system that we refer to as public education. I feel like I have personally witnessed this system's strengths, flaws, impacts, and goals. I have realized that I am very passionate about implementing social justice strategies and initiatives in the world of education and eventually into the arts. In the near future, I envision myself enacting pedagogical theories and strategies in my teaching and studio practice. Some of these philosophies include ideas such as the connections between disability studies and accessibility in the art room, restorative justice circles through an arts-based lens, and community-based public art projects.

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MY TEACHING STORY:

To keep it simple, I was that little kid that taught her stuffed animals how to add/multiply and read basic sentences. I think I have always wanted to be a teacher because, from a young age, I realized that teaching allowed me to be authentic and share knowledge with others. As I went through the educator preparation program at CSU, I realized that I loved teaching not only for this exchange of knowledge but for ongoing and meaningful relationships that I could build with students. Throughout my undergrad, I tried on several degree programs including Spanish, English, Ethnic Studies, and Social Studies. I mention this because I was looking for a content area that embodied concepts that transcend learning. I found that in the Visual Arts, there was space for students to immerse themselves in historical and contemporary events and stories, social justice causes and discourse, identity reclamation and their sense of being, scientific methods of inquiry and idea development, and an environment that evolves students transferable skills such as organization, reflection, and collaboration. Facilitating a collaborative workspace for students comes easily to me as a practicing studio artist who has spent the last five years in the studio environment. After spending the last five months student-teaching in three different public school environments, I have come to love facilitating a vibrant, innovative, and meaningful studio environment for students to be just as impactful and meaningful as creating art myself. I am beyond excited to continue working in this field and pursue success for my students and for myself. 

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(Overviews of my student-teaching placements can be found in the Student Teaching Tab)