My name is Francisco Modesto Thornton Gonzalez, but everyone in my life has always called me “Paco.” I am the son of a Cuban filmmaker and a Texan doctor, and a life-long lover of the arts, and of school. I want to become an art teacher because I am an artist with active practice, and someone who hopes to light the same fire in others that I have felt when creating art. In my practice, I focus on printmaking, drawing, and painting. Using these mediums, I explore the expression of self and the individual through imagery of hands, as well as the recontextualization of items and icons through different lenses. I am seeking a full-time art teaching position in a CPS middle or high school. Based on my experience as a practicing artist and as a student-teacher, I am prepared to teach classes in Printmaking, Drawing and Painting, Introduction to Art (Art 1, Art 2), Photography, Mixed Media, and Sculpture (Ceramics and Woodworking), as well as more conceptual and theoretical concepts and courses. 

My experience as both a student and student-teacher in public schools has led me to believe that many of the students I stand to influence undervalue their ability to make art. As such, part of my teaching philosophy is about being open to learning and trying new things myself, in order to impart that newly found knowledge onto my students. As an artist and educator, what matters most to me is creating new and exciting things, as well as expressing myself in a way that others can understand without having to explain myself using words, or even recognizable images. I think that art offers a rare and unique opportunity to translate one’s inner language into a script that is legible to people who know nothing else about you. I think that the purpose of art education, and my mission within it, is to help awaken that bi-lingual spirit within my students. Even if they are not interested in pursuing a career or a life that is shaped by art, I hope they understand that within them is the ability to communicate without the need to use words.

The pedagogical concept of “windows and mirrors” (and sliding glass doors) most informs the philosophical theory that I have been trying to sculpt. Part of many students’ inability to recognize their own potential for creation is driven by the fact that so many of the artists that they are inundated with both in their daily lives and in museums and art classes are white, male artists who look like me. I want my curriculum to be an inclusive mirror, ensuring that the students that I help teach to create art are aware that there are people who look and think like them that have been creating art since the beginning of time. Artists like Bisa Butler, Guadalupe Maravilla, and Christina Quarles are all artists who are currently creating art and offer more diverse role models for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ students. I also want my curriculum to offer students windows into experiences that are different from their own. Recognizing this, and making it a pillar of the way in which I teach art will be instrumental in feeling like I have fulfilled my purpose and goal in my philosophical approach to teaching. 

Part of building the scaffolding associated with the larger structure of art education is ingraining into our students the Studio Habits of Mind. These non-hierarchical habits consist of dynamic skills that students can use to further scale the scaffolding that we create for them as educators. “Engagement and Persistence” is one of the eight Studio Habits of Mind that speaks to me and the philosophy I hope to bring to the classroom. Through maintaining an active mindset that does not falter when presented with obstacles, we can teach students to utilize their skills even when the going gets tough. “Developing Craft” is another one of the eight habits that directly builds on the others, a direct form of scaffolding that makes students more self-assured and more active in their learning in the classroom. 

The largest challenge that I foresee as an art educator is working to convince students that they are capable of creating art. So many people, both children and adults, have convinced themselves that they are incapable of creating art, when really, it is something that we all can do with a little practice. Modeling this behavior is the most effective way to tackle the challenge of convincing students of their own abilities. In the first paragraph of this document, I expressed a desire to not only teach within the mediums and media that I am most comfortable in. I think the desire to work within mediums that I am not competent and confident with will lead to being honest and straightforward with classes that I am learning along with them. What this does is provide an explicit model of what it looks like for someone else to tackle the problem of learning something new, and creating a work of art. I am excited to take on that challenge, and to be part of so many different peoples awakening to the fact that they too can create, with just a little bit of hard work.