The art classroom serves as a unique space in a school that allows students to explore and express themselves freely. I hope to foster the type of art classroom that can be a safe haven for students who otherwise do not always feel they fit in or are successful in their other classes. As a teacher, I always encourage students to openly discuss their ideas, explore materials, and bring their expertise to the classroom. I want to challenge students to form their own ideas about creativity, art, and visual culture drawn from their personal experiences and lives. I want my future students to know they do not have to identify as an artist to find joy in creating.

  I hope that students will leave my classroom with the skills and language they need to navigate and dissect the world they encounter daily. For Example, in my future art classroom, I hope to adapt my interest in needlework and traditional textile Craft practices into my lesson plans as culturally sustaining pedagogy. I feel strongly that classroom discussions about Craft or the ways we encounter art in everyday situations can challenge students to think critically about the divisions between high and low art and how this relates to their own cultural experiences. Discourses like these are necessary to have in an art classroom because they allow students to question value systems assigned to the visual culture they experience. Whether encountered through household objects, art, pop culture, advertisements, social media, or any form of visual culture they might come across, I want my students to be able to understand and form their own opinions about it. 

My goal of creating a classroom environment through a pedagogy of care, that fosters open communication, skill sharing, and experimentation will exist on a foundation of art projects that value process over product, are inspired by artworks made by artists of diverse backgrounds, and student choice. I feel strongly that building an art classroom community that emphasizes care for one another provides a safe space for students to try out new things, sometimes fail without consequences, and find their voices.