What Art Teachers wish parents could understand:

•   We see students for 30 minutes to an hour per week.

•  Teaching 3-4 of your own children one art project in a week is very different from teaching 125-300 students one art project per week.

•   There are probably more than 10 students in each art class at one time.

•  Your child acts differently with you at home, than they do in their homeroom class with 17 of their friends.

•  Your child acts differently in their homeroom class, than they do in a Specials class or with a substitute teacher.

•  Everyone wants to be the "Room Mom” but there aren’t generally “Art Room Moms.”

•  Students are often learning at least one new skill per class! 
• The goal of Art Education is not to create artists, but to prepare students to be empathetic, citizens of the world that are motivated, creative thinkers, problem solvers, communicators, and well adjusted individuals. 

•  The Art teacher will be thrilled with any advice you’d like to give on projects if you can help to facilitate them, so if you think a digital portfolio is a must then maybe you would like to volunteer to photograph and upload 2,000 pictures into student portfolios online.

Volunteers welcome! http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=131725

•  If you have some ideas to share for projects the teacher will most likely be thrilled if you volunteer to come and volunteer to help prep, and facilitate that life-sized dinosaur paper Mache project, as long as you can clean up, pack everything up and find storage within the class time.

•   We do not know your child as well as the homeroom teacher knows your child, because we don’t spend 6 hours a day with the same group of students.

•  We may temporarily forget your child’s name or the spelling, but we know his or her interests and passions.

• We see a lot of students each day so when something concerns us we want to help, even if it means that telling the truth will make our life very difficult.

•  It is easy to ignore a problem, give an A or a perfect report and pretend everything is perfect, but it is very difficult to report a concern that we have for your child.

•  Teaching Art is more than just the in-class projects, there is also, evaluation, material collection, preparation, storage, advocacy, filing, community contests, school displays, performances, Art contests and collaboration with the homeroom and specials teachers.

•  Very often, a holiday, party, school event, sickness may mean that your child attends less than 4 art classes per month. 

•  Art teachers generally meet students (especially the very young) elementary students late in the day after a full morning of academics.

•  Sometimes, things happen before the student enters the art class that effect the student’s motivation and focus in art class, for example: a bad quiz grade, a fire drill, a class party, an incident on the playground, the hall, or Billy might have just thrown up on Bobby.

•  Students often will tell us if you are divorced, that you went on a date, that you like to drink, wine, beer and say “bad” words, and all before we can tell them "hello" or ask about their day. Students feel more inclined to talk to us about personal trials of life, in the art room.

•  Students come to us for help, because they know we care about them. 

•  Responsible Art teachers talk with the homeroom and other Resource teachers as often as possible regarding individual students.

•  When we see your interactions with your child, we understand what your relationship and expectations are for your child. 

• We help you child to find place and responsibility within society

•  We dare to tell you the uncomfortable truth about your child because we hope that you will accept the information and partner with us to help your child.

• We have to organize constantly so that your child will be equipped to create with a variety of tools. 

•  We couldn’t pass the buck if we wanted to, we have to deal with issues as they come up because we are going to be teaching many of the same students every year, we don’t want to be miserable and we don’t want our students to be miserable.

•  We aren’t looking for your child’s approval today; our focus is your child’s well-being in 20 years,

•  We love our jobs, and care so much for our students that we are constantly thinking of ways to enhance the lives of our students in and out of school. 

•  If we didn't think that we could help change your child's world for the better, we wouldn't be teachers.