Teaching art in my opinion allows endless possibilities and opportunities for student voices to be heard. One aspect of my role as an art educator is to be a linkage between not only teaching awareness of world issues and sustainable development goals in the art room to students but also enabling students’ participation and portraying their awareness of the topics through visual means. The art room should always allow students to explore and express their thoughts, opinions, and feelings. Art teachers I believe should be a responsible role model who is persistent, present, and supportive towards their students and is essential to enable students to find their strengths during the creative production process.

 

It is important to show my identity as an art educator to the students that I teach which portrays how my life as an artist can interlock with my life as a teacher to form one whole identity. Art educators should provide a calm caring art room environment, allowing students a comfortable place to see how we as art educators engage with our art practice and to inspire our students to do the same through the process of artmaking. Art teachers need to entice the students to explore their abilities and strengths within a calming classroom similar to the writings and ideas of Nell Noddings and Katherine Weare who are influential in my teaching practice. As a result, this creates strong positive engagement and teacher–student rapport. I aim for students to engage in the artistic process of researching, responding, and creating in response to themes discussed in the art room therefore as a result students can express their opinions on the world.

 

In my teaching practice, I facilitate a safe space for students to learn as many skills as they can from experimenting with a variety of mediums, similar to my approach in my art practice. Students should learn and investigate their strengths in the subject of art and for students to reflect on their decisions within the art-making process. My goal as an art educator is to be encouraging experimentation through a variety of mediums, to be reflective and to make sure everyone has a chance for their opinions to be expressed both vocally and through visual means within the calming, open and caring educational environment of the art room.