My teaching philosophy has three fundamental components, empathy between student and teacher, the exploration of artistic concepts, mediums and techniques, as well as embracing play. Empathy is not only something which I push myself to use in daily life, but has also become vital to my practice as an educator. By taking an empathetic approach I often find myself, instead of taking immediate and impulsive actions regarding student behavior, or academic performance, pushing myself to take a step back and consider a situation from multiple angles and thereafter formulating next steps so that I may approach my students' education in ways which best suit their needs.

Creating an exploratory classroom environment also makes room for differentiation among students, so that they may be adventurous and experience various artistic concepts, mediums and/or techniques. This approach may also result in individual students finding comfort in knowing that the final product of their efforts isn’t predetermined, and therefore variability among students is not only accepted, but encouraged.

Playfulness is a trait which I’ve consistently enjoyed in my own teachers. It may take the form of a daily icebreaker or simply presenting oneself in a less severe manner, by recognizing and laughing at your own mistakes. Practices such as this allow students to start engaging mentally in a low pressure scenario, and let them see that the teacher cares about them outside of their academic performance.My hope is that when students enter my classroom they will feel free to engage with both me and the projects I present, due to the open classroom environment I have created. I would like my students to know through my actions that they are respected and that I actively take their viewpoints and experiences into consideration when approaching their education, and that in return I expect a similar level of respect, so that we may foster a healthy and effective student-teacher relationship.