MY EVALUATION of aTi and aTimpact on my TEACHING

I cannot sing enough praises to aTi (ArtistTeacher Institute) for what it has done for me personally in terms of art therapy, re-introducing a fun, rejuvenating hobby, another potential stream of income, and integrating the arts into my teaching of history again! Being at aTi is like being a kid again on Christmas day—for two straight weeks plus follow-ups! The only difference is, the gifts are already inside of us and, like many of my aTi colleagues agree, we usually only get to play with them ourselves at this special time; later, in our classrooms, we get to share them with our kids. The vast majority of my lessons and students were brimming with enthusiasm and we had loads of fun as I applied all of the art forms learned at aTi in my teaching.

I am so excited about the many arts-infused lessons that I’ve only just begun bringing back to my history teaching thanks to aTi. I had been longing to do it again for years to the extent that I used to (and even more so) but had a hard time seeing how for a good while with all the additional content requirements in teaching and a curriculum that already seemed too enormous to pace well. How could I squeeze in anything else that would make it harder to cover enough content knowing that projects like these often require far more time?

During my first year in aTi, I was also discouraged to discover what a challenge it was to get funding for arts supplies from art teachers questioned. Then I found out third cycle about www.donorschoose.org and decided I’d apply for a grant from them when time permits. Never making that time, last summer, I was so determined, I just said “the heck with the expense and I’ll just have to find a solution another day for the course pacing.” So I went out to “Jerry’s Art Supplies” in the Essex Green Mall in West Orange NJ and bought a bunch of art supplies with my own money. I am so glad I did because my kids could not have done those fabulous pastel paintings, pastel illustrated timelines, or drawings infusing art with team reports of Native American contributions otherwise.

Despite regrettably not covering enough curriculum, my kids and I had such a great time and benefited so much from most of these visual arts and several different performing arts-infused activities, that they still seem worthwhile. I’ve always thought quality was so much more important than quantity when it comes to content coverage and although I’ve also heard this re-iterated by so many master teachers I cannot count them, others feel differently, especially about history and a survey course for some reason. We used to be expected to teach thousands of years of history in a one year world history course; now I should be grateful that it’s down to hundreds—except that most of my students always come in telling me they learned little to nothing about ancient history like they were supposed to in junior high (because of standardized test preparation along with some teachers only covering social studies as a form of class punishment) so that makes it neglectful injustice for me to only teach “modern world history” when my subject builds on prior knowledge to be more meaningful just like others.

Besides the fact that I once majored in art at Arts High where I now teach history, thanks to aTi, I’m now considering taking a hint from the supernatural “coincidences” that throughout my many years in this profession, whenever I tell people I’m a teacher, inevitably I get asked “What do you teach-- art?” The only problem is, if I replace teaching history with an art subject, I’d have to limit myself to only teaching “one” of those art forms when it’s so much more fulfilling to teach all of those I know!

Sunshine