TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

First and foremost, I want my students to fail. 

Failure has so many negative connotations to it in the English language. Not succeeding, missing goals, the lack of an expected action, very rarely do we see failure as something to strive for or something to be happy about. 

As an artist, I have experienced failure. As an educator, I have experienced failure. As a person, I have experienced failure. To be human is to go about failing through life. 

Part of my curriculum in college was a Ceramics course, a section of the course being an introduction to wheel throwing. Learning how to throw on the wheel was the hardest, yet most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in my life. It was failure after failure, hours upon hours with next to nothing to show for my efforts. But with each failure, I learned. I adjusted my stance, my technique, until my pieces would come off the wheel more often than I would trash them. That experience changed the way I think, not only about art, but about life itself. I learned that if I took a moment to reflect after each failure, persevered to try again, and adapted based on my reflection, nothing could stop me.

Fail, persevere, and adapt. This is a way of thinking I want to impart to students from my teaching. This not only applies to the art room, but to all other aspects of their life. To fail, to persevere, and to adapt, are strategies that will take them far beyond the walls of a school.

The process of attempting something new and challenging is daunting, but it is more important than the end result. To struggle is a part of the process, and improvement comes from doing it badly first.

In creating a classroom where students feel safe and willing to fail, there must be a community within. A community where students can share their thoughts, feelings, struggles, successes and losses, and critiques is a community where the students have a safety net in each other. This community must lift one another up, as failure can be disappointing and frustrating to experience. This community must push one another to try new and challenging ideas and techniques. 

To quote Eloise Ristaad, “When we give ourselves permission to fail, we, at the same time, give ourselves permission to excel.”