LEIGH MACKELVEY

Special Education Teacher, K-2
Lanning Square Elementary School
Camden, NJ

Leigh teaches a self-contained class of 10 students from K-2 all day in Language Arts, Math, Social Studies and Science. "It's a difficult task to teach three different grade levels all in the same room, but the challenges these children face make the teaching challenges I face seem so small. They come with an expectation that I will help them find something unique within themselves that will compensate for their academic delays. They come needing to see their strengths overcome their deficits. And I keep coming so that I won't disappoint them."

"With the NCLB Act ruling the roost in the schools of America, classroom teachers are finding less and less time to be creative, to bring art into their daily curriculum. Sometimes we feel we are asked to leave that up to the Art or Music teacher. I am determined to find the opportunities in my lesson plans to involve my students in creativity and in the arts. Children with disabilities are at their best in art, drama and music. Yet those strengths are often overlooked through the quest to "get them up to speed?"academically.   I see including the arts into the everyday curriculum as a means of making a child whole...physically, emotionally and spiritually, as well as academically."

"I can say that attending aTi has changed my life. I have always loved to write. But my short stories and poetry were handwritten in little notebooks kept in the closet for years. I had no confidence, not even enough to show my writing to anyone but a few family members. My instructors at aTi are confidence builders. I was given the tools I needed in my workshops to become bold and to begin taking my talent seriously. I wasn't at all sure if had talent until I came to my first two weeks at aTi! I've developed friendships with other teachers and artists who have the same interests andI have been able to network with them, as well as further those friendships outside of aTi. This past summer I ran a writing group every week at a small coffee shop in Mullica Hill. Most of the people who came were fellow aTi writers. Writing balances my work as a teacher and somehow makes teaching less stressful. And this tops it all: I'm traveling to Wales in August on a writing retreat run by Peter Murphy, my aTi poetry workshop instructor." 

"I'm a part of aTimpact Fellowship Program because I want to give back to other teachers the confidence and tools I have received through my experiences at the Artist Teacher Institute."