Kyle Couture is an Educator/Illustrator/Animator with a love to make people smile, laugh and learn. He has presented work in the Morris Graves Museum of Art as a member of the Artists Who Animate.
Teaching Philosophy
What makes a good art teacher is someone who creates an enjoyable environment and experience in the art room. For my approach to lessons for students, it's important to consider not just content but also context in relation to students' lived experiences inside and outside of the classroom. This leads me to employ personal narrative and self-identity as themes for art making. Empowering students to take charge of their own stories through art making can have a profound impact on self confidence and self worth.
Using an approach of best practices and principles of art as a foundation for art-making, students begin to push their creative decision making through both personal reflection and group discussions. Having lessons that utilize the principles of art without feeling alienated from students' lives goes back to being able to work personal narrative into lessons. Fostering group work in art, either through collaboration or discussion, being an anchor in the classroom to build honest relationships between students where everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts and processes. Once students show a command of these ideas I continue to push them into areas of art making that challenge their decision making while creating.
Students learn from memorable experiences. Part of that is allowing students to bring their personal interests and passions into the classroom. Building relationships and community in a classroom goes both ways. Respect for students' interests and passions should be as important as the respect given to the teacher by students.
A sample assignment that I have used previously is a unit plan designed around comics, self-publishing, and personal narratives. The beauty of this lesson is that it is highly adaptable to different age groups, being applicable from elementary all the way into high school. Through a series of writing/drawing prompts students create a comic/booklet based on their day to day lives. Diary comics have been a strong tool used to convey complex emotions and can help students process complex emotions. During class we view a variety of contemporary artists working in the medium and use that as a jumping off point to create a class library of comics/booklets. This allows students to share their stories while also opening them to the experiences of others.
CV
