Guest Speaker

Peg Medcraft

11/19/20

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Peg Medcraft or (Crafty) as everyone else calls her was one of my practicum teacher's during the spring of 2020. I have learned so much from her already and plan to remain in contact while I continue my work in art education. We had the opportunity to speak with both her and some of her students. I found that in a district with two area centered art teachers attitude and personality is really important. I think my goal when teaching is to develop the relationships with my students and administration where I can feel like I am being myself the whole time. I think the qualities that I want from myself to push forward into my classroom environment would be passion, honesty, empathy, and humility. I believe that knowing your teacher is passionate about the subject they are teaching and that they are continuing to learn is key in a classroom environment, especially high school. This idea was reciprocated from Crafty's students as well. They reflected that they appreciate how eccentric and welcoming she keeps the classroom. One thing I also enjoyed from her speaking about the occurrences in her classroom was the advocacy that you must take part in once you are hired. She has worked very hard writing grants, participating and professional development, and speaking with administration about the amazing things her classroom does with the community and its students. Another idea that she brought up was understanding how not all of your students are likely to go into the arts. Our job as art educators is just to help them understand and appreciate the importance of the arts.