Here I am

There is an entire world of art educators out there, some that do scholarly writing about the craft that I have made a career out of. They just do not write one-page lesson plans, post them online and call it a day this is something that is deeply rooted in their being that they live to do. The profession of educating art educators has changed drastically over the last 20 years since I earned my BFA in art education. I recall in my four years of study maybe reading 5 or 6 journal articles, here I have read well over 40 in just over a year’s time, with I’m sure at least another 40. That’s 40 that I have written some response to, made some sort of annotated quote on. I have scooped, tweeted and facebooked more in the sake of art education in this year than I have in my entire 16 years teaching career. And it’s not enough.

For the first time, I wanted to go to NAEA; I just had to meet some of these people that I had written about, studied, and quoted. I will be making the art educators professional pilgrimage this year to New Orleans, to shake some of those hands and to take a selfie with them. The convention was in Washington DC in 1999, but I didn’t start teaching until that fall, so I had no real vested interest until it came to Baltimore in 2004. There was no push from my school or district to go, so I didn’t. This year, I fell like it is mandatory like I’m going to miss out on something if I don’t go.

And to think, this is only the byproduct of the process [course work], I can only imagine what the benefits that the product [degree] will be, time will only tell.