Painting An Intellectual Portrait

I have an artistic background. Upon graduating high school (waaaay back in the glorious 1980s), I immediately went into art school, but until I parlayed my art school experiences into my meager photography business, I'd not worked in the art field. Other than cartoony doodles, I rarely have time to use it. (I did, however, recently get on of my little drawings published in a national magazine and will likely have one more published in an upcoming issue--so I'm pretty excited that I've finally gotten to use the little bit I learned in art school so many years ago.)

What does this have to do with teaching, since I don't plan to teach art?

Well, so much of this is ingrained in my thinking, perhaps even genetically. My father is as good an artist as I am, without formal artistic training. Art still draws me in (no pun intended). So I often find myself reading and watching anything I can on the subject. And as with so much in my life these days--I relate it to my desire to teach.

Until a few years ago, I'd not studied the lives of some of the great painters. Sure I'd had a brief course or two on art history, but I never really applied or even remembered much from those lessons. Recently, however, I heard a great story about an ancient master that I applied or at least spent time thinking about.

You see Monet and Renoir were pals. I don't remember which one, but one of them was plagued by extremely painful bouts of arthritis, and after a day of painting--he'd be debilitated for a day or two, wracked with pain and nearly unable to function. When his buddy (the famous artist) asked him why he still painted if it caused him so much pain, he answered rather simply. He told his friend the pain was temporary, but the beauty would last forever. Years after he'd forgotten the discomfort, in fact even after he was long gone, the fruits of his toil would still be there as an ornament to the world.

I recently related this to my own life. You see, I'm an introvert. I don't like to speak in public, even speaking to children makes me nervous. So teaching would not seem a logical choice, but like the great master, my discomfort will only be temporary. And if I can touch the minds of my students, if I can help to intellectually ornament their worlds, my discomfort will be easily forgotten. I'm not saying I'll be some revolutionary teacher that will impact the lives of his students forever--be a sort of academic great master, but I want to try. There's a poster at my Practicum placement that says: You'll miss every single shot you don't take (or something like that). So I want to aim high, and if I fall a little short sometimes, my trajectory will still have taking my higher having tried.

If we, as teachers, help our students paint on the canvases of their minds, the beauty of the results, unlike Monet's or Renoir's work might just perpetuate itself. Our students might go on to teach others. In fact, there might be an 8th grader in your school who might blossom or wither depending on how much or how little he or she is encouraged. Many great thinkers, artists, teachers, or inventors, when asked about their genius, point back to that one special teacher who reached them.