Welcome! My name is Robin Murphy and I started this blog as a place to share and organize some of the Art Education lessons, ideas, tips, and resources I create and come across in my constant effort to bring an amazing Art room experience to my students.
As far as my life outside of teaching goes, I have one amazing husband (who I've been with for almost 11 years, and married to for 4!), one brand new beautiful daughter, and two sweet but obnoxious kitties. Right now we're just figuring out how to be a family of 3 and looking forward to everything that entails.
I'm heading into my 5th year teaching this year, which isn't a lot but is still amazing to me. I thought this was going to be the first year I really felt confident going in. It's my 2nd year finally teaching full time at only one school, an amazing little Christian school, and my 4th year at that school overall. While I feel more confident than in the past, this year is already shaping up to be challenging thanks to this pandemic we're all dealing with.
All that being said, I'd like to explain a little more about why I love teaching Art. I thought the best way to do this is through a post I wrote right before we returned to school a couple years ago. You can read that below the break.
I’ve been doing some reflecting and planning for this school year and in the process stumbled across this great blog post by my art-teacherin’ idol Cassie Stephens. In the post she explains how she and other art teachers had decided to put their “Why I Teach” statements in kid-friendly terms and turn them into a painting to display in the classroom.
You guys, I was so inspired! So I started thinking about my “Why.” I could write whole papers on the subject of why I teach, why I chose to teach art, and what teaching means to me (and that's exactly what I did in college). But to put it in simple, kid-friendly terms is tricky.
Why I Teach (Art)
Now, I don’t have my “Why” painted on a fancy board yet, but I think I probably will at some point. But I do know what I would like that painting to say. I teach so that my students can learn to see the true beauty in the world. Art is often an overlooked subject, but I think it has real importance in everyday life.
I could go on for hours about how art class gives students critical thinking and problem-solving skills, develops fine motor skills, or even builds on other core subjects. All those things are great and super important, but that’s not why I’m here! I’m here because at some point in my life I learned to see with the eyes of an artist and that’s what made me fall in love with art and the world itself.
Somewhere along the line I started to have an understanding of those basic elements and principles of art, color theory, etc. and I started to see them being applied and happening all around me. I saw true beauty on a fall day with the orange leaves complimenting the steel blue sky. I saw beauty in the texture of the rusty spot on an old piece of metal where the paint chipped off of long ago. Somewhere along the way I learned to find joy in the mundane and it gave me a passion for looking for, seeing, and capturing that beauty. Even if you’re not a great artist, the ability to see the everyday art around you changes your whole perspective on life. It’s like that one secret ingredient that makes your special recipe so amazing and worth all of the work that goes into making it.
Like I said before, I could talk about this for hours, but what it boils down to is this: my art education gave me the ability to find joy in the everyday and the true beauty and perfection of God’s creation, so why wouldn’t I share this joy with my students?
I hope that gives you a little look into who I am. I hope you'll stick around and find what I have to share useful!
Thanks for reading!