Art Teachers Are Rare Birds

Many moons ago, my first grader came home with the drawing of a hatchet. Even though it was February, and George Washington, as we now know, did not chop down a cherry tree, I’m bristled at the idea that this stencil image was an art lesson. It was then that I offered my services as an artist, for free of course, to become a visiting artist. This experience shaped my support of welcoming and compensating professional artists visiting a classroom.

Since that time, 50 years ago, the presence of teaching artists in the classroom has quite frankly become a tradition. Jessica Cioffoletti is a teaching artist in the Greenburgh School District after 13 years of administering arts education programs for ArtsWestchester.

Jessica longed to be on the front line, inspiring kids to think of art as a learning experience. I caught up with Jessica recently and asked her how she was faring as an art teacher. She told me about a lesson she did with her class that had meaning way beyond art. It was Halloween time, and she decided to bring in a skeleton for teaching both drawing and anatomy. The kids drew their own skeletons with precise measurements they gathered from the skeleton on display. That creative lesson, and many of others throughout the schools in Westchester, reminded me of the great work of our cultural organizations that have a tradition of sending artist into schools, senior centers and other sites.

I thought about the hatchet, and the lesson I learned because of it. So here is a tribute to artists in the schools. They make a difference. Most especially in schools, art teachers are rare birds.