My name is Derica Sisung and I am a senior at Eastern Michigan University. I am currently pursuing a Visual Arts Education degree with a concentration in photography. I transferred to EMU in 2003 after graduating from Monroe County Community College where I received my associate’s degree in Applied Sciences. I have classroom experience in three elementary schools, one of which I spent a four month period working with a K-5 students. There I tried to implement my understanding of Art Education and my working teaching philosophy into co-teaching lessons with Mrs. Debbie Conner. I’ve also worked for a year at an after school art program located in Jacksonville, FL at University Christian Schools (UCS). At UCS, I aided the program head, Dinah Robinson, with classroom management, cleanup, and student artistic development.
I, a future art educator, am often asked, “Why are you going into teaching?” and unfortunately I have to honestly answer them: “I never actually saw myself in this profession.” After two years of schooling, and much guidance, I realized that the passion I had for art was given to me for a reason: to inspire and inform our future generations about our world’s rich art history and art making experiences toward better understanding of who we are as humans collectively, and individually: it is this realization, that my image represents.
The image that I included above (a piece I created in 2005 titled, Reflections) is a brief illustration of who I am as a person and therefore as a future Art Educator. It is important, as a future teacher, to always open new doors, always press and try new things, with the hope of discovering greater understanding or truth. This is much like the process that I utilize in my image making. In that process one must engage in the process of reflecting, looking up and directly assessing the situation: “Is this working? Are my students learning? What could I do to improve?” Additionally I feel it crucially important to embrace who you are as a person in this personal/professional development (illustrated by the arms reaching towards each other in the image) as a starting point, utilizing what experiences you have been exposed to towards the greater understanding of the situation by yourself or your audience.