Tag Archives: Art Teachers

Teachers who specialized in art.

Florida teacher Chanique Davis uses door art to teach inclusivity

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Florida teacher Chanique Davis uses door at to send messages of inclusion to her students. Photo credit: WFTS Tampa Bay

One of the most exciting activities that take place during Black History Month is the door-decorating contests. And one of the most creative teacher to create decorated doors is Chanique Davis, an elementary school teacher from Lake Alfred, Florida. She uses the door art to send messages of inclusion to her students.

Chanique teaches art at Lake Alfred Elementary School in Polk County. She began decorating her classroom door when she first started teaching at the school five years ago. In addition to creating displays for Black History Month, the innovative teacher decorates her door for other cultural events, including Hispanic Heritage Month and Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. “I really wanted to create an image for my students to see that represented them in every different culture,” Chanique explained. “Something that they could be excited about and something that would bring about discussion in my class.”

Her clever displays are more than just decorations, Chanique says. They are an innovative teaching tool. “I want them to be better people. I want them to grow up being great individuals,” she continues. “The doors are ways that I can teach them life and not just art. I put the two of them together with art and life together, and that’s what I use these doors for,” she concludes. She even persuades the students to have input on the design and content of the doors.

“When these kids see these doors, they are so excited,” asserts Chanique. “They think. They’re wowed by it, and a lot of them are involved in the creation of the piece.”

RI teacher Laura Barlow named TeachKind 2021 Teacher of the Year

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Laura Barlow, a middle school teacher from Providence, Rhode Island, has been named the TeachKind 2021 Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: PETA

Many talented classroom teachers incorporate their personal interests into their curriculum. One of these is Laura Barlow, a middle school teacher from Providence, Rhode Island. She finds many ways to incorporate her advocacy for animals into her arts courses. For her work leading students to appreciate the needs of animals, Laura has been named the TeachKind 2021 Teacher of the Year.

Laura teaches a variety of arts classes at Roger Williams Middle School in her school. Among them are visual arts, graphic design, performing arts, and photography. She is certified to teach Special Education and she is experienced at working with multilingual learners, so she is able to inspire students of all abilities and backgrounds to express their creativity to help animals through dynamic instructional activities. For example, in her unit about the interconnectedness of animals, humans, and the environment, she asks her students to create a posters that contain compelling images and a clear message to advocate for change that benefits other people, animals, and the environment. With her performing arts students, Laura reads plays that contain compassion as a themes, and then she leads discussions that connect the plays to current issues, including animal rights and social justice struggles. For example, when studying The Lion King, students research issues that affect the animals in the play, and after reading Random Acts of Kindness, the students discuss and write about ways they can show more kindness toward others, animals, and the environment.

In addition to her classroom responsibilities, Laura donates her time as the leader of Rhode Island Vegan Awareness, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advocating a vegan lifestyle. She writes articles, gives talks about vegan living, hosts vegan cooking demos, distributes vegan meals to those in need, organizes community cleanups, and helps organize outreach events.

As the TeachKind 2021 Teacher of the Year, Laura will receive an animal-friendly gift basket designed especially for teachers, a faux-leather backpack from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), and a subscription to vegan meal delivery service.

To learn more about Laura Barlow, see this article about her published by PETA.

Florida teacher Chanique Davis creates Black History Month displays

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Florida elementary school art teacher Chanique Davis shares door displays created to celebrate the annual observance of Black History Month. Photo credit: www.goodmorningamerica.com

 

Our annual observance of Black History Month is an opportunity for educators to share stories about African American culture with our students. One educator who does a wonderful job of this is Chanique Davis, a fifth grade art teacher at Lake Alfred Elementary School in Lake Alfred, Florida. Lake Alfred Elementary is a Title I school, with a high population of students receiving free or reduced price breakfast and lunch.

This year, Chanique has experienced limited access to her classroom. But last year, Chanique created two artistic door displays for her classroom. The one on the left shows her Graffiti Queen creation, and the one on the right is a tribute to Tyler Perry tpo celebrate his great accomplishment of opening his own film studio. “Decorating doors and teaching [students] about culture allows me to mold and shape their minds, and their hearts to be respectful and kind,” asserts Chanique. The Chalkboard Champion says she hopes to use art to teach her students an appreciation for diversity and beauty in the cultures of others.

Chanique overcame many obstacles to find her way into the classroom. During high school, she was homeless for three years, living in empty houses, in the family car, at local shelters, and in the woods. “A family member messed up some things for us financially,” Chanique recalls about how they lost their apartment. But those challenges never stopped her from achieving. “I still made straight A’s all through high school,” she continued. “I persevered through all that and graduated with a 4.0 (grade-point average),” she says. In fact, as a Lake Gibson High School student in the mid-2000s, she was a Ledger Silver Garland winner in the foreign language category.

To read more about this amazing educator, see this article published by Florida Headline News.

 

Thomas Knab inducted into 2020 National Teachers Hall of Fame

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Congratulations go to Thomas Knab, an elementary school art techer who has been inducted into the 2020 National Teachers Hall of Fame. (Photo credit: NTHF)

I always enjoy sharing stories about talented classroom teachers who have been recognized for their outstanding work int the classroom. One of these is Thomas Knab, an elementary school art teacher who has just been inducted into the 2020 National Teachers Hall of Fame (NTHF).

Thomas teaches at Dodge Elementary School, part of the Williamsville Central School District in East Amherst, New York. His career as an educator has spanned 31 years. As a young man, Thomas planned to become a graphic designer, but through coaching volleyball and teaching Sunday school, he became interested in a career as a teacher.

Thomas works to encourage the creativity and spirit of his elementary students through the arts. “I try to make it very diverse in the type of things we do in the art room so the students hopefully can discover something they’re successful at,” Thomas confesses. To this end, he created an art gallery inside the school to display the students’ art pieces. “I hope that [students] can see themselves, even in a small way as an artist,” Thomas says. “Whether it’s as a career, or even as a hobby, how it can add to your life.”

In addition to his responsibilities in the classroom, Thomas has spent decades as the Williamsville South boys volleyball coach. He has also served as a leader and advocate for the importance of art education in regional and national organizations. He’s currently the president of the National Art Education Association.

Thom’s inducttion into the NTHF is not the only recognition the superlative teacher has earned. In 2019, he earned the Lowell Milken Center Fellowship Award, an honor given to educators who have distinguished themselves in teaching respect and understanding through project-based learning. In 2018, he garnered the Eastern Region Elementary Art Education Award from the National Education Association. The same year, he was honored as the National Art Educator of the Year award from the National Art Educators Association.

During pandemic, art teacher Dania Santiago creates remote lessons

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Art teacher Dania Santiago of Henry Zarrow International Elementary School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, creates remote lessons in response to pandemic shelter-at-home directives.

The shelter-at-home directives that have been issued in nearly every state have left educators in every subject area scrambling for ways to teach their content online. The transition has been especially difficult for art teachers, whose content is, by nature, a hands-on affair. But these teachers, including Dania Santiago of Tulsa, Oklahoma, are rising splendidly to the challenge.

Dania teaches art at Henry Zarrow International Elementary School. She has shifted her instruction to filmed project tutorials. One week, she recorded step-by-step instructions for how to create an origami sailboat for her younger students. For her older students, she created a tutorial for how to create a dioramic backdrop from s shoe box. She strives to keep each video simple, but stimulating.

Some art lessons are easier to teach remotely than others, Dania conceded. Most families have access to basic supplies such as paper, scissors, crayons,  and markers. Others are nearly impossible. For example, the lack of home access to ceramic materials, for instance, means no pottery or sculpture projects.

“Instead of stressing about what we can’t do, I’m choosing to focus on the things that we can,” Dania expressed. “I can, for now, create these videos and use the supplies I have at home. If I run out of paper, I can either send for more or just won’t use it,” she continued. “All I have to think about is getting through three more weeks (of distance learning). After that, I hope we can begin going back to normal,” she concluded.

To read more about Dania and view her remote lessons, see this link at Tulsa World.