Teachers: The Artists of the Masses

Teachers: The Artists of the Masses

"The whole art of teaching is the only art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards."

~ Anatole France ~

Art may be the most subjective subject one can discuss. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is only one of the slew of mantras that have emerged surrounding the idea of art and what can be considered art. And in order to consider the ever unanswered question What is Art? one must first look at the notion of Who is an Artist?

At the end of my student teaching experience I must state that I am an artist. I have the paintbrushes, pencils, sketch pads, loose leaf, charcoal, chalk, rough drafts, lesson plans, final products and unit binders, among other tools, that are required of an artist. I've worked with local artists on canvases of all shapes, sizes, colors, creeds and origins to hone my skills and cultivate the skills of others. I don't believe that I will ever regret choosing teaching as my art. Choosing one medium to create my art will be the more difficult decision.

The types of artistry incorporated in pedagogy are limitless. Throughout my experience I noticed the continuous correlation between teaching and artistic mediums. I found I was immediately incorporated in the artistic element of teaching. I was a canvas. Granted, educationally, I had already received my base coat. Bloom, Dewey, Jefferson, and Emerson had served as my primer. But I still had a myriad of observations and experiences to add to my canvas before I could come close to being a finished work of art. And even then, I don't believe the additions, the learning involved with this art of teaching, ever cease. The connections between teaching and the...

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... effort exerted the more lives one touches and touching the lives of young people should be at the center of any solid teaching foundation.

Teaching is one of the most complicated and challenging art forms. It requires a superior talent, dedication, and personal sacrifice from its artists. Teachers are the most valuable artists this world has to offer. They create, sketch, color, mold and sculpt the minds of tomorrow and humans who come in as students leave as works of art, armed with their own slew of mental tools to sketch, paint, color, mold and sculpt this world. Teachers are artists whose final product is a person, or rather several people. And those people in turn take the crafts teachers have instilled in them and shape the world, thus creating their own art and perpetuating the cycle of art from art which begins with the artist of the mind, the teacher.