Teaching Philosophy
International education philosophy:
Working and living in a culturally or economically diverse environment promotes a unique perspective on any situations that are incredibly difficult to comprehend without first-hand experience. My life and the things I’ve experienced are unique to me, the same as my students' experiences are to them. Our experiences help mold us into who we are since they can potentially bring us the highest elation and promote incredible growth, or they can cause permanent scars or debilitating traumas. The sheer amount of incredible individual experiences housed in a single crowded area would be enough to create a storyline rivaling the scope of the Marvel universe. Imagine you could view those experiences through a first person point of view. The depth of understanding gained about someone else's thought process, motivations, emotions, and background connect people as a peers by validating their experiences rather than viewing them as an unaffected, emotionally disconnected observer. The common pushes for education to be "color-blind" and "class-blind" fail specifically because they refuse to be empathetic towards the experiences of others, creating an ever widening gap between people. Those that feel their experiences are validated, those who don't. Those who try to validate others, and those who don't. Empathetic understanding and respect towards differences in views, culture, and backgrounds is essential to humanities progression towards an educational system that provides accessible and equitable opportunities for all students because of their experiences, not in spite of or regardless of them.
Working and living in a culturally or economically diverse environment promotes a unique perspective on any situations that are incredibly difficult to comprehend without first-hand experience. My life and the things I’ve experienced are unique to me, the same as my students' experiences are to them. Our experiences help mold us into who we are since they can potentially bring us the highest elation and promote incredible growth, or they can cause permanent scars or debilitating traumas. The sheer amount of incredible individual experiences housed in a single crowded area would be enough to create a storyline rivaling the scope of the Marvel universe. Imagine you could view those experiences through a first person point of view. The depth of understanding gained about someone else's thought process, motivations, emotions, and background connect people as a peers by validating their experiences rather than viewing them as an unaffected, emotionally disconnected observer. The common pushes for education to be "color-blind" and "class-blind" fail specifically because they refuse to be empathetic towards the experiences of others, creating an ever widening gap between people. Those that feel their experiences are validated, those who don't. Those who try to validate others, and those who don't. Empathetic understanding and respect towards differences in views, culture, and backgrounds is essential to humanities progression towards an educational system that provides accessible and equitable opportunities for all students because of their experiences, not in spite of or regardless of them.
Visual Arts Education Philosophy:
A fully realized, modern, and competitive art education program must connect with other core curriculum subjects, current events, current and rising technology, a variety of community issues, and most importantly it must become something that creates a sense of value towards arts from everyone who comes into contact with the program. Art is something that can be many things to many people, this teaching philosophy is meant to help everyone towards understanding, utilizing, and appreciating art to its fullest extent within their lives. The basis for this teaching philosophy is constructed from aspects of many separate theories, each individual theory contributing something to ensure a complete coverage and inclusion of material, techniques, and concepts. The main theory on which the basic foundation is built would be a modified DBAE approach called, "Art for Life", then aspects from VTS, Aesthetic Scanning, TAB, and a modified Feldman's approach are added in to build up towards a complete philosophy and teaching theory. Implementation will use a cross curriculum method that relies heavily on design problems, relevant content regarding issues and visual literacy, student discussion, examination, and reflection of DBAE’s four main principles to create an art education atmosphere that is still heavy on production but allows students of all technical abilities to participate and grow fully within the program. This theory has no name, as it should not, it is an amalgamation of multiple theories that strives to reach towards a generally inclusive curriculum that helps students reach new heights in not only production, but also critical thinking, creative problem solving, literacy, research methods, as well as public speaking and debating.
A fully realized, modern, and competitive art education program must connect with other core curriculum subjects, current events, current and rising technology, a variety of community issues, and most importantly it must become something that creates a sense of value towards arts from everyone who comes into contact with the program. Art is something that can be many things to many people, this teaching philosophy is meant to help everyone towards understanding, utilizing, and appreciating art to its fullest extent within their lives. The basis for this teaching philosophy is constructed from aspects of many separate theories, each individual theory contributing something to ensure a complete coverage and inclusion of material, techniques, and concepts. The main theory on which the basic foundation is built would be a modified DBAE approach called, "Art for Life", then aspects from VTS, Aesthetic Scanning, TAB, and a modified Feldman's approach are added in to build up towards a complete philosophy and teaching theory. Implementation will use a cross curriculum method that relies heavily on design problems, relevant content regarding issues and visual literacy, student discussion, examination, and reflection of DBAE’s four main principles to create an art education atmosphere that is still heavy on production but allows students of all technical abilities to participate and grow fully within the program. This theory has no name, as it should not, it is an amalgamation of multiple theories that strives to reach towards a generally inclusive curriculum that helps students reach new heights in not only production, but also critical thinking, creative problem solving, literacy, research methods, as well as public speaking and debating.
All images and text copyrighted by Anthony Davis 2013