I wrote an article last school year for the National Art Education Association Choice Art special interest group after hosting a student teacher in my choice classroom. IT WAS PUBLISHED THIS MONTH!!! Woot! So, now I can share it here: I have been a public secondary school art teacher for 8 years and a TAB teacher for 4 of those years. In that time, I spent a year supervising a handful of student teachers from Millersville University, but never hosted my own until this year, so my perspective on being a cooperating teacher is a bit unique. Some of my thoughts might be “givens” for more experienced cooperating teachers or might be universal across various art teaching philosophies. Nonetheless, in this column, I’m going to discuss aspects for consideration when hosting a pre-service teacher in a choice-based classroom based on my experience this semester.
Familiarity: find out how much your student teacher knows about and is interested in choice. In my particular cooperating teacher position, I knew the program and the supervisor, Dr. Leslie Gates. In a recent column, Dr. Gates outlined the various ways in which she models choice for her art education students as well as how she introduces them to choice-based pedagogy and philosophy by intentionally pairing them with choice-based cooperating teachers. Through conversation, I also discovered that my student teacher, Ms. Dominguez, was interested in trying TAB. So, all parties involved in the student teaching placement had knowledge of choice in the classroom. Our common familiarity with choice made it easier for me to introduce the curriculum to Ms. Dominguez without first explaining TAB, and her supervisor and I were able to collaborate more smoothly to help her adjust her plans and assessments. Opposition: it is your classroom, but it’s not your teaching portfolio. On one hand, I wanted to give Ms. Dominguez the experience of TAB, but on the other, I didn’t want to force her to teach exactly like me. On top of that, I would not be applying for jobs with a portfolio - she would - so why would I force my teaching style/philosophy on her? I decided that I would allow her to have CHOICE in how she taught as long as she was aware of what the students were used to with regards to choice, and as long as she taught and assessed the objectives set forth in the curriculum. On Ms. Dominguez’s first day, she came in super excited with tons of project ideas that she wanted to try with high school students. I didn’t shoot down her ideas. I had a binder prepared with the curriculum and calendar with a rough outline of the timeframe. I told her my philosophy, showed her how I structure it, and then emphasized that she had the freedom to teach the way she wanted. In the end, she chose to try TAB and told me that it was important that I shared my philosophy with her before she started teaching. She also said that she was, “very curious about TAB and would have been sad if [she] hadn’t tried it.” Sharing: get comfortable with talking CLEARLY about the “what” and “why” of what you do. At this point in my journey as a TAB teacher, I’ve had a good amount of experience in sharing TAB with others. My co-worker, Phoebe Heath, and I have spent an extensive amount of time on re-writing our curriculum to eliminate all traditional teacher-directed, project-based work, and we reduced our curriculum to standards surrounding artistic behaviors, material techniques, and concepts. After being so invested in our curriculum, and talking about it with others, it never occurred to me that it was written in a set of complicated charts, so confusing that only Phoebe and I knew how to read them. After the first lesson, and Ms. Dominguez’s justified confusion on the objectives, I re-wrote parts of the curriculum so that the objectives were more clear and described the heart of learning. Organization: the TAB teacher’s formidable friend. I think one of the most daunting things about TAB is the systems of organization involved. Organization can be even more daunting for a new “baby teacher.” While I believe there is value in struggling to solve problems, this is one problem I didn’t feel was my student teacher’s responsibility given the short amount of time we spent together. I’m an organized person so my room is labeled, supplies are grouped together under bigger hanging signs, and nearly everything has a place and a routine. Grace: it truly covers everything. Give your student teacher grace to find themselves as a teacher. Give yourself some grace and show them your mistakes along with your best. We are all learners.
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