Ali Pemberton

Reflection

Over the course of this class there are so many things that I have realized about teaching
and myself. This class has time and time again reminded me exactly why I want to become a
teacher, strengthening my will as an artist and a future educator.
One of the many things that I think helped me get a better understanding on what it means
to be an art teacher is responding to art. In an initial sense, before taking this class I would have
thought of responding to art as in just how I see the work, and what I think a work of art means.
But now, when I think of responding to art I think of it as how my students would respond to art in
different ways. Responding to art now, to me, is a process of looking up different works of art and
deeply analyzing how I respond to them and then going even further to break down the
possibilities of how each student might respond to this work. Then in turn rule out if these
different possible responses will effectively help a student relate to a project or a unit plan or even a
concept that I want to convey to them. Assuming how (a) student/students will react to art is a game
of chance really, especially with young students whose minds have no constraints. So to truly
understand if students will relate a work of art, to what Im trying to teach, I have to break down
that work of art and think from many different perspectives. I think it is hard to step back from a
work of art personally as an artist to be able to see the possible responses that my students would
have about the same piece. Because most people have, for their whole lives thought of things (art
included) from how they felt when seeing it, how they responded when seeing it and how they first
witnessed/viewed it, so to me it takes a certain mind set to step back from your personal thoughts
and feelings and to look at a work of art not just from one different perspective but from many. To

me being able view the world and art in different ways to better understand your students is a trade
of art teachers everywhere and I will continue to try and view everything from many different
points of view for this very reason.
As artists ourselves we are no strangers to creating art in many different fashions. Painting,
drawing, fibers, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking and much more, we have tried almost all of it and
most of us have picked our pleasure to indulge deeply into. We as artists have all created art over
the years but one thing we have not been creating for years is a curriculum. Finding out that we
would be creating a curriculum/unit plan at the beginning of this class gave me a bit of anxiety. I
didnt know the first thing about creating a plan to teach students and even though I knew we
would learn how to do such things, the fear of doing it wrong still plagued me. But as the semester
went on I found a sort of strength in myself at one realization. A unit plan would be just another
form of artwork to add under my belt. To make a unit plan you needed conceptual meaning and
deep thought to be put into the medium you choose to have the students use and a Big Idea to
pull from to create these projects. When I thought of it this way, creating a curriculum became
another work of art for me to puzzle through. If I stepped back and broke down each project and
thought of it from a student doing the projects (who already knew the techniques and what not)
perspective then I could start to think of how each students would interpret and tackle this project.
Thinking this way made the concept of creating a curriculum much less intimidating, I love making
conceptual meaning behind small or mundane things, even the simpler projects gave me a thrill to
think through and plan out each step.
As a person I feel like I am a very outgoing person that can connect to people easily, but
connecting to students seemed like a different story to me, especially younger students. I think this
feeling may have manifested from not knowing how students (younger) would act when it came
down to teaching a lesson. I think tiger artist really showed me how to interact with students and

connect with them on a level that was different from connecting with students in my field study.
Because I was in a group of fellow art teachers who were the sole people in charge I think that
brought out my inner teacher. I found it easy to talk with the students and start to relate to them,
as well as keep an authoritative role. But I think I really learned how to connect with the students
when they started their projects. I started walking around the classroom asking why students were
drawing what they were and how that related to them, but the answers I received were far beyond
what I expected. They thought with conceptual meaning and metaphorical ideas that coming into
the lesson I did not expect, and it was in that moment that I realized, no matter how young they are
they are my fellow artists. If given the right material they would just amazing me and I think
through this realization that they werent just students they were artists, I found that connection.
The same connection I make when I become overly excited when my fellow classmates explain
their next work of art to me, and it made me realize what it really meant to connect with a student.
I think I also may have found some realization about teaching in my tiger artist experience.
During the tiger artist experience I was in charge of VTSing an image from a book we were
referencing. Before my VTS I was a bit nervous on how to go about the VTS, I looked up good
ways to VTS an image and videos to get references and pulled from my memory of the example of
VTS we had in class as well as the VTS my host teacher had done in her class. But even with all
this preparation, when I look back at my video of my VTS I still think, I should have done this,
or I should have asked that. And when I think back to all the things I could have and should
have done differently I realize that I have time to correct such things and work on my VTS as well
as other teaching strategies. This really makes me happy that I have so many opportunities to be in
a classroom and around kids so that I can see what works and what doesnt work and to hear from
people who have been there and know what they are doing and pull from their knowledge. It also
gives me some pride that I can go back and notice things that I should change so that I can do

better later on, I think if I couldnt do that then I wouldnt have learned how to identify what works
and what doesnt.
Lastly I think I can really understand and appreciate presenting units and revising teaching
portfolios after this class. During the time when I presented my half of the unit plan to the class I
was nervous about the feedback I would get, Was I not clear on certain parts? or had I
forgotten something important? But when I heard all the feedback and then went back and read
the feedback cards and edits on my unit I was relieved and excited. Every comment made about
something that wasnt quite right I found myself nodding my head and saying, Yep that needs to
be changed. Instead of feeling discouraged by making a mistake I found myself more relived and
happy on the things I did right and making mental (and physical) notes as to what to do better next
time. Also the comments on suggestions made I found that I became more excited about the unit
plan I had made, thinking Oh it would be so much better with this! Or Im definitely adding
this! I think that presenting my unit plan, while nerve racking as it was, was my favorite part about
making the lesson plan, I really loved hearing about how I could make it better, because lesson
plans had been the main thing I had worried about when I transferred into the art education
program. I knew it would be essential to my teaching practice and I needed to know how to make
one, but the idea of making one made me nervous. But after hearing such good praises and
amazing critiques on what to change I just became more and more excited to alter my unit plan to
make it better and to make more. I think being able to revise something that I spent hours upon
hours working on is good, I am able to look at the changes in a positive way instead of dreading the
comments from the presentation. Over all I look at it like a fun new challenge, like, The next one
I make will be amazing! And being someone who loves a challenge Im glade I can look forward
to this new challenge in a positive light.

In conclusion, this class has pushed me and every way that I needed it to. Ive learned
where I am at in my goal to become a teacher and what I need to do to get that much closer. I feel
that every experience in this class has filled me with excitement for the future; from the shortest
interaction between myself and a student to the final presentations of my unit plan this class has
brought me some clarity to my future as an art educator.