Erin-Marie Elman
Erin-Marie is an educator and artist from Brooklyn, New York. She teaches at Seth Low PS 96 in District 21 of the department of education in Brooklyn, New York. In her spare time she likes to work on her abstract and landscape artworks. Erin-Marie has been teaching art for 19 years.
Erika: What is your earliest memory of your favorite educator?
Erin-Marie: Miss Bard, she was my art teacher. She gave me a grid when I was so, I hung out with a lot of bad people and she was like, ‘I don’t see you going somewhere, I need to save your life,’ and she was like, ‘Can you draw?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ She said, ‘Let me give you a grid’ and I had a parrot on it. She told me to draw, once I did, she said, ‘Oh, you can draw.’ We’re getting you into art school and I said, ‘What does that entail? She goes, ‘Oh, just follow my lead, follow … I got in on the spot at FIT.
Erika: That’s awesome! Your earliest memory, that’s high school, right?
Erin-Marie: Yeah.
Erika: That’s pretty cool.
Erin-Marie: I mean, I have an earlier memory of like Miss Glassman, she taught in here this was my art room and she had like a broken TV and she had like broken things and she was like, ‘Everything is art.’ So I wrote about that in one of my classes and I was like, ‘That’s probably why I find art in the little things.’ But she was bad and she didn’t inspire me at all. No, she didn’t even catch my talent, crazy right? It was crazy...
Erika: Yeah, so do you think she cared? Sounds like she didn’t.
Erin-Marie: Oh, she did. She definitely cared because she found me at a P. D. and said to me, ‘You need to take over for me.’ You were my student, and you were Great, so she definitely cared.
Erika: What inspired your love for teaching?
Erin-Marie: What inspired my love for teaching? Actually, so when I was a kid, Andre and Clyde were my dolls, and I used to teach them things. I used to teach them math, English, and science, and I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. Then I had all of my stuffed animals, and then I collected stuffed animals, and I had them in seating assignments. I would grade them, and I would give them assignments, and I would do the assignment, grade them. That’s what I did to my dolls. They all had names, and they had Delaney cards, I swear, not kidding. I would talk to them the way my teacher spoke to me. My mom was the principal, and when they were bad, she would send them; she would say, ‘And they would go to the principal’s office.’ I knew that I wanted to teach. It was just a matter of what I wanted to teach, because I wasn’t, I never taught them math. Only ELA and science. Then I found out I was good at art, apparently I was really good at teaching it too.
Erika: That’s awesome!
Erin-Marie: So that’s what inspired me.
Erika: Can you tell me about your background in education?
Erin-Marie: I went to FIT and then graduated from FIT. I knew I wanted to teach art. So I majored in all of the disciplines so I could teach. Got into SVA for my master’s, studied art education.Then I did that and I worked in a private school for half a year. Bay Ridge Preparatory School, very strange, but it really grounded me in education.
Erika: How old were you at this point?
Erin-Marie: 21.
Erika: Okay.
Erin-Marie: By the time I was 22, I was in my second school, Urban Assembly Academy of Government Law. When I came in, there was a teaching shortage, so I had to find a job doing something else.
Erika: Is that a charter school?
Erin-Marie: No, it was a private school, in Bay Ridge. They’re probably still there. That was very interesting; it just worked out. It worked differently. I, education-wise, and private school are different, but not how I taught. How I taught was very similar. I remember teaching about Spanish tapestry. I don’t know why, but I did, but it worked out really nice and they all designed the Spanish tapestry, Assembly Academy of Government and Law, not a private school, very public school, just run under the urban assembly ones. They’re like, they’re schools that have different umbrellas and they have different tables. They have different tiers. They have something that guides them in their discipline. New visions and urban assembly kind of run the same, like they have their own way. It’s under the DOE.
Erika: Gotcha. So you’re 21 and you are at this private school and you spent how many years there?
Erin-Marie: I spent a half a year, six months there.
Erika: Oh, nice. Okay. What made you want to peace out and go somewhere else?
Erin-Marie: I got the job in a DOE school.
Erika: Oh, in the middle of the year?
Erin-Marie: In the middle of the year, February 12th, my husband’s birthday.
Erika: What has been your biggest learning curve as an artist and educator?
Erin-Marie:
“I know that no year is the same. None. What you teach, how you teach it. The kids, the parents, your colleagues. Never the same. Always different. Even if you get something that’s been working for the last five, eight and a half by 11. It doesn’t matter. You can plan for 15 years and still have to tweak shit. It doesn’t matter.”
Erika: How do you adapt your lessons based on the skill level of your students?
Erin-Marie: Oh, well, you look back at the lesson and you start making adjustments based on what the kids can do in your class. So like you have the individual kid, but then you have the class. So it’s like, it’s, it’s a two, two-week street. You can’t like, especially in our subject, you can’t.
Erika: Yeah.
Erin-Marie: You have to teach that. You have to teach this. So usually I’ll start by teaching the big and then I’ll narrow it down to individual kids.
Erika: That’s also based on the assessment that you make from the first of the year as well?
Erin-Marie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Quite honestly, no. I mean, my lesson may be based on it going forward. Just know that you’re going to be doing it. You’re not going to be going to the first year because you know, you’ll be doing it. It’s so scaffolding that I know why I already taught that first lesson so I can keep going and scaffold throughout the year. There are so many new kids that come in and there’s so many new things that you kinda can’t remember the first thing you do with them. You have to work on an individual basis. You gotta understand too, middle schools, transient one day they’re, they love you. The next day they hate you. One day they’re tired. The next day they got a lot of energy. One day they hate their brother, the next day they love them. You tend to think that middle school is like the most transient place you’ll ever be in your life, which also I mean, the caveat of all this is that’s what makes it interesting, right?
Erika: That’s was I was going to ask in my next question. Tell me about your job at Seth Lowe. How has it influenced your view as an educator, working here in middle school has influenced your view as an educator?
Erin-Marie: This is the most diverse school I’ve ever been in, like when you talk about when we used to talk about diversity, we would only talk about Black students, White students, or Spanish students. We have 55 languages spoken in this school, so diversity here is different. You have to teach so their culture isn’t distracted then you have to teach so you feel like you’re doing your job then you have to individualize based on the language then you have to adapt to their behavior or their capacity to learn or where they are in education themselves. Next level of education or the next program, or like capacity, meaning comprehension, IEPs and occupational therapy.
Erika: In the beginning, you want to look at their IEP because you don’t know yet what’s going on with them like when they come in?
Erin- Marie: I know exactly what’s going on.
Erika: Do you like to look at the IEP first or do you like to get to know the student first?
Erin-Marie: Oh, I never looked at the IEP first.
Erika: Yeah, I think that’s important because I think a lot of students are looked at by what they have on paper.
Erin-Marie: Oh yeah, yeah, completely, yeah.
Erika: Then you’re assuming about a student rather than getting to know them.
Erin-Marie: Um, yes, yes, yes. I mean, I truly kind of teach and then go from there. I think it also depends on if you’re doing it like that’s why writing and reading and art is so difficult because what I’m asking them to do is not difficult. When you’re talking about your own work, but it is difficult for a self-contained student, it may be easier for them to look at words, grab them, and discuss them rather than write them. But in another school with another teacher, they may make them feel terrible and fail them because they can’t, but it’s not that they can’t, it’s just that they learn differently. So when you start teaching, you don’t know those things, you have no idea what those things even mean, so you instinctually, you’re like, ‘Well, you’re not doing my work, you must hate my work and then you feel, you take it very personally, it’s just a thing you do, and you will. At the end of it all it has nothing to do with you yeah but these are all that like they’re so it’s it’s layers it’s like in one class you can have the comprehension the behavior the autism the spectrum the the other things on the spectrum it’s it’s a grab it’s an onion. It’s an onion.
Erika: Do you think studying other artists and cultures is important to an artist’s growth?
Erin-Marie: Oh sure yeah absolutely I think that if I was in a different school Iwould deliver artists differently I think you need to know your your cultures and I think you need to know your students in this school there are so many layers of muslim religion and they’re not allowed to look at eyes, they’re not allowed to look at several things. I haven’t run into that in a while in my class more so because they like me um, but if they don’t like you, they’re not doing the work because they think it’s bad and they think it’s not haram. Most of my students will do it, but they’re supposed to only be able to do work with shapes, nothing that looks like anything, because anything that resembles anything is going against Allah.
Erika: Yeah..
Erin-Marie: So you have to be careful.
“I love artists and cultures, but I also think that in order to understand artists and their cultures, I think you have to be open to the educational background of that and when you have cultures that are not open to it, you can’t pressure the kids to do it.”
Erika: That’s why you love working based on skills…
Erin-
Marie: Yeah it keeps you out of trouble, it does. Now remember, we did take them to MoMA right, and I am taking my seventh grade to Guggenheim next week, right? So like that doesn’t mean I’m not going to take them to a museum, but I also know that the museum coordinator at both of these places is going to do their job which is to introduce them to images, which I do; I’ve introduced them to Frida Salvador Dali. Artists that are very specific to what I’m teaching, but it has to be specific.
Erika: How do you cultivate and create a positive environment in your classes?
Erin-Marie: Um, yes, yes, yes. I mean, I truly kind of teach and then go from there. I think it also depends on if you’re doing it like that’s why writing and reading and art is so difficult because what I’m asking them to do is not difficult. When you’re talking about your own work, but it is difficult for a self-contained student, it may be easier for them to look at words, grab them, and discuss them rather than write them. But in another school with another teacher, they may make them feel terrible and fail them because they can’t, but it’s not that they can’t, it’s just that they learn differently. So when you start teaching, you don’t know those things, you have no idea what those things even mean, so you instinctually, you’re like, ‘Well, you’re not doing my work, you must hate my work and then you feel, you take it very personally, it’s just a thing you do, and you will. At the end of it all it has nothing to do with you yeah but these are all that like they’re so it’s it’s layers it’s like in one class you can have the comprehension the behavior the autism the spectrum the the other things on the spectrum it’s it’s a grab it’s an onion. It’s an onion.
Erika: Do you think studying other artists and cultures is important to an artist’s growth?
Erin-Marie: Oh sure yeah absolutely I think that if I was in a different school Iwould deliver artists differently I think you need to know your your cultures and I think you need to know your students in this school there are so many layers of muslim religion and they’re not allowed to look at eyes, they’re not allowed to look at several things. I haven’t run into that in a while in my class more so because they like me um, but if they don’t like you, they’re not doing the work because they think it’s bad and they think it’s not haram. Most of my students will do it, but they’re supposed to only be able to do work with shapes, nothing that looks like anything, because anything that resembles anything is going against Allah.
Erika: Yeah..
Erin-Marie: So you have to be careful.
“I love artists and cultures, but I also think that in order to understand artists and their cultures, I think you have to be open to the educational background of that and when you have cultures that are not open to it, you can’t pressure the kids to do it.”
Erika: That’s why you love working based on skills…
Erin-Marie: Yeah it keeps you out of trouble, it does. Now remember, we did take them to MoMA right, and I am taking my seventh grade to Guggenheim next week, right? So like that doesn’t mean I’m not going to take them to a museum, but I also know that the museum coordinator at both of these places is going to do their job which is to introduce them to images, which I do; I’ve introduced them to Frida Salvador Dali. Artists that are very specific to what I’m teaching, but it has to be specific.
Erika: How do you cultivate and create a positive environment in your classes?
Erika: How long have you been teaching?
Erin-Marie: 19 years February… I never do work at home, okay, I use my prep time fairly wisely, I do whatever I need to do, I get done. whether that be working on the art show or grading or you know checking my boxes. I know writing in my date book or, that is my preps are my preps and I need my time to prep.
Erika: Okay, awesome! So this is just like my metaphorical fun question at the end.
Erin-Marie: Cool
Erika: If you had one foundation skill what would it be? If you could be one foundation skill what would it be for art?
Erin-Marie: Yeah, oh drawing edges and drawing observation and proportion. You create a strong foundation that you have, yeah, strong foundations.