Teaching Without the Magic Show

Smoke and Mirrors: Art Teacher as Magician

Hathaway, Nan E. Art Education66.3 (May 2013): 9-15

 

I found this article to be very insightful. As an art education major, I often contemplate how I will go about successfully teaching a class. I feel that teaching the subject of art is in a completely different realm than any other subject. There is no simple definition of the right or wrong way to do art. For this reason I often wonder what my role as an art teacher will be.

The Smoke and Mirrors: Art Teacher as Magician article by Hathaway gave some very interesting points on the way to view a classroom through the eyes of an art teacher. The article helped me realize that being an art teacher is less about creating specific lessons, selected and thoroughly planned out by the teacher, and more about helping the children discover their own creativity. Helping them turn their creativity, their own thoughts and ideas, into a form of art.

The article kept reiterating that the purpose of art education is to cultivate the mind. Allow the students to find themselves, discover their interests, and expand on that. This article helped me to realize that my job as a teacher would not be to simply supply them with an idea, but merely give them the resources needed to create their own vision, and help them along with that process. As a teacher I hope that I can have the ability to supply my students with the knowledge and materials they need to carry out and complete their own creative process. 

When the instruction of the art teacher is the only thing behind the idea of a creation, then the students often view, not themselves, but the teacher as the only artist within the classroom. In allowing the student freedom to create their own work from their ideas alone, the students will gain pride when completing a piece of art. This pride, accumulated from their realization that they were the sole creators, will give them the self-assurance to see themselves as artists.