Westlake High School Art Teachers, Also Teaching Middle School
By ASHLEY ALVAREZ
The 2018-2019 school year at Westlake High School brought a change for the high school art teachers; this year, different from prior years, high school teachers were given the assignment of teaching a middle school class. Although this is a new situation for all involved, they are excited to teach a middle school students.
However, with all things new, comes a bit of anticipation. Lauren Morris, Art teacher at Westlake High School, expresses that she has faced a few challenges when integrating a brand new curriculum into her typical routine, one of them being: “not as much prep time.” As a result of these challenges, she “has to talk to other art teachers in the middle school to figure out the curriculum and projects… It’s a bigger burden when finding out what to do,” Morris adds.
Similarly, Carolyn Frawley, another Art teacher at Westlake High School, conveys her firsthand the struggles faced when arranging a middle school class into her high school classes agenda. Frawley claims that “the techniques and understandings change within the difference of maturity levels.”
Along with that, Frawley states that “the classroom management varies” depending on which group she is teaching during that class period. Frawley adds, “Scheduling conflicts and being mindful of the scheduling difference” is one of the hardest parts of the job.
Much like Frawley, Morris also has struggles of her own in adjusting. Morris has been an Art teacher for 9 years, and this is her first experience with teaching a middle school class.
Morris was open about the topic and expressed her challenges when teaching art classes to two different age groups of adolescents.
Morris was determined to get insight into other art teachers’ classes, who were more familiar with the curriculum in the middle school so she was able to figure out the expectations and the syllabus of a middle school art class.
Overall, Morris and Frawley have similar outlooks on the situation and both express a casual feeling: “There’s really no feeling of indifference,” Morris claims when discussing the changes. She was up to the challenge and found it to be a positive experience.
Both teachers don’t mind helping out and teaching middle school art classes when they’re needed, as long as they are “helping out their students.”