THE TEACHER AS ARTIST

Abstract

One of the greatest although still unappreciated educators in twentieth-century America, Harold Rugg, first made me very much aware of "the teacher as artist." Often preferring the term, "artist-teacher," Rugg was not thinking in any literal way of the school appointee who is more or less "trained" to teach such conventional arts as music, graphies (painting and drawing, principally), dramatics, or even the dance. While he did not disparage any or all these arts - indeed, he encouraged them - Rugg conceived of artist-teachers in a far more striking, provocative sense. They become teachers able to transform classrooms from frequently miseducative, deadly routines into "studio" atmospheres of creative, vibrant involvement.