EDUCATION

    My education at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, MA led me in two directions.  I applied to MassArt while I was a senior at Braintree High School.  Of the 5,000 applicants, I was one of 1,500 accepted that year.  As a freshman, I applied and  was accepted to MassArt's Illustration department.   The Illustration department helped me learn more about drawing and painting materials and how to use them best to my advantage.  The faculty of the Illustration department offered very diverse learning experiences.  During my Junior Year of Illustration, I decided I didn't want to do that anymore. 

    I was very interested in learning more about Art Therapy, but that was not something offered at MassArt and I was not about to change schools.  I spoke with academic advising and they suggested the Art Education department because I could use it as a stepping stone towards Art Therapy.   Within two years of entering the Art Education department, I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a teaching certificate to teach art for grades 5 through 12.  

    I found a job as an art teacher at Randolph Junior/Senior High School, the school where I had done my student teaching.  The next year, the 7-12 school divided into two separate schools (7-8, 9-12) and I was sent to teach at the middle school.  For four years, I taught grades 7 and 8 at the Randolph Community Middle School.  During this time, I worked toward and received a Master s in Education from Cambridge College in Cambridge, MA.  In my sixth year of teaching, budget cuts shrunk the art department (such is the way of public schools) and I was split between the middle school and the high school (2 classes at the middle school and three classes at the high school everyday - the only art teacher at either school).  Thankfully, the budget cut was a temporary setback for the department.  A full art program has been restored for both the middle school and the high school for the upcoming year.  I am now about to enter my seventh year of teaching art for the Town of Randolph.  I will be only teaching high school this year, a fact I am somewhat sad about because I almost like the sympathetic looks I receive when I tell people I teach middle school!    

    I believe my job as an art teacher is to try to provide my students with an outlet to express themselves, enable them to develop a positive attitude towards themselves and others,  give them opportunities to be original and flexible, help them to develop their personal uniqueness or style and provide them with as many varied experiences as possible to produce  well-rounded, creative and productive individuals with the means to express themselves and communicate their ideas.  I look at my students as unique individuals who each possess their own set of strengths, limitations, and abilities and treat them as such.  It would not be fair to treat each the same and I would be committing a huge disservice to the world of art if I tried to.  Hopefully, my students appreciate this (and I think they do because they keep signing up with me!)

Creativity and ability have pushed me to want to know more.  Educating shows me what to do with all of it.

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