Coming into the art education program at CSU, I thought that the way I was taught throughout my art education would be similar to how I would teach my students. However, my philosophy on education has completely shifted because of what I have learned here. And today my teaching philosophy is really based on these new understandings. I think one of the biggest changes in my own philosophy that I have seen is my shift in understanding what an assignment should look like. For much of my art education experience I was doing projects that were extremely similar to everyone else's, this is because the projects themselves were very prescriptive. An event that really began to change my understanding of this though was during my senior year of high school. For our final in my art class, we all put up a display of our work in the library at my high school. When everything was put up, there was so much variety in material, style, concept, etc, even though we were all taking the same class. This was an aha moment for me because I began to see a shift in my understanding. However, this was only the beginning, because still coming into college for most of my life I had been given assignments that were very prescriptive. Therefore, that was my idea of what art education should be. Last semester was my biggest realization in this area of my philosophy on education.  During the service learning last semester, students were making clay boxes, and this was a time when I really learned about the importance of process over product. One of the students I was working with a lot had a difficult time cutting out a square shape in order to make the sides of her box. In the end her box didn't necessarily look like a box, but her process consistently got stronger, she was making a huge amount of growth, and learning about this process on the way. She was able to grasp the process, and this led to learning. Learning is all we want from students, and this was something that I began to understand during this event. Now, more than ever, I see the importance of learning for students instead of creating perfect pieces. 

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Another event that I found to help me to better understand my philosophy on art education was my relationship with my art teacher in high school. She was able to connect with students beyond the classroom, students were comfortable going and talking with her if there was something happening in their life. This was a shift for me in my understanding of the relationships that students and teachers should have. Up to that point I had never felt as though I truly connected with a teacher outside of school. However, she interacted with me, asked me questions, made me feel comfortable, all of which made it so that I felt connected with her. This was a time when I realized how important making connections with students was. I was always excited to go to that class, because I enjoyed talking with her, and enjoyed spending time in that class. Alongside this, she was excited to hear about our experiences when she talked to us, which made those feel valued. She discussed how her experiences come through in her art, and how that can create a meaningful concept. She encouraged us to not only be open to talking about our experiences (if we were comfortable), but also to bring that through in our creative expression. This experience with that teacher, made my teaching philosophy focused on relationships and having students feel valued, as well as involving students experiences in the classroom. 

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The change in my philosophy is represented in my metaphor because each student is coming into the classroom with a different set of experiences, they are coming into the classroom with different artistic ideas, they come in with their own interests and understandings. In the classroom we can take all of these different experiences, interests, ideas, etc and use that in artistic expression. When students are able to explore their own lives they are able to create more meaningful art, and they are able to learn from each other and their classmates experiences. My metaphor demonstrates this through having each student have a different set of experiences (or colors). The students are then put in a classroom together, where they can connect with each other and learn from each other (overlapping). This encompasses all my ideas because each student is being valued, relationships between students and teacher are being created, they are creating concepts because of their experiences. I find it very important to have a classroom that is open to discussing experiences of all students, so that students can not only better understand themselves and their own art making, but also that of others.  

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The creation of this list and metaphor are important on my path to becoming an art teacher. It allows for me to see my growth and shift in perspective, but it also allows for me to one day look back on this and began to see my new understandings. This is also a big part of being a teacher for me, being able to continue to grow and develop my perspectives and understandings. I also think this experience allowed for me to reflect on my current and past understandings of art education, which allows for me to further understand where I want to go as a future teacher. Alongside this the idea of creating art based on reflection is a way to think about art making in the classroom. Similarly, having students make a list based on a concept and then form a piece of art out of that, is a way to get students thinking outside of the box in their making process. It would allow for students to really go for concepts in a piece, because their list is their concept. This experience allowed for me to understand ways in which I can help my students think about art in new and different ways. This is also a way for me to continue going back and developing my philosophy on art education. I can go back to this list and make edits, and learn from my future experiences. I can also repeat the exact same project again and again, seeing what may have shifted, and what stayed the same. I think now I have a philosophy that I really connect with, but we can always learn and grow, so that is what this experience taught me about my future career in art education.