The Teacher Will Always Be a Student

It really is hard to explain the beauty of watching someone else learn. I seriously wish we had a constant lightbulb over our heads so when we had a terrific moment of understanding the light would pop on. But that may just be a little silly.

I think one of the many reasons I love teaching kids, is I can randomly start talking in hashtags and not only do they not get annoyed but they think its funny. Someone drops something on the ground- "hashtag whoops!" Either they give me a nice pity laugh or they actually think it's funny. Either way I honestly don't care.

It is also hard to explain the beauty in teaching someone a skill. When teaching, you gain a whole new level of humility, your talents and skills are tested based on how well someone else does. When they are confused, it's your fault. This is the constant fear and anxiety I was feeling throughout my first experience teaching art. On top of that, when you are so passionate and in love with art you want more than anything for them to love it as much as you do. The first day of camp I really should have invested in a paper bag because I was freaking out. I had twelve kids' artistic integrity in the palm of my hands. Their artistic fate was up to me. Yes, yes I do realize that is extremely dramatic and completely untrue. But not completely, it was my job to inspire these kids and let them leave feeling accomplished.

These last 6 months I have been planning and organizing an art camp for 6th-9th graders and it was judgement time. I had twelve campers signed up. I created the idea for this camp three years ago and I had put on a similar camp. I called it CPR for the arts. I realize that is kind of a lame title but it does have significant meaning to me. Over the last 10 years schools have slowly been cutting art programs and really not showing the importance of having an artistic education. Kids also have this strange idea that you have to be naturally talented at art in order to pursue it. So I felt that attention to the arts needed  a mouth to mouth resuscitation. I want kids to see the beauty in art. I want them to express themselves without focusing on "who's the best." However, I am debating changing the name because I get quite a bit of strange looks.

In order to put on an event like this, I couldn't imagine doing this alone. If you've seen Anchorman, when Ron Burgandy yells "news team assemble"- I kind of found people in a similar way, without a conch shell or a magnificent suit. It was more of an "artists assemble" so basically nothing like Anchorman...anyway.

Basically I assembled an excellent team of artists and came up with five activities for us to do through out the week: tie-dye, watercolor painting, knitting, and mixed media collages. I wanted to do a variety of mediums and each artist I had helping were extremely talented in these areas. I had my high school art teacher, Julie Thomas and my two art friends Sarah Power and Brianna Schreiner. All three of these women are immensely talented and we have watched each other grow as artists through the years.

(Sarah posing for the girls to sketch)                                                      (Bri going over painting)

Now, the planning was only one step. The kids coming and participating was a whole other ball game. For some unfortunate reason, we had no boys. We called it our he-man-man-hater-club, like from The Little Rascals but the girl version. We thought it was very funny. But I had a lovely group of girls.

Just a fair warning, I am about to get all mushy.

It was so amazing to watch these girls interact with one another and create art. They all had their own style and amazing imagination. After the first day of craziness settled down, we all molded into place. We got a steady routine and really started to connect with one another. I can't even express the feeling I got when we taught them a new skill and watched how they applied it on their own. It was truly irreplaceable.

One day, we did a critique of each others work. Most people hate critique. It is often not a self-esteem booster but every artist has to know not everyone will like your work. I honestly was in shock after the critique, these girls gave a dignified college level critique. They were critical in a constructive manner. There was a 10 year old who did a better job critiquing than some of the kids in my college art classes.

I know it sounds all cliche and beautiful but it was so hard. I wanted the girls to have a rewarding experience from this camp and the pressure was really on for me. Let me just tell you, NEVER try to teach 12 girls how to knit by yourself. It is somewhat like trying to teach a fish to fly. Basically, you have to teach each girl one-on-one and then continually being called over to help while you are teaching the next girl. That, I will say was my downfall during the camp. But, I am pleased to say, they all learned to knit by the end of the week. One girls headband kept getting smaller and smaller so she asked if she could turn it into a volcano...well yah sounds super. In the art biz, we call those happy accidents.

On the last day, there was an art show for family and friends to see all of their beautiful work. It was a great moment to see all of the beautiful work they created. All of the girls sat behind their work and talked about it as people walked by. Oh man! Tearing up!

I honestly could go on forever about how wonderful of an experience this was for me. But no one wants to read all of that...so I won't. But I really think the moral of the story is that these girls probably taught me more this week than they realize. I learned to be patient, I learned to keep a paper bag in my purse in case of hyperventilation, I learned to be inspiring, to be tough, to laugh, to smile, to teach, and always to be learning. We can always learn from other even when we are the ones teaching.

Here are some pictures from my little adventure: