Samantha Anderson - Art


andersons@parkhill.k12.mo.us
Art facilitator

Before LEAD:
For the past four years, I have taught art at Northeast High School in Arma, KS. As a Northeast Viking, I had the opportunity to make so many lovely relationships with all sorts of creative kids. We worked together to create an incredible art club known as A.R.T. (Anderson's Rebel Tribe) and our motto was "Creativity in Chaos". It suited us well and led to some incredible adventures every Wednesday night and a super spooky haunted house this last Halloween. With these students, I also had the privilege to sponsor Northeast's first-ever GSA (gay-straight alliance). It was absolutely beautiful to see so many students come together to love and support one another. Northeast was a dream as a first teaching experience and I am thrilled for this next dream as a LEAD educator. 

Why I'm at LEAD:
Above all else, the drawing, the painting, the silly art history facts, what I love most about teaching is the relationships. Getting to know students personally and building those close-knit relationships is what drives me as an educator. Figuring out what makes a student tick and seeing the pride and joy wash over their face when they accomplish their goals is the highlight of being a teacher. LEAD is all about building those relationships and working with students to focus on their passions and interests so I can think of no place I would rather be.

What I'm most looking forward to:
I'm most excited to be a part of a creative community that seeks to help students investigate, question, and create their own education. In my classes, I want to invite risk-taking in art-making and art thinking. Encouraging students to question the status quo, judge ideas (even challenge my own), and search for personal truths is a unique experience I am able to provide as an art educator. With such a creative community surrounding me and my students school-wide at LEAD, I cannot wait to see the possibilities that open up for my future students.  

About me:
Growing up in Bartlesville, Oklahoma has given me an amusing southern accent that pops up randomly and a passion for sweet tea and all things fried. I left Oklahoma in 2009 to attend Pittsburg State University in Kansas, where I studied Commercial Art and Illustration. A few years later I continued with this interest through a wonderful adventure to Cambridge, England to study children's book writing and illustration and make my first-ever children's book (though it remains unpublished). After getting my bachelor's degree I decided what I really wanted to do was teach, so it was back to Pitt State to take some education classes and all the 3D art classes I had skipped in my undergraduate. Nowadays I spend most of my free time watching excessive amounts of Disney films with my cat, Adelaine, going out to concerts where I love to be in a mosh pit, or taking a lovely stroll through a nature sanctuary in search of pretty little things to collect for future crafty projects.