Placement: Brooke Thompson
Location: Lake Country School
Grade(s)/ Year(s): 1-3
Hours: 3
Wednesday, March 11
Wednesday was a big milestone for me in my path of becoming a teaching artist and art educator. On this day, I finally taught a lesson of my own design to my placement’s class. Because I’m an animation major and it's the spring season, I decided to have my lesson plan focus around growing different shapes, since it incorporates both the process of animation as well as the meaning of growth during spring. Before I taught my lesson, I made sure to come in the day before to discuss the overview of my lesson as well as drop off my pre-made flipbooks for the students. I was still nervous of course going into the next day, but I knew that I would be alright no matter what happens thanks to the support that I have from my Practicum instructor and my placement. As soon as I stepped foot in the classroom on Wednesday, my nerves did resurface once again. They continued to remain persistent throughout the first couple of minutes during my presentation as well. Public speaking was and still isn’t my strongest attribute. To add on top of it, trying to teach an art medium that I’m fully aware of to a much younger audience that most likely have never tried out themselves definitely didn’t settle my nerves. However, despite how nervous I felt that day, I did eventually feel more comfortable in this new role of teaching as the day progressed. In fact, my love for teaching others may have grown that day. It really brightened up my spirits when many of the students enjoyed making their own flipbooks and said that they would want to do this again during their own free time. Being able to inspire a younger generation to possibly pursue animation is one of the many reasons why I love to teach. If I’m able to inspire or help out just one student to become an artist, I would feel accomplished not only as a teaching artist, but as a person as a whole as well.
