Art Teaching Philosophy

I recently applied for an Adjunct Professor job at a local community college. Its for Art Appreciation and Art History. It took me much longer than I thought to rework my resume or CV (which I had to look up). I then had to write an Online Teaching Philosophy Statement. That turned out to be quite difficult. I found some good examples online, though, and finally created it. The way that worked for me was to just forget about all the formal stuff and examples and just sit down and write my real thoughts and feelings about my teaching philosophy, blast them all out, then go back modify. I won't go into how to write one here. I'm not at a level where I can teach others to do it, or how to write a resume, or get a job. I can just share what I wrote and how I did it and hope it helps me get the job. I'll let you know.

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

I want to share my passion for Art and for learning in a way that will encourage and help my students in the present and have positive if not profound affects on them for the future, allowing students to find connections to other artistic avenues and endeavors as well as to the greater world itself.

In my experiences in undergraduate studies, I had a handful of amazing professors and mentors that not only pushed me to work harder and smarter, but also the importance of putting in the time and investing myself into my Art and my teaching. I learned how to see artistic opportunities and possible art lessons in everything around me. I learned to see how everything was or could be connected inside and out of the Artistic world. In my travels and studies I met many amazing artists and educators that showed me how an interest in microbiology could lead to a living biome as an amazing work of art or how an interest in Baroque architecture could help lead to an innovation in contemporary stained glass technique. These are the types of work ethics and connections I want to share with my students. Its what I try to do in my classroom everyday.

There are many roads and paths one can take to achieve these goals. There are countless, infinite, examples to Art to gaze upon, dissect, and use as catalysts to new realizations, connections, and discussions. I want my students to not only come away with the learning and skills that come from rigorous work in writing, reflection, and collaborative conversations. I want my students to come away with a sense of how Art is connected to the world around us, past and present. I want them to discover how art shapes our society and vice versa, how it reflects our recent and ancient pasts, and how it might help create or be created by the next chapter in human history. I think the question of, “What does Art have to do with me?” is on too much of a micro scale. I believe we need to ask more questions in the macro scale.

I believe that through the use of important and significant Art examples, engaging discussion questions, compelling peer conversation, and challenging but purposeful projects, I can help my students make gains in their understanding of Art and in their critical thinking abilities. In my class you would see students breaking down works of art through the formal steps of Art Criticism. You’d also see my students using that information to see how that work of art fits into its time and space and how we may use that information in a more contemporary context. You would see students challenging conventional ideas about what they may have been taught about art, challenging each other’s ideas, and hopefully challenging my own, allowing us all to learn and grow in knowledge together.