EEVPA at Finney art teacher Megan Morman uses arts and crafts to help students learn life skills. The Voice of the Ville spoke with Morman about her teaching style and the importance of art education.
Voice of the Ville: What is your approach to teaching art?
Morman: I try to provide an hour a day for the students to be creative. I want my students to be able to visualize a graphic or image in their minds. For example, when you say apple, what type of image do you get in your head? Some people don’t get a picture, some people may see an outline of an apple, some may see a cartoon color, and then there are those people who can see an actual apple, they can turn it around and really engage with their vision of an apple. The ability to use creativity to visualize an image or graphic is a lot of the growth and progress that I strive for with my students.
Voice of the Ville: Why is art important?
Morman: You should be able to express yourself in multiple ways: being able to say it in words, being able to draw it in pictures, being able to ideas and represent them in an aesthetically pleasing way is always helpful as well. Would you like to purchase plain white shoes, or would you like to buy the snazzy, jazzy shoes that look cool. How things look matters, it affects your decisions, and it affects how you feel about something that is presented to you.
Voice of the Ville: What type of art do you teach?
Morman: I teach crafts, mostly because I can classify a lot of things as crafts, not to mention that crafts teaches life skills that our kids need to learn. The embroidery project teaches sewing, like using hand tools. Those are things that I like for students to know how to use. We do not necessarily get exposure to these things at home. It is important for students to know the difference between a screwdriver, and pliers or a wrench and knowing how to use each of these tools. Plus, crafts is a lot of found objects so you do not have to purchase expensive art supplies. So, it’s cool that we can sit there and be like let’s take this garbage and see if we can recycle it.
Voice of the Ville: What is your favorite type of art to teach?
Morman: I really like crafts because it encompasses a bunch of different things. Crafts is basically usable art. There is a big argument as to whether or not crafts is fine art or fine art is crafts. Everything could be beautiful and should be beautiful.
Voice of the Ville: Why did you choose to become an art teacher?
Morman: I liked art and I loved doing a bunch of things. That is what was really attractive about becoming an art teacher. You can do something and be all in for about a month and then all of sudden move on to another project. Teaching kids to spend more than a day on a project and learn from their mistakes. Nobody is good at it as far as they’re concerned but everyone can be. It is about practice and working and figuring out from your mistakes how to do something better.
