District Teacher of the Year
On September 7, 2012, the last day before maternity leave with my second child, I was nominated as Hill City Elementary's Teacher of the Year. In November, while still on leave, I was selected to represent Pickens County as the 2013 District Teacher of the Year. I have never in my life been so shocked and completely honored.
2014 GTOTY Application Excerpts
Below are excerpts from what I wrote in my application packet. This was what is used to select the Pickens County Teacher of the Year as well as for the State. Another form of creative expression that I enjoy is writing...
Professional Biography
A. What were the factors that influenced you to become a teacher? “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” - William Butler Yeats Many small fires around me were lit that joined together to become the all-consuming fire that is my passion for teaching. I was born August 24, 1981, in Southern California, into a family of gifted educators who loved me and nurtured my development while providing me with a innate desire for teaching, along with teachers who encouraged and inspired me. As a young child I dreamed of being a teacher and sharing my creative passions with elementary school children. I was also very imaginative and created many worlds around me in which to play. My mother always said she could put me in an empty room without windows or doors and I would be happy creating everything I needed. It may sound easier than it was, for I was a gifted child who struggled painfully with Attention Deficit Disorder and a shy personality from kindergarten through high school. I was also a perfectionist. This was a gift in disguise, because I could not help myself but fight and struggle to learn. However, it was not enough to overcome the discouragement that I often faced, so teachers, both in my family and at school, made all of the difference. They were my heroes and I wanted to light the fire in others that they lit in me. Both of my grandmothers were teachers. One directed a preschool, wrote her own songs for any topic needed and developed her own curriculum. Throughout the years she has been a popular high school Sunday School teacher, a women’s ministry teacher and has spoken around the world. My other grandmother taught elementary school and loved to write and direct her own plays. All of the siblings of both grandmothers were teachers. My father, a musician who has played with everyone from Keith Richards to Bruce Springsteen and has made over 2,000 albums, has a degree in Art Education. My mother is an ordained minister and she was a pastor for many years and is now a professor and director of a national film program for university students. Even my brother has his degree in Music Education and teaches in an afterschool program recognized for its excellence by the President. This year he also won the teacher of the year award. Although many teachers inspired me throughout the years, my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Ussery, and my second grade teacher, Mrs. Johnson, were the significant influences outside my family that encouraged my desire to teach elementary school. Mrs. Ussery brought boundless energy and new ways to experience learning to everything. Mrs. Johnson awoke poetry in me. I was asked to read a poem I’d written in her class for a school assembly. In fifth grade my parents homeschooled me (and each of my siblings respectively) for one year since we lived in aninner city neighborhood and went to public school. My parents wanted also to give each of us a year to be an only child since we were born close together. I am very close to my brother and sister, but loved the freedom the year of homeschooling gave me to learn. It was not until I got to high school, however, that the artist in me truly started to bloom. Just before I started high school, my parents moved our family from Pasadena to Los Angles and I started at Fairfax High School on Melrose Avenue. Soon after getting there, we realized that there was a Visual Arts Magnet within the school and it was where I was meant to be. My senior year I was chosen to be part of a PBS series called Senior Year (1999) where I was one of thirteen students filmed throughout our Senior Year. During my struggles with A.D.D., shyness and relationships, art became a healing fire. I visited Piedmont College once while I was in high school and as soon as I saw the campus I knew that was where I was supposed to be. At Piedmont I decided to major in Early Childhood Education and minor in Studio Art. At the time I thought I would go back to Los Angeles after college where there is sadly no art in elementary schools. Little did I know, God knew my heart’s true desire and had other plans for my life. Once I finished college, I began applying for teaching jobs in the Union, Fannin, Gilmer, and Pickens Counties. The only two jobs available were both art-teaching jobs. I immediately fell in love with Hill City Elementary.
B. Describe what you consider to be your greatest contributions to or accomplishments in education. Throughout the years, I have had the opportunity to reach out to thousands of students, many families and our community through art and open their minds to endless worldly possibilities. I have supplied them with social understanding beyond the classroom with projects like Pinwheels for Peace and a recycled art exhibit with a recycled art performance. I have taught them to engage and inhabit stories through art by creating art projects with children’s literature such as Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears, and Where the Wild Things Are. I have shared the process of making art with children and the community beyond through projects and articles such as a rainbow-like mural of 575 student self-portraits on the front page of the Pickens Progress. It illustrated and explained the development of children’s drawing throughout elementary. Igniting a love for art is my deep joy.
Philosophy of Teaching
A. Describe your personal feelings and beliefs about teaching. B. How are your beliefs about teaching demonstrated in your personal teaching style? I believe the quality of our future lies in the hands of our children. It is essential that not only they learn the basics of reading, language arts, and math, but also how to express themselves as individuals through creativity and how people have done so throughout history. I choose to teach children how to express and discover themselves through art by setting up context, allowing for process, and establishing an encouraging environment. In the paragraphs that follow I describe my view of context, process and an encouraging environment by using examples of my personal teaching style within each topic (A and B). Children must have context for meaningful and long lasting learning. Context is essential for developing an understanding of how art fits into every part of our world and every discipline so that it becomes a natural way to see. Learning the basic elements of art and principles of design such as line, shape, color, pattern and texture through different disciplines makes them more memorable and meaningful. I love teaching through children’s literature such as Giraffes Can’t Dance (movement and color mixing) or Olivia (guided drawing from basic shapes). We explore art history through artists and their styles, using, for example, Dali’s surrealism to create very long-legged elephants, Picasso or Georges Braque to explore cubism, and Jackson Pollack for abstract art. Investigating cultures through art incites a fascination and respect for people different from ourselves such as Aboriginal art or African masks, and even every day life explored through art allows us to see the world through new eyes, like “falling back portraits” (foreshortening), where students begin with tracing hands and feet and draw the rest of their bodies falling back into anything of their choice: a pizza, another world, a toilet. Art unlocks the keys to every culture, ancient or recent. It is how we know the history of the world. Therefore it is essential to understand art in context of our world so that students will thoughtfully take art into the future. I actively take art beyond the classroom into ever-larger contexts of the students’ world. First, I provide art activities students may create at home through my website hcesart.weebly.com. Secondly, I create family nights based on art for the entire school such as the Shadow Puppet Show based on the book, Why Mosquitoes Buzz in Peoples Ears, where I build a large screen for students to tell the story through their shadow puppets, and all remaining children use their shadow puppets in the audience to help tell the story, a family night Earth Day Recycled Art Exhibit, activities and multi-media performance, or a Fine Arts Night exploring what it would be like if there were no art. Third, I connect students and art to our local community through projects like Earth Day local grocery bag design, and last I facilitate global connections and social awareness through projects like Pinwheels for Peace. Making art is a process. The process of creating art is one that can only be discovered through practice. Some learners need more guidance, so I teach the detail of the face through helping them draw Olivia. They are so excited when others can recognize who they have drawn. Other learners do better through self-discovery during what I call “Free Art Days,” where the students are free to create as they wish with a variety of art materials. Some children choose to draw, while others enjoy creating collages, a group project or make elaborate 3D paper sculptures. One of my very gifted, yet physically challenged students was working hard of creating an elaborate three-dimensional city. As several of his classmates were admiring his work, I over heard him say, “My dreams usually come true in art.” Each learner has a different process that is relative to his or her level and personality. I love opening that process to them. An important part of the process is making mistakes. Every child has heard me say, “Make your mistakes work!” a multitude of times. It is important to allow for mistakes as part of the process of self-discovery. Because mistakes are a part of life we must learn not to be afraid of making them, but how to use them once they are already made. Scott Adams says, “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” One of the most important parts of educating children is to create an encouraging and comfortable environment for learning. "No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure." (Emma Goldman) Beyond positive feedback, truly listening to the heart of a child unlocks that treasure of goodness and artistic freedom. It is tragically common to hear adults saying, “I’m not creative.” All people are capable of creativity, so my goal is to get my students to not be inhibited by art or creativity. Unless I listen closely to how a child learns, I will never be able to lead him or her to that threshold of artistic freedom, which is not only the place where artistic genius is found but perhaps more importantly self-confidence, sympathy, kindness, generosity and joy. My greatest rewards in teaching are seeing children grow in their passion for art, that fire that long ago was lit in me, and permission to constantly research and employ new lessons through which to explore art. My fascination for new ways to share the gift of art with children is endless. It is my great joy.
Education Issues and Trends
What do you consider to be the major public education issues of today? Due to the changes with the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and schools receiving less money with the economy, many schools are choosing to eliminate areas that foster children’s fine-motor skills which are essential to their brain development. The CCSS, which have been adopted by 45 of the 50 states, establishes what children should learn at each level across the country. These new CCSS eliminate learning cursive as an important standard of education. Lack of funding has caused many schools across the country to eliminate the Fine Arts from their schools. Research shows that removing even one of these two areas, which greatly foster fine-motor skills, is detrimental to the development of reading, long-term memory, processing and confidence. (Stokes) Educating children in penmanship, or more specifically cursive, is an important skill to learn and should not be disregarded as old-fashioned. Although it is necessary to learn typing, alone it lacks the connection of hand-eye coordination that develops fine-motors skills and the brain. The consistent and looping motion of writing in cursive aids in the natural development of reading by encouraging the left to right motion of reading and scribing of letters and words into long-term memory. The more it is practiced the better the skill becomes which in turn builds the ability to process thoughts and write faster. Learning cursive has also shown to help children with dyslexia because the letters are all connected and therefore less likely to be flipped around. When children are able to write successfully and quickly with ease, their confidence builds and they become comfortable with writing more often. (Huffington Post, Schools Debate Cursive Handwriting Instruction Nationwide) The motion of writing in cursive transfers to Fine Arts. The long lines and curved of motions scissor cutting, drawing/scribbling, coloring, and even molding clay also improve fine-motor skills, therefore contribute to brain development. Some physical therapists have patients practice cutting with scissors to build the fine-motor skills that were lost due to strokes. Patients with Alzheimer’s practice cutting spirals because both hands and eyes cross from right to left. This uses both sides of the brain and therefore helps to improve memory. Drawing and scribbling use the same motions as writing and may help students who struggle with writing to achieve a similar result in the development of their brain. Even the motions of molding clay, by rolling into a ball, enacting some cursive movements, or pinching it into the form of a pot help to strengthen the fingers for finer movements and contribute to brain development. This research has greatly influenced my teaching throughout the years. Unfortunately, I no longer know where to find this information to reference it. To conclude, I feel it is our schools responsibility to be sure that all skills essential for a child’s development are addressed and not skipped simply because it seems archaic due to the world of technology we live in today. As Pam Bates, a parent, told the Denver Post, “I absolutely get that we’re moving in a world that’s technology-based, but I am of the old school that believes you can’t forget where you came from to get where you’re going.” The same goes for the Fine Arts in schools. The fine-motor skills that are so vital to brain development occur in writing in cursive and participating in the simple hour or so a week that a child is in art class. References: Stokes, K. (2011, September 29) Why Schools Should Keep Teaching Handwriting, Even if Typing is More Useful. StateImpact. Retrieved October 9, 2012, from https://tinyurl.com/377njj5m Schools Debate Cursive Handwriting Instruction Nationwide. (2011, March 30) Huffington Post. Retrieved October 9, 2010, from https://tinyurl.com/fsdw5y2j