Natassja King
Art Educator
Art is a language each of us invents according to our needs. Each technique and medium is a dialect within that language. The lessons I teach are structured so that my students may become fluent in the universal language of art while simultaneously building skills in critical thinking and problem solving.
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Teaching Statement
When I was a student in high school, I excelled in art despite being a reserved and anxious student. I began by “playing it safe,” so to speak, clinging to code and ambiguous meaning until I gradually shifted from playing safe to feeling safe. Art has become the surest part of my life, an outlet where I trust myself absolutely. No matter what I create, it is honest, and I draw strength from that. It is a permanent record of effort and vulnerability. The final artwork is the reward for my practice and persistence, and the joy and satisfaction I feel when I complete a project is a gift I would be privileged to pass on to my students.
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My path to art education was anything but direct. Told at first that I was too sensitive to be a teacher, I trained as an office administrator instead. For eight years I honed my skills as a secretary and office manager. My oases of fulfillment in an otherwise repetitive and mundane career were when I trained new employees, created training materials (such as manuals and diagrams), and when I created art on my lunch breaks and at home.
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This rhythm was disrupted when Matthew Aronson, a lawyer at the firm where I worked, recommended that I get myself a booth at ComicCon’s Artist’s Alley in 2011. Until then the most publicity I had experienced as an artist was when I displayed my artwork in the local Java U, but Matthew insisted that I take the chance and even offered to pay the booth rental fee for me. I took the opportunity, and never looked back.
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Shortly after I went to ComicCon, I met Dominic Lehoux, MegaBrands’s head carpenter at the time (he is now the director of their Creative Workshop). He offered me the position of model-builder for the Creative Workshop, and I began to design and build promotional materials for trade shows and store displays. Again, I found that the best part of this job was the opportunity to learn new media and techniques and to figure out the best way to teach the rest of my team. I finally made the life-altering decision to return to school and have worked tirelessly to squeeze every possible learning experience out of my classes and internships.
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My lessons encourage respect for one’s own effort and the efforts of others, and my curriculum is structured to support students in their development as artists by giving plenty of space to reflect on how far they have come and how far they hope to take their artistic skills. If there is one overarching theme to my teaching style, it is my belief that the most valuable thing I can do for my students is to give them the opportunity to succeed as independently as possible, so they will be more confident taking risks and accepting challenges in the future when they are beyond their school years. I understand they will not be my students forever, safe in the cocoon of the classroom. Instead, I encourage my students to venture out into their art practices, knowing that I am always there to provide support or advice, should they need me.
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I support them in their risks, and therefore in their mistakes, and my most important role in the classroom is as the experienced artist, who has encountered hurdles before and can help students approach these blocks and find solutions that work for them. By the end of the year I aim to give my students an increased sense of trust in themselves, and in twenty years I hope they remember the lessons they learned with me, that mistakes are a part of learning and an opportunity to improve, and that playing it safe with your artistic practice is the surest path to stagnation.
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Within the next five years, I hope to have established myself as an art teacher. I know that this opportunity may not present itself until I have been teaching for a few years, however, so for the more immediate future I hope to secure a full-time position teaching in a high school setting. My minor in Liberal Arts more than qualifies me to teach English, History, and Ethics as well as Art.
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When I teach, I prefer a blend of hands-on instruction, lectures on theory, and one-on-one mentorship through tutorial programs and lunchtime clubs. My method is deliberately flexible in order to cater to the differences from school to school, class to class, and even student to student.
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My favourite teacher in high school told me that teaching isn’t about pressing every student into the same mould; it’s about growth and personal fulfillment. It’s more complicated that way, but if I have failed to support my students as they cultivate a relationship with themselves than I will have failed as an art teacher. My lessons foster my students’ social and emotional growth, in addition to the broadening of their skill sets. They give students a framework within which they can investigate big ideas, critical themes, essential concepts, and other big questions. A student who has learned three-point perspective and the colour wheel but doesn’t know how to express a feeling or an opinion is a student who has been cheated out of the true art education experience.
I am a passionate, creative teacher whose fondest dream is to bear witness when people surprise themselves. I find deep personal satisfaction in helping others to find their own personal artistic voice. I can teach them the safe way to operate a band saw or the correct way to hold a paintbrush, but the part I look forward to is when they take over and listen to the part of themselves that intuitively knows what they want to say with those tools.
