Author: E A Role: Student Location: Easton, MA Date: 10-02-03 While reading the story of the Freetown-Lakeville Middle School and Lindsey Harden's art room, memories of my middle school art classroom emerged into my head. My public middle school also had two art teachers with very different styles. Both teachers received the same curriculum requirements, but their approach to these lessons was very different. One art teacher took the traditional approach-to lay out the task with one approach to accomplishing it and have us create art similar to the example piece. While in this class, I felt that I was a horrible artist (something I never felt as a child or in my own home) and pressure to confirm to the style of eveyrone around me. My next year at this middle school, I had the other art teacher. In this classroom any type of medium and any style were encouraged. Art was graded by self-assesment. During class he would make sketches and we would stand in awe of his mistakes and practices, realizing that art never has to be perfect, just fun. The course objectives were still met, but I never felt that I was made to confrorm to a taks or a certain style. My favorite project was the shape project, we had to use only geometric shapes to create a picture. The final products from this assignment were drawings, paintings, sculptures of metal and paper. My final product was a small quilt. Realizing that I could express my ideas in any manner that I wanted to, and create a piece that I was proud of and meant something to me, was the greatest gift my art teacher could give me. He was one of the people who have given me the power to continue creating art for myself, and kept me from becoming discouraged by my later high school art teachers.

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