Chinenye’s Art

Teaching interview

Ms. Ciccotelli’s interview .

This is the interview that I had with a .

Ms. Ciccotelli’s biography

My name is Ashley Ciccotelli-Fernandez, I’m a mom of a 1 year old girl named Lia. I’ve been married for 3 years and we also have a puppy named Ruthie who is 2. I’m born and raised in Queens New York and am still currently living in Whitestone, Queens. I have a BFA in art education and an MFA in Fine Arts, both from LIU POST. A lot of what has shaped me to be as an artist and an educator I owe to my grandpa. He would always push me to create and to do my absolute best no matter what I was doing. I have a wonderful family/ support system and consider myself to be really blessed. My own artwork is at kind of a standstill. Planning for my students/ teaching, “mommying” and my side business for all custom handmade things for weddings, birthdays etc., leaves no room for creating work for just me. While getting my MFA, I was creating paintings of blurred light, mostly night scenes from photos I had taken. Painting and drawing are my biggest interests.

Project Name

The interview

  1. What do you think is your ideal art class?

My ideal art class would be when the lesson I am teaching keeps my students engaged and interested. The students are using their creativity and inspired to think outside the box. When the whole class is engaged and the students are talking about it after class, that means the lesson was successful.

 

  1. Can there be improvements to the arts? The way it’s run and is overseen?

I think there’s always improvement needed to the arts. Through the time that I’ve been teaching visual arts, there is finally a DOE run “arts team” that supplies teachers with professional development and comradery amongst other art teachers. However, the arts are often “overseen” in itself. There are many schools who lack an art program or have their teachers on a cart instead of their own space.

 

  1. When dealing with the fifth-grade students, how do you get them to become involved?

I give them a lot of choice. Deriving projects based off of their interests for starters is probably one of the biggest suggestions I could give a new art teacher. With the older kids, the less they are interested, the less they’ll be engaged. Using artists that have bright attractive colors, giving them new materials. Etc. are all ways I keep them involved. Each of my lessons also gives pretty broad tasks so they have a lot of choice with which materials they’re using as well as choosing subject matter. 

 

  1. When do you think the arts are going to be integrated with other subjects?

I think the arts are KIND OF integrated now, maybe not officially but I know for sure a lot of the teachers here use art as a basis of their lessons. I think I also spend a lot of time integrating the other subjects with my lesson planning as well.

 

  1. What is the next step of your journey with art?

To make more of it. Juggling art teacher life and artist life is a really hard crossroad. You don’t have too much time for both. I’d love to be able to make more of my own art.

 

  1. What pulls you to the activities that you would normally allow the class to do?

My interests, their interests, maybe something I’m not too familiar with that Id like to learn a little more about as I teach.