At the end of our first day of Studio Thinking I felt we had begun to bond as a community. We shared our beliefs about teaching and how the Arts make us different from our colleagues.  People identified a sense of isolation, feeling like others don’t know what to make of them. Our classrooms are often loud, messy, divergent and full of movement. This can look like chaos to the outsider.

We know it’s not chaos – it’s structured interaction in a free and flowing environment.

As a group we described ourselves as:

  • artists, creative
  • having passion
  • being flexible and yet structured
  • promoting risk taking – and yet a safe environment
  • building respect for process, history and one another
  • problem solvers
  • based on the Principles of Art (foundational)

Teacher feedback about the day was very positive and enthusiastic. They felt empowered,  stimulated and supported. A few comments:

“I really enjoyed the other day…so nice to hear other people passionate about Arts Ed talk…I found that it put me in a little differnet frame of mind today…there were some small blocks I was experiencing in terms of just the right way to approach some of what I’m teaching right now that suddenly seemed to clear up and just be obvious rather than a small struggle…”

“Yesterday was SUPER! Amy and I talked about art and teaching art and philosophy all the way home.  It was a very enriching day.  Teacher pampering – like a teacher spa!!”

Personal interpretations about themselves as artist/teacher in mixed media