When I made the decision to become an art teacher, I assumed my job was to design amazing lesson plans to help students become good at techniques such as drawing, painting, and ceramics. I also assumed I would be giving quizzes on subjects such as color theory and art history as a way to promote literacy in my classroom. I thought teaching students to be “good” at art would pave the way for them to express themselves and share the things that were important to them with the outside world. The first week of my concepts in art education class we were talking about what art concepts were important to teach students and I said drawing was an essential skill to learn and I used my blue water bottle as an example. I said that by learning how to draw this water bottle students could slow down and look at a mundane subject in a new way and find joy in observing the small details. My professor asked one question after my spiel on drawing…“Why”? I repeated my rationale of slowing down, observing details, etc., and still he asked “Why?” I didn’t release what he was actually asking until the end of my summer break. Why did it matter the student learned how to draw a water bottle or flower still life or self-portrait? What was the point of these exercises? Was the point to show off what an amazing teacher I am and how much technical knowledge I have? Was the point that students should suffer through tedious drawing exercises as a way to build skills? I realized that in asking “why” he was trying to get us to realize that in assigning these exercises we were ensuring that our fancy art assignments were most likely irrelevant to our students because they had no personal connection to the art they were making. We needed to think more deeply about the reasons we were assigning certain tasks to students. Shortly after the water bottle discussion we were introduced to a concept called teaching for artistic behavior (TAB). In a TAB classroom the goal is not to create teacher directed lessons. Instead the students are given freedom to explore topics of interest to them and they get to choose what art materials they want to use. The child is considered the artist and the classroom is the studio. The most important thing about TAB for me is that it gives students power over their own learning and the freedom to take risks and make new discoveries. Imagine my excitement when I learned that I would be student teaching in two TAB classrooms for sixteen weeks, one at the middle school level and one at the elementary level. I was excited but filled with trepidation. Rationally I knew that TAB was the right philosophy for me but I wondered what my role would be as a teacher. What would I do all day? Would I be lost and floundering because I wouldn’t have the security of a daily lesson plan? My fears were alleviated when I made a visit to the school before my student teaching semester started. I walked into the classroom and was blown away. Some students were building elaborate dollhouses, another student was building a structure with magnetic blocks and every student was busy working on something different. They were friendly and polite and this positive classroom environment was the exact same when I walked into the classroom on my first day as a student teacher. I have a unique experience in that I get to stay at the same school for sixteen weeks and have middle school in the morning and elementary school in the afternoon. Both classrooms are TAB and although tiring and stressful at times, I am having the best time of my life. I had a printmaking professor who was interested in art education and I will never forget one time he said to me that the worst thing he would see in a classroom is 22 pumpkins that all look the same because it told him nothing about the students. This is why I feel it is a great privilege for me to be student teaching in a TAB classroom because I am already getting to know the students. I can tell you about the evolution of a student’s catapult, who made a strawberry yule log, and what group of students like to build arenas for their Beyblade toys. The challenging issues for me have mainly been figuring out how to keep track of each student’s progress on their art explorations and managing paint clean up at the elementary school level. In the elementary school I feel like I spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning paint brushes and picking up things off the floor. In middle school there is a bit calmer because the students work independently for the most part, but the thing I find difficult in elementary school is how to get around to visit with all students because things are so busy. I have heard the words “Ms. Lammey” more in the past few weeks than I have in my entire lifetime! I do enjoy it, but it is more exhausting than I thought it would be. Student teaching reminds me of Navy boot camp in that each day you are bombarded with a wealth of information each day, you fall into bed exhausted each night and then you do it all again the next day. I used melted crayons to represent the whirlwind of input you receive as a student teacher. It feels like you are learning so much and don’t have much time to process it before the next day comes. I had the idea of the whirlwind but I hadn't thought of using melted crayons as the art medium until two students showed me what they were working on and taught me how to use a hot plate to melt the crayons and swipe a metal clay tool across the wax to make an an abstract design. I chose to use cool colors to represent a soothing calm because even though things are busy and I am absorbing so much information each day I still feel a sense of calm that I made the right choice in choosing to be an art teacher. I have loved every day I am at school, even the days when students choose not to clean up on time and even though I am exhausted at the end of the day. Watching students explore and making discoveries on their own makes the hard job of teaching worth it.