Art of the Student

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." ~ Albert Einstein

My day job involves supporting Center for Inspired Teaching and the teachers we work with. On Thursdays my night job involves putting what I've learned here into practice.

For the past several weeks I've been teaching an evening watercolor class to 3rd-5th graders. Three years ago the class would have been about imparting my knowledge of watercolor technique and training the students to create copy-cat watercolor images pre-determined by me. But today that couldn't be farther from my goal. Today my class is about fostering a love of this medium in my students by giving them the freedom to learn about it themselves. And the results have been wonderful.

Last night we made underwater scenes using paint, plastic wrap, glue, and salt. My students found new ways to use those materials that many professional artists would love to learn. As I watched them mix colors, develop strategies for keeping paper wet, discover new effects when they added new materials - I LEARNED... and I've been painting with watercolors for 20 years.

At the end of the class aliens and fish with goatees inhabited the unorthodox oceans that walked out of the room, but my students had fun and their pictures were incredible.

I didn't have to teach them how to do a wash on the paper, I didn't have to teach them how to hold their brushes to paint the sand... I had to give them the tools and support they needed to arrive at that that knowledge on their own. And they did.