Those Who Can, Teach: Balance, Passion, and Career Identity

Me and my Art at Macon Art Alliance

February has been a month for me to reflect on my career and my identity. I come from a long line of teachers, my grandmothers, parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, siblings-in-laws, and husband teach in some capacity. We live on academic calendars, share research, and get excited for the success of each other's students.  I didn't start out in education, though. I was a full time student for nearly nine years, studying art, because, even though I knew lesson plans were in my blood, I wasn't going to teach Art until I knew I could get into exhibits and sell art to collectors and interior designers. The cruel saying "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach" didn't make sense to me. My dad was a psychology professor but he was also an active clinical psychologist, conducting research and providing therapy. My mom, taught Family and Consumer Science (FACS) after 20 years of sewing everything in our home: from curtains and sofa to her mix-and-match professional wardrobe. She ground wheat for our bread, made yogurt from scratch, and manage a budget like no one's business. I believed that one should not be talking the talk unless they walked the walk; and I knew that only an artist could teach someone else how to be an artist.

So I made and exhibited art for years, while teaching college part time. After my third child was a toddler, I felt impressed to go back to school to get my early childhood teaching certificate.  When she started middle school, I began teaching full time. If you follow this blog, you can trace my last solo art show to the year that I started teaching at Georgia Academy for the Blind. Teaching there has been such an amazing outlet for my creative energy that I came home feeling fulfilled....and pretty tired. I had been pretty busy before adding 45 work hours to my schedule. Something had to go, and it ended up being art, because the last of my waking hours each day belonged mostly to my family: getting everyone to church activities, swim, piano, cross country, track, band, orchestra, and chorus concerts. It wasn't until the last month that I finally found a moment to enter a juried show: Drawn to Macon. All 3 of my pieces got in, and two sold before the opening. They aren't new. They are 8 years old...from that last solo show.

The exhibit's opening night kept the gallery busy all evening

Here's the thing. I became an artist because I need to create. I feel like I'm doing that every day in my classroom. I'm probably never going to be famous. Making a fortune isn't my goal. I just want to use my hands and find creative solutions to problems. 

The most recent PAGE ONE magazine has an article spot lighting me as a 2020 Georgia Teacher of the Year finalist

Melanie Thompson and I with State Superintendent
Dr. Woods and GA Teacher of the Year, at the
Teacher Advisory Council meeting this week, before
going to the capitol to see education legislation happening.

I teach because it helps me build relationships and help those around me. My success is the happiness that I find every day. Just today our school tech guy came into my classroom and asked, "How do you get to do fun things every day in here?" and one of my high school students said, "It's Art! That's what we do." The next period a student said, "Thank you for teaching me to work hard, Mrs. Applebee!" Another, without a prompt, bounced up to me and said, "I love you too, Mrs. Applebee!" It's so gratifying to help students have fun, learn to work hard, and feel loved. It's better than gold!

Not that I don't aspire to make my own work again. My youngest is wrapping up her junior year in high school, and can finally drive herself to soccer practice, which means that I can keep my sanity and still find time to work in my sketchbook each day.  Making art is good for the soul. So is teaching. So is motherhood. You don't always have to choose, but you do have to realize that "having it all" doesn't mean "having it all at the same time."