Hello! I am Sara Teasley, the art and music teacher at MACS. Please reach out to me with any questions you may have about our art or music classes. I would love to connect with you and help in any way I can! Below is some info about our art program:

THIS IS A CHOICE ART PROGRAM:

In our choice-based studio art program, the students choose their own projects. For example, while one classmate may choose to explore painting, another may choose to construct 3-dimensionally. This provides a supportive community studio experience. Choice-based art is a successful, researched approach to art education that prepares students with 21st Century skills.

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 The MACS Visual Art program provides a solid foundation for a lifelong love of creative learning. 

Students are met with rich opportunities to think critically and innovate artistically. They are respected as artists at every stage of development and are expected to take responsible ownership of the artistic decision-making process, vital in the field of visual art. Our students’ unique choices of artistic themes and materials reflect what is most relevant to them. Each student’s artwork is a direct result of their own ambition, curiosity, creative drive and disposition. The art that is generated in the MACS art studio is as diverse and individual as our students.

 MACS students will:

-EXPLORE the offerings of our shared art studio

-PRACTICE how to safely and respectfully create art in many ways with shared materials and tools at different creative centers throughout our studio

-LEARN, discuss and practice the Elements and Principles of Art that will help in understanding the building blocks and organization of art, and the 8 Studio Habits of Mind that will help in setting and reaching creative goals.

-DISCOVER art and artists in art history and in our world.

What is art class like?

This year students meet for art class in 4 week intervals, alternating with equal intervals of music classes.

We follow a consistent routine:

The first art day of the week: Students learn about a variety of art-related topics (Elements and Principles of Art, 8 Studio Habits of Mind, art history, etc.) and participate in teacher-led activities that prompt them to consider the topics from various angles. 

The second art day of the week: We briefly reflect on the topic that we covered on the first day of the week, and then students utilize the bulk of class time pursuing self-designed creative goals, with teacher support.

WHAT are the 8 Studio Habits of Mind? 

Research has found 8 mental habits that are consistent among successful practicing artists. Forming these habits early, with regular opportunities to practice, builds a strong foundation for developing creative minds. 

The habits are posted front and center in our studio, and we refer to them throughout the year. The habits are: Observe, Envision, Express, Develop Craft, Stretch and Explore, Reflect, and Understand Art Worlds. 

Click here for a helpful resource on the 8 Studio Habits of Mind

WHAT is a W.O.W. project? 

W.O.W. stands for Wonderful Original Work- 

Wonderful work takes time and care. The artist puts themselves into their work and make it special by sticking with it and pushing it as far as it can go!

Original art is art that is as unique as the artist. It is the artist’s idea, and the artist expressed it in their own way.

Work is sometimes challenging. Work takes effort. Work makes a difference. Work leads to growth. Work shows in your art. Art work is FUN work!

Students are routinely encouraged to create W.O.W. work. In doing so, students are exploring techniques and stretching their minds to try ways of approaching art that they have not yet tried. Students are being challenged to stay committed to projects for several classes and to push their work to new levels by persisting through challenges.

How are students graded?

Student grades are based on their level of participation. Creative learning happens best when the learner actively participates in the lesson. Active student participation is reflected in observable behaviors and outcomes that indicate the student’s level of effort and/or extent of their effort to understand the lesson.The student’s quarterly grade reflects formative assessments of student participation that occur throughout the marking period.

How is student behavior managed?

Lovingly! For details, please see the Behavior Management Procedure 2024-2025. 

What is the best way to contact you?

My email address is teasleys@macschool.us. If you'd like to speak in person, we can arrange a time to meet on campus. It is an honor to work with you to ensure that your student's growth in the arts is carefully fostered throughout their education at MACS!

This is learning, alive.

In the words of TAB art educator, Jason Blair:

"When I imagine the kind of learning space I want to create for students, it’s not one of rigid instruction or mechanical repetition. It’s a space of creative exploration. A space where young people learn to think like artists—curious, connected, courageous. Artists who challenge the expected, question the norm, and discover the extraordinary in the everyday.

Yes, a student-centered art studio can look chaotic. Loud. Unpredictable. But that’s only if you're viewing it through an adult lens conditioned to mistake non-conformity for disorder. What may appear messy is often the visible energy of innovation. It’s the sound of risk-taking, the hum of collaboration, the beat of imagination at work. This is not chaos. This is learning, alive.

We’re not in the same classrooms of 10, 15, or even 5 years ago. Today’s students crave more than just content—they want purpose. They want voice. They want agency. And if we respond to that call by doubling down on control and predictability, we miss the deeper opportunity: to nurture the dispositions that our future demands. Dispositions like curiosity, empathy, flexibility, and resilience. Thinking like an artist isn’t about mastering a brushstroke—it’s about mastering how to see the world in new ways.

When art education is reduced to technique, product, and polished aesthetics, we create beautiful facades—works that are “refrigerator worthy,” maybe, but rarely soul worthy. A tightly controlled studio can produce technically proficient pieces, but does it produce students who know how to wrestle with ambiguity? Who can create from the inside out? Who know how to listen to their inner compass?

If we want to reimagine the relevance of schooling, we must start here:

Not with a checklist of skills, but with these deeper questions:

Where do I see risk-taking?

Where do I see curiosity?

Where do I see play and experimentation?

Where do I see student voice, ownership, and agency?

Where do I see personal expression and meaningful connection?

This is where real learning lives.

But what about skill acquisition? Don’t students still need to learn techniques?

Absolutely. But here’s the flaw in the argument that choice-based studios lack rigor: Skill acquisition doesn’t disappear—it becomes purpose-driven. Instead of front-loading every student with the same techniques at the same time, we allow the need for the skill to emerge authentically, through the student's own vision and intention.

Imagine this: I could teach the whole class how to do a running stitch so they can all create the same stuffed animal. Or, I could invite them to create a meaningful gift for someone they love. One student may choose to paint a sunset for their dad. Another might bead a necklace for their best friend. And maybe one will choose to sew a scarf for their grandmother—and in doing so, they seek out the running stitch because it has purpose in their story.

That’s when skill acquisition becomes powerful. Because it’s not memorized and forgotten after the test. It’s learned through need, emotion, and ownership. The teacher’s role then becomes that of a mentor, a facilitator of nudges, someone who listens, observes, and introduces skills as extensions of the student’s own creative inquiry.

And what about the “it’s just like recess” critique?

To that, I say: Let’s stop using freedom and playfulness as insults. Because in reality, this “recess” is the birthplace of innovation.

When students are trusted as artists, they rise to the challenge. They experiment. They fail forward. They remix ideas. They collaborate. They build things no curriculum map could have predicted. That doesn’t mean there’s no structure—it means the structure exists to support meaningful autonomy. That is not recess. That is what every innovator, entrepreneur, designer, scientist, and leader does every single day.

Thinking like an artist is essential for everyone. The dispositions of thinking like an artist prepares us for a nuanced, complex and interconnected world.

In a high-agency studio, creativity is not quiet compliance. It’s messy, vibrant, full of questions and breakthroughs. Sure, it might not always look like learning from the outside—but step closer.

 Listen.

You’ll hear thinking happening in real time. You’ll hear students taking ownership of their ideas and taking pride in their process.

So what are we really doing here?

We’re not just growing artists. We’re growing the kind of thinkers this world desperately needs.

Artists are more than craftspeople. They are the ones who see with empathy, who hold tension and complexity, who make space for multiple perspectives. The world needs more of that—not less. And yet, our schools often diminish the very learning that encourages it.

This is the truth: The obsession with aesthetics and technique as the sole markers of learning misses the deeper purpose of art education. We don’t need students who can merely mimic. We need students who can imagine. Who can question, connect, and create.

Because the future doesn’t need more technically perfect art products.

It needs artistically minded humans.

So, to the skeptics: this isn’t about ditching skill or abandoning structure.

It’s about refusing to treat creativity as decoration rather than foundation.

It’s about teaching students to see the world not just as it is, but as it could be."

-Jason Blair, TAB Educator