Mx. Damon: Driven by Passion

Mx. Damon, High School Teacher
March 2021

“Art is why I get up in the morning.” - Ani DiFranco

Art is a dynamic and unifying activity with great potential for education, and it’s one of my biggest passions. The process of drawing, painting, constructing, and creating performance-based art is a complex one in which children and adults bring together diverse elements of their experience to make a new and meaningful whole. In the process of selecting, interpreting, and reforming these elements, we get more than a picture, a sculpture, a film, or a performance; we give a part of ourselves: how we think, feel, and see.

Since I can remember, the arts have been a driving force in my life. In high school, I actively participated in visual and performing arts. This passion led to my undergrad studies in a BFA/BS in Art Education and Art Therapy. I started my educational career teaching Visual Art at Albany High School. Two years later, still led by my passion for the arts I had moved to Brooklyn and became the Art Director andArt Teacher at Teachers Preparatory High School and founded the Arts Centered Program.

During this time there was an increasing need for diverse arts partnerships and programming throughout NYC. In response to this need, I created Studio all in 1, a curriculum-based arts education program that introduces students to theater and cinema. We taught students about playwrights and dramaturgy, and provided new sources of learning about history and culture. At the same time, the program encouraged students to read and write while strengthening their basic literacy skills, gave them a venue for self-expression, and motivated them to stay in school. Studio all in 1 collaborated with students in elementary, intermediate, and high schools, along with after-school programs, community development corporations, and vocational training centers.

Being young and having time on my hands, I also worked as the properties master on a television show called Ugly Betty during the summer months. This was a career path that would have kept me fully employed in the arts, making a lot of money; However, when the school year rolled back around, it was the element of using art as a teaching tool that found my true happiness.

Today my passion still drives me, using an arts-based approach to education. It is an essential part of the educative process, because I find it may well mean the difference between a flexible, creative human being and one who will not be able to apply their learning and consequently have difficulty relating to their environment. At Greenport, I find we have a balanced system in which the total being is stressed so that the potential creative abilities can unfold.