Laid-Off Art Teachers Turn to Their Craft to Express Themselves

The New York Times ran an article about laid-off art teachers exhibiting their artwork after being laid off from their teaching jobs. If you're in the Chicago area, the show runs through July 30 in the Flat Iron Building within the Wicker Park neighborhood.

“Redefined” is the brainchild of Cezar Simeon, 47, a former first-grade teacher at Lloyd Elementary School who was laid off last summer. Mr. Simeon does not teach art, “but I was really ticked off when I heard about all these art teachers losing their jobs,” he said. “Art isn’t something you can test for, but it teaches kids problem-solving skills.”

Beautiful Oops

A colleague of mine recommended A Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg  after we taught our Saturday art class. Her unit was about "play" where her students were to imagine a place that they would like to play and then they built it using shoeboxes and and other mixed media. It turned out really cool. This book helped her students free themselves from the constraints of "right" and "wrong." It shows young kids that it's ok to make mistakes, that a "mistake is an adventure in creativity, a portal of discovery."