Blog Post written by Meg Barney, Chair for the PAEA Fellows.

PAEA Fellow

Region 12, Retired Art Educator

The First Month. The phrase can bring forth a wide range of feelings and thoughts. The word ‘first’ can mean to take the lead, to start, to go where no one has gone before, or to do something that is required to be done before a next step can be done. The word ‘month’ establishes the unit of measure for determining how long the action or person or thing will be in the lead, will be first.  So, as art educators, what did The First Month of school bring to us this year? As we were taking the lead in the first 30 days of school, what did we encounter? No doubt, in this time of COVID-19, we each faced numerous challenges – some known to us ahead of time and others not known to us until we were in the middle of the adventure itself! And all we could do was take one day at a time, breathe, focus on what was directly in front of us, and stay centered, holding on to the essence of what it meant to be the best art educator we could be.

In September, as I saw the striped caterpillar on a milkweed plant, I imagined that if it could think as a human, it would do the same. It would focus on what was directly at hand, taking one day at a time as it transformed through the stages from caterpillar to chrysalis to beautiful monarch butterfly. If it was human, it might feel fear or uncertainty or excitement at each new stage, yet breathing all the time. Much like each of us as art educators. And then the day came for the new monarch to fly, to launch off to new horizons with new challenges – some known, others not known.

And so the cycle continues. Beginnings, adventures, endings, beginnings, adventures, endings, and so on. All temporary, all ephemeral, just as a September rainbow is visible after a time of rain, exists for a short time, and then disappears.

It can only be visible after a rainstorm, in a time of calm, when the right blend of light and moisture are present. And then it is gone. Yet we know it will come again. We do not know where, we do not know when, but we know we will see it – and maybe even be the first ones to see it. We know how to see magical and wonderful things in life because magical and wonderful things happen every day when we share with our art students our love of art. We are art educators.