The Artsy Fart

I am in year 13 of elementary art teacher'ing! I got my MAED in Secondary Education in preparation to teach high school art. When a position at the high school level was not available that year, I accepted a position at the elementary level in order to "buy myself a year" until a high school position opened up. God works in wonderful ways; I unexpectedly fell in love with elementary!

I believe in teaching the standards with an open door for creativity and expression. I LOVE happy accidents. I believe that teachers (especially those of us in art) need to maintain an open mind to allow kids to explore and embrace unexpected possibilities and multiple solutions. I believe that kids who might struggle otherwise can excel in art; I experience "disabilities" becoming strengths every day. I'm a loving but tough love art teacher who loves the "Enya" and "Coffee House" playlist on Pandora for my classroom.

11Alive Class Act Teacher http://www.11alive.com/video/1250356641001/1/Class-Act-Claire-Dunaway-Cyr 2011 Ovation Award for Outstanding Visual Artist

2002 BA Fine Art, Presbyterian College (including a semester at AIU in London) 2007 MAED Secondary Education, University of Phoenix Online

I am an artist during the nights/weekends/school breaks. I find that my role as an artist and as a school teacher compliment one another far more than I ever expected! As an artist I enjoying exploring new materials, techniques and ideas; I find that I am constantly asking myself how I can bring the new "discoveries" into the classroom (and vice versa!). My Twitter is clairedunawaycy@artclassstudio, my classroom Instagram is dunaway_cyr_classroom_studio. My fine art website is www.clairedunaway.com. Come follow along and see many of my lessons in progress!