Jovenne Kybett is the middle school fine arts teacher at Uplift Heights and also leads the Freshmen Art Club. As a Course Teacher Leader she exhibits a Rise Together, an Uplift Education Core Value, approach by working with other teachers to generate art project ideas. She tailors her art projects to coincide with what scholars are learning in their other classes. Each scholar’s artistic inspiration comes from something that is not always considered artistic; core classes.
“One of the cool things about my class is that it touches on the all core classes, and culturally aligns with the other specials classes as well. When I see an opportunity to enrich the education of my scholars by aligning my lesson with another subject, then it’s a win for everyone. Scholars have multiple avenues in which to approach the subject,” she said.
Early in her career Ms. Kybett learned that teaching is not a stagnant profession. Teaching is actually a learning experience and all teachers need to reach out for assistance from time to time.
“Teaching is a process in which we have to be willing to continuously learn how to do better,” she said. “We should never be afraid to ask for help. We also have to be open to receive criticism, and ask a seasoned teacher for advice.”
Her ability to be an innovative collaborator comes from her desire to increase scholar growth in a holistic way. It’s an outlook that is shared by many of our high-performing teachers. She is not teaching the subject, she is teaching the scholar.
“I don’t want to just teach art. I want to enhance the entire learning experience for scholars, so they can use those experiences in multiple ways throughout their lives. My best day in the classroom is when scholars have learned several techniques and are allowed to be creative on an assigned project. When creativity is backed with knowledge then my classroom is a neat place to be,” she explained.
Uplift Voices 