When teaching is learning and learning is joy. . .
Self-Portrait as an Elementary School Art Teacher
As a child I was frequently warned that to be a “jack of all trades” was to be a “master of none.”** While I knew that this was not a compliment, I somehow adopted “jack of all trades” as my life plan. Eventually, though, I came to understood that what all my interests had in common was a desire to learn things, organize and improve on how I’d learned them, and then pass what I had learned on to others.
**Very recently I searched for the source of this aphorism. It is said to be a description of Shakespeare. I also found that the full quote was: “Jack of all trades and master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” Much more flattering!
These days I’m mostly interested in learning how to learn music.
My goals are to:
Help people check “play a musical instrument” off their bucket list.
Help people who lip sync “Happy Birthday” to start singing out loud.
So I’m teaching seniors (my age group) to play the ukulele and working on a book called “The Tourist’s Guide to Ukulele.”
Since I think about teaching and learning most of the time, my blog journal is called “Life Through A Teacher’s Eye.” Check it out by pressing the button on the left.
About Me
Coming Soon!
The Tourist’s Guide to Ukulele
The Tourist’s Guide is the music “outsider’s” guide to finally learning to play a musical instrument . . . especially if that instrument is the ukulele. For more information, the link below will take you to “The Tourist’s Guide to Ukulele” blog.
Children and Art
I worked at Possum School as an art teacher for kindergarten through eighth grade students for the last 15 years of my working life. It was a rich teaching experience, as I worked to integrate my early-career experience at a private alternative school, with public school teaching expectations, and my “real world” working experiences in communications jobs that ranged from public radio to automobile factory equipment operating manuals.
I tried writing about my art teaching experience after I retired. But, as the artist Edward Hopper said, “If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” And so, I painted.
These paintings were exhibited along with student works that had been given to me or abandoned at the end of term cleanups. To see the paintings, press the “Children and Art” button below.
Some cats are bothering.
Some cats hide.
Some Cats!
On a sunny day in 1982 I decided to write a children’s book. Because I needed to keep my six-year-old daughter busy, I gathered a stack of cat photography books for her to look at. As she looked at the books, she described the cats. As I typed, I realized her words were more interesting than mine. I wrote down her words, and was quickly drawn into the idea of illustrating them. The result was the first printing (photocopied) of “Some Cats!” These cat drawings—with captions—are from the second version, which was finished in 2019—after I’d retired.
TO PURCHASE
Some Cats! is available through Amazon. Enter “Some Cats! by Susan Griswold Wolf” to find it easily.
Author, Rachel Laskey-Inbar, in her cat costume.
Even when they’re funny, cats are neat.
Copyright
All text and artwork on this site are my original work, aka my intellectual property. Nothing on this site may be reproduced or distributed without the express permission of the author or her heirs.
©Susan Griswold Wolf 2023
