Guest Speaker

Johna Stern

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Johna definitely is a great person to know! Her outlook on what it is like to teach middle school was very inspiring! I have been intrigued more and more recently with the idea of teaching middle school. This is such a wild time for all students in this age range. Emotions are high and identities are being discovered. Not only was this conversation targeted towards the world of middle school art education it was also about how the job has changed because of COVID. Included below is the rubric that I developed for my middle school lesson that is all about Self-Awareness. I believe that I as a future middle school

educator should do everything I can to aide in the search for identity that many of my students will be going through. The lesson that I created has students identify the feelings that they experience throughout the day and identify how easily they can change. This lesson allows students to better identify their emotions and can therefore notice when negative emotions are becoming more frequent during the day. Johna spoke a lot about the importance of forming relationships with the students that you teach and how this greatly impacts the behavior management plan of a class. These relationships are often formed through positive communication and consistent reassurance. This can also be seen by allowing choice and individualization within projects. This individualization is crucial to the involvement in an art classroom. John also spoke about this during the discussion. Often students become more dedicated to a project when they create emotional and personal ties to the work.