TO TEACHERS,

To teach one must come to the realization that teachers are beings who rise

to a calling. To be a teacher, one must have a deep ambition to share their

experience, exchange their energy, and devout their time to inspire, nurture, and

guide the next generation to strive for knowledge and reach for their dreams.

Teachers dedicate their time utilizing their own talents to benefit others,

encourage growth, and promote change. Teachers know that the children are the

future. Teachers are the thinkers, planners, researchers, philosophers, scientists,

artists and dreamers who value knowledge and fight to share the truth with the

youth who are searching for their own answers.

I chose being an art educator because I hold in high regard, the value of

creativity, community, personal expression, growth and provoking thought

processes. This vocation offers me an opportunity to present art to students as a

world of creation in which they can interact and experience. In this world, students

can discover their role in the constantly growing culture of existence. Art offers us

a connection between the original ancient artifacts of precivilization to the ever-

advancing developing technologies that will project us into the future. Students

can use art a portal into their own thinking process. This opportunity provides an
experience to use the study of art and art history to develop tools of self-expression

and conceptualization. Teaching art is an opportunity to expose students to the

knowledge and processes of the past while guiding them to developing the skills of

the future. Art Education fulfills my main artistic ambition is to inspire others. The

classroom is a venue that realizes this dream.

If you hand a child a paint brush and offer an opportunity for exploration and

expression, a young mind makes their own contribution to the discourse of the

creative world while they are learning through the experience of doing. Art is

powerful. Art activates pretty much every part of our brains. Art is inclusive of all

the activity that stems deep in our minds, boiling in creativity and imagination. Art

seeps out through our being as an extension of our deepest thoughts and a direct

exchange of our own time and energy. Art is how we think, how we feel, what we

learn and what we yearn know. Art is a part of us. By being an art teacher, I offer

students this part themselves.

To students, teachers are friends, advisors, leaders, performers and

entertainers. At times, teachers are parents, consolers, congratulators,

encouragers, or sometimes someone that just listens. To students, teachers are

the ones who wake up early every weekday morning to take care of them and to
connect with them. Teachers raise their student’s curiosity and hold a sincere

passion for their student’s success. Teachers provide an outlet for exploration.

Teachers facilitate a forum for expression. Teachers provide a channel to strive

for knowledge. Teachers equip students with the ability to combine their own

intellect, creativity, passion, skills, and dreams. In a child’s education, teachers

are everything. For this contribution teachers, I thank you.

Genuinely yours,

Brett Guay