Throughout my time here at Stout, I have attended two National Art Education Association Conferences that took place in Seattle, Washington and Boston, Massachusetts. I have also attended two of the Wisconsin Art Education Association Conferences. On October 17th and 18th I attended the Wisconsin Art Education Association Conference for the second year. This year, the conference was held in Manitowoc, Wisconsin at the Holy Family College. The conference consists of almost all art educators from around Wisconsin who come together to learn how to better their students. As a pre-service educator (still in college), I like to take advantage of these conferences to get a jump start to bettering my students. Many of the sessions that are given at these conferences give out information that is not necessarily talked about in any class that is offered at Stout. From my time at the WAEA conference, I have been impacted in many different ways:
Art teaching knowledge and abilities
My future students will benefit from my experiences at these conferences because I will be able to bring in this new information that I was able to learn at the conferences. As a college student, I think these benefits both my students and I a little more because I will be able to bring more information and skills that not every brand-new teacher will. Along with learning new skills, I was able to attend a few workshops that were hands-on. I was able to experiment with trying out the project that was being demonstrated. I hope to bring a few of these projects into my classroom someday. Along with art making skills, I learned many different protocols and classroom management knowledge that I plan to bring into my future classroom.
Confidence and passion for teaching
Every year that I attend one of these conferences, I always get goose bumps at least once throughout my time there because I realize that I am in the correct field of work. My dream is to be an art educator and I am reminded of that every year when attending the conference. The conferences show me that I am where I need to be, and I am more than excited to begin teaching soon.
Desire and Commitment to be an art teacher
Throughout our lives, we are repeatedly asked the same question, “What do you want to be when you grow up”? As children, the common answers include astronaut, rock star, prince or princess, or even a football player. When I was a younger, my answer to the question was artist. As I grew older and made it to middle school, I was asked the same question and still had the same answer, artist. I found myself not being the best at art throughout middle school and when it came to high school, I found that art kept getting more difficult, but I know I still wanted to be an artist. I worked so hard in high school to improve my skills as an artist by constantly working on projects, asking questions, and working with my teacher. My high school teacher is the person who changed my life as an artist. She had so much passion, dedication, kindness, and knowledge that really changed my mind to become an art educator. This is one of the main reasons that I chose to become an art educator. I am a dedicated and passionate art educator who seeks the opportunity to share and promote the aspects of art as well as find the creative minds of each and every student who will learn to appreciate art forever. My goal is to teach and develop the creative minds in every student through an accepting, respectful, and encouraging learning environment.
Overall happiness, mood, and well-being
Every time I attend these conferences, I always leave feeling happy and excited knowing that I am getting closer to graduation so that I can have my dream job. Art has always played a huge role in my life and sharing that passion with my students will be the best feeling.
Relationships with other ArtEd students and networking with ArtEd professionals
I always enjoy going to these conferences with other art education students because they are people who share the same dedication, passion, and mindset as me. We are all there to better our students, learn from others, and build a strong art educator community. Sharing this experience with other art education students is truly an awesome experience because we are all at the same points in our art education journey. As for networking with other art educators, I met many educators that I was able to learn a lot from and hear about their experiences as teachers.