MY PHILOSOPHY ON TEACHING AND ART
Over the years my teaching philosophy has developed into a very compassionate one. I draw teaching techniques from positive education, mindfulness, self development and global education development. Ecological aspects of teaching have also proven to be of importance to me.
To combine all these fancy paradigms I would like to highlight the importance of communication. Conversations with co-workers, other art teachers, students, professors and just plain out interesting people are, I think, the most beneficial ways of developing myself and my teaching. Because I like to highlight the importance of communication, I do prefer to teach students old enough to form their own thoughts and opinions. Positive education also lists communication as one of the most important ways to support a student for example. Positive encouragement leads to positive results when delivered correctly. Combined with aspects of self development, positive education starts from the teacher: nothing can be accomplished within the realm of positive education if the teacher's mind is not balanced and equanimous.
As I talk to my students, I like to do it from a standpoint where, as humans, we are all equal. This practice has always been well-received not only among students, but also among co-workers. My experience with customer service has also (funnily enough) taught me to "respect the client", so to speak. Modifying that mentality within the framework of equality I've found a beautiful balance of compassionate teaching.
For me teaching art means to help, to enlighten and to provide. I feel these three words are very closely connected and really summarize my teaching philosophy beautifully. Helping in a general sense describes my core values and life purpose. I've always enjoyed helping others, and one could say I "live to serve". The word enlighten to me means to help discover something deeper, that's skulking below the surface. It doesn't necessarily have to do with meditative practices. Small feelings of enlightenment with, for example, understanding something new from a drawing technique, or experiencing something new while looking at art, are the ways I wish to enlighten my students. "Providing" as a word brings about the more traditionally pedagogical aspects of my teaching. In order to learn one needs to know the technique, have the tools and understand the theory. As a teacher I feel great joy providing these to support the process of life-long learning and development.
As I have a background with self development and meditation, self assessment comes to me naturally. I recognize my strengths as well as my weaknesses, and with the inner motivation to develop myself even further beyond I usually can overcome any problem I come across. Currently I'd consider myself to be a little bit rusty with the elaborate art history and photography, but to brush up on those shouldn't be too hard. The repetitive nature of teaching is a comforting thing, but obviously it is also important to keep the teaching topical and ever-developing with the times.
The development of education is something that one needs to always be mindful of. To keep the teaching fresh and current, it is the teachers' obligation to develop themselves with the possible changes the future brings about to the field of art education. To aid this process I've found it very fruitful to experiment with small areas of teaching here and there. The video below is an adaptation from my second practical training to my most latest training. I found a great way to gather feedback anonymously and later integrated it as a part of a small relaxation practice. This minor, but constant procedure of adaptation-integration is something I live by and would like to bring to my workplace not only to develop art education, but to help the whole school to live up to its full potential as a learning facility.