I don’t really know where to start with this. My good friend Elena Thomas has been trying for time now to get me to start a blog, to get you to enter into discussion with me.
First and foremost, I’m an artist – but even as I write this, I question the validity of that statement.
First and foremost, I’m a teacher.
That sounds worse!
Truth is, I don’t know which statement is true… no, thats not it either. I don’t know which statement I WANT to be true. That’s better. That’s closer.
Or….
…which do I think I’m better at?
Is it about confidence? Ego? I completed my Masters a couple of months ago and the final conclusion I came away with was that I couldn’t make Art unless I was teaching! But what exactly does that mean?
I completed my BA(Hons) nearly 20 years ago at KIAD Canterbury in Fine Art, but if I’m completely honest, I wasted my three years there. I didn’t produce to my full potential, prefering instead the party lifestyle students are renown for, living the myth of the artist. Even as a mature student i was immature…
PGCE at Cambridge two years later I did much better. I’d been working as a youth worker. Had helped two written-off kids to re-engage with education, got them college places and interested in Art. People said I was good at working with young people – why not teach? Without sounding arrogant, I took to it like a duck to water. Enjoyed it. Found it easy. Got on with the kids. My first two projects saw pupils building suit’s of armour from flexible mirror and building string spider webs and spiders in trees – my enthusiasm fed by theirs.
Now a good while on, I am the Art department in a small rural school with 600 pupils. I teach every child, bar two groups of 30 who are taught by a non specialist part timer who deploys her own schemes of work with my supervision. A great job you might say… and it is, but lack of stimulation from like minded creatives started to drive me mad. I wanted to be able to discuss my subject intelligently.
Four years ago I applied to study for an MA in the hope that it would re-engage me with the art world. I was offered a place at BCU on the strength of some old paintings I took along and examples of my pupils work based around an installation project I taught, but a short while later had a serious heart attack and was forced on medical grounds to defer my place for two years. It was, with hindsight, the catalyst to my present dilemma.
During my recuperation time I started pondering my life and what I’d achieved. I concluded that unless I endeavoured to pursue a career as an artist to see if I could be successful (definition required), i would always regret not trying.
2 months on, with a Masters now under my belt, the question becomes;- how do I do that as a full time teacher?
