My ideas around teaching and learning have changed significantly over the years, and I know that they will continue to develop throughout my time here at CSU as well as throughout my life. For much of my life, I thought I would be a teacher like the teachers I had in art. Many of my assignments were teacher-based learning, we had specific demonstrations, and then we copied what was being done on a sheet of paper that was our choice of color. Coming into college, this was my perception of art education, because that is what I knew from my elementary school. In middle and high school, I had more choice, and the work of all students was different. However, I my perception of art education had been engrained through my years in elementary school. As I started my studies at CSU, my perception completely shifted. This has been a gradual process though, I slowly started gaining more information, and better understanding what I can do to make my students art education experience the best it can be. I learned that the process of making is so much more important than the final product, because that is where the learning happens. I learned that play and experimentation is necessary in the classroom, because again that is how children learn best, when they get to try things out. I also learned that choice in materials is important, it allows for students to explore and learn about what they are interested in, not what the teacher is interested in. My art piece for this week is based on these major changes that I have had in my understanding of art education. In the past, I understood art education as following specific guidelines, and making something that looked "perfect." Slowly overtime, my understanding has changed to having art education be a place where students can explore, they can try anything. For me that is represented by the middle part, I was exploring the mixing of colors, and I was playing with different ways of creating line, instead of following the rules of making these nice lines. That is a huge part of the transformation I have made in my understanding of art education. And for my future understanding, I know that I will learn and grow, but I don't know what that will look like. I left that part blank, because there is so much that I still have to learn, I can't say exactly what that will be, or how my perspective will shift, but I know that it will. 

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One of the main moments that shifted my understanding of art education and how to teach and learn, was last semester during service learning. There was a student who was struggling with making a box, which was their project that day. However he loved playing with the textures, and learning about how an object can be used to create a texture in clay. This was a moment when I learned the importance of process over product. It didn't matter that he couldn't figure out how to make a box, all that mattered was that he was learning, which he was. He was learning about texture. In my piece this importance of play comes through, which is really focusing on the process of making instead of the final piece that is created. I also think my experiences in the classes I have taken at CSU have changed my perspective. Through discussions and readings, I have begun to understand what art education can be. When I learned about praxis, that was a big shift for me, because praxis allows for students to play, and that is something I now find to be very valuable. We started discussing praxis last semester, and we learned about a story that a boy that painted a piece of paper orange, and everyone was asking him what he had painted, but he was just exploring the medium, he was playing before he developed his understanding of what that was. Praxis is a big part of what I think art education should be, it allows for students to play, and experiment with whatever they are interested in. 

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For me using fabric is a way of thinking about change, fabric can change form constantly, it is bent and moved all of which allows for it to flow and change openly. This is a big part of why I think fabric is a medium that allows for me to express change. I also used fabric paint, which is a way for me to understand my growth, because paint is a medium that I have been using throughout my whole educational experience. It is a material, that feels for me as though it has come along with me for my growth and change. I think that material allows for me to express my change, because of the reason that it has come with me throughout so much of my creative endeavors. 

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This experience influences my understandings of my path to becoming an art educator. It allows for me to reflect on what I have thought in the past, allows for me to think about what I understand now, and ponder about what I will think in the future. This is something that I find very valuable on my path to becoming a teacher, because as a teacher reflection is everything. There will be times when I make mistakes, there will be times when I need to change my plans and my understandings. I will need to look at how the year went overall, and shift my practice the next year because of that. So this time to reflect is really important to me as a future teacher, it allows for me to begin to experience what I will need to be doing in my own classroom. It also allows for me to think in similar ways as I want students to think in, which is so important as a teacher. If I can't make art that is representing an idea or concept, then how am I supposed to teach my students how to do the same. This is something that I find very important, and I work to develop. 

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