Camelot Teacher Profile: Megan Whitney
Megan Whitney joined the staff of Buehrle Academy in Lancaster, Pa., as an art teacher in June 2014. A native of Lancaster, Megan earned a Bachelor’s degree in Education and Fine Arts from Millersville University. Before joining Camelot Education, she was a personal care assistant assigned to students in need of emotional support.
Briefly describe your philosophy of art education, and how that impacts students at Buehrle Academy.
My philosophy of art education describes the way students transform and communicate their feelings. By teaching art education to our students at Buehrle Academy, it helps our students relax and construct their unique designs.
Describe some ways you present and display student work throughout the school and throughout the community.
In our school I display student artwork on the hallway walls, in the stairwell and of course in the classroom. In our local community, we have relationship with the Millersville University Ware Center – the university’s visual and performing arts center. As a result, we are able to present student work to a larger audience downtown. The community is very supportive of the arts, and appreciates the fact that the students are proud of their work.
How can you connect your activities in the art room into lessons taught within other subject areas?
I try to connect art through projects. For instance, we’ve done a graffiti project in which the students created an alphabet from a-z in their hand style then created a piece of art with the letters of their name. Another example is a project in which I incorporated a math lesson on probability into art class by having students roll a dice, find the probability of rolling that combination, and draw the image of the dice.
Why do you think art is an important part of a child’s education, particularly at Buehrle Academy?
Part of the Camelot model is to keep students in a structured environment, to keep them active and engaged each day from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Art is a very important part of the development process of our students education because it provides time for self-expression during their structured days.
What do you find most rewarding about teaching at Camelot?
The most rewarding experience being an art educator at Camelot is to know my students are creating works that are worthwhile and that make them proud.
How do you believe art fits into the Camelot Education model?
Much of Camelot’s model is meeting the needs of the individual student. Art fits into Camelot’s Education model by representing academic and social success of its students in order for them to move into a traditional school with a well-rounded background.
