The Art Teacher

When our daughter was three, we enrolled her in a local Montessori school. We had always liked the Montessori method of developing young children's motor and intellectual skills in a carefully developed program. Another thing I liked about school was that the children went to both an art teacher and a music teacher every day.

I have a strong background in art, so I volunteered to help in the art classes at the school. The teacher, Mrs. R. was a wonderful woman who had been teaching there for many years. Teaching very young children, I think, requires a special type of person. You need a specific set of skills that not everyone has. Mrs. R. was warm, friendly, and very patient. The children adored her. She was very creative and always had fun, interesting projects for her classes to do.

She and I got along very well and soon became fast friends. The more I helped out in her class the more I realized how much I loved being in a classroom with children. I spent more and more time in Mrs. R.'s art room. One day she said to me "you're teaching today, you have a natural gift for teaching, let's see how you do". I stayed all day and taught every class. I think that was the day that I decided that I wanted to become a teacher.

During the summers Mrs. R. was the director of the school's summer Arts Camp. That summer she hired me to be the art teacher. She encouraged me to start applying to schools for a teaching job. She spent hours helping me with sample lessons and wrote recommendations to the schools where I had applied.

Mrs. R. was such an inspiration to me and had such confidence in my ability to succeed. She embodies so many of the qualities that a good teacher should have. I will be forever grateful to her.