Story and photo by Darlene Bowers
“Art education for me is all about the students. I am there to encourage them in their art making, introduce them to old and new mediums and their uses, share artists’ lives and styles of art with them. Young artists and their enthusiasm are why I am in the classroom.”
These words are the credo of Jacque Sperling, teacher, encourager, guider, eternal cheerleader. Jacque will be retiring from her art classroom at Ada Schools in a couple short weeks.
Born and raised on an Ada farm, Jacque attended Ohio Northern University and was interested in geology and the sciences but decided upon art education for her degree.
“Teaching is my strength,” shares Jacque, and in a pattern Jacque believes was the Lord looking out for jobs for her and always making it easy, Jacque quickly found employment after college graduation with the Piqua City School district. After five years of teaching art at Piqua, Jacque felt the urge to return home. Her grandmother cautioned not to leave a job before she had another, and divine intervention appeared again.
Hardin Northern housed Jacque’s next art classroom for eight years. Then a new kind of teaching ensued; the teaching, nurturing, guiding role of wife and mother. Jacque’s husband, Bob, was a long-time math teacher at Ada.
Two sons and a daughter, Scott, Sarah and Dave (now married to Cassie) filled Jacque’s life. After Bob passed away in 1996, divine intervention for employment played out yet again. Tim Closson, Ada elementary principal, called Jacque to inquire if her teaching certificate was up to date. Shortly thereafter Jacque began part-time for Ada Schools and has been full-time for the past 10 years.
“For 15 years,” states Jacque “I’ve been teaching elementary art at Ada.” Back in the old building Jacque did not have a permanent classroom and used an art cart as she moved from K-6 classrooms; no easy feat in a two-story building. She muses at a tale she made up for the students about an imaginary elevator in a storage closet that only she was allowed to use when they asked about how she maneuvered the cart on stairways. In addition to art, Jacque also teaches Photography and Crafts semester elective courses for high schoolers.
“I have taught students from kindergarten through seniors. When I first started teaching I was ‘product’ driven. What was on the wall or stand in the show was most important. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the process of making and creating art was more rewarding for them and me. Not all of my students are or will be professional artists, but all them will be appreciators of art, theirs and/or others.”
“All the arts are integral,” shares Jacque, “we all need to appreciate all the arts and we need to have them opened up to us like ‘art’-i-facts…things that last and hold society together. We can say things socially with art that we can’t say with words. Art is therapy.”
When asked about memorable lessons or topics, Jacque is quick to relate, “Kids love clay. It’s manipulative. It’s 3D. Parents usually save the clay pieces. There’s also something special about paint, but learning when to stop before a piece ‘turns to mud’ is an important lesson. There’s a strong visual element with color--watercolors, temperas, acrylics, even shoe polish. An artist’s job is to learn the rules and then break them.”
Jacque has stressed this importance with her students and encourages them to break the rules and also to question, question, question. Disagree with a grade? Question it! “The most important part is staying on task, trying new things; the process and the learning are the most important parts.
Sharing all steps of a project helps students appreciate the toughness or difficulty in creating. The more I taught, the more I wanted people to see the excitement of watching the entire process from nothing to discovery,” remarks Jacque.
So why retire? “For my family; to spend more time with them and to see my children more anytime I want,” says Jacque. She adds that paperwork is also a reason for retiring explaining that it takes away from her teaching time when she’d rather focus on making and creating art only.
Jacque shares her frustration with standards and believes we’re no longer teaching to the needs of each student or educating each student individually. Jacque feels the standards given are akin to saying everyone must be 48” tall by a certain grade instead of focusing on skills such as problem solving.
“Students come into my classroom with different skill sets, background and ideas. It is a place for them to learn that mistakes are only opportunities to explore new solutions and to problem solve in their art making. It is a place for them to play to their strength and appreciate the strengths of others in the making and creating of art. It is a place too small to contain all their art ideas and they are expected to take their art out of my room and share it wherever they go,” says Jacque.
The Ada Schools senior honors banquet is just around the corner and will be one of the last steps in Jacque’s journey to retirement. One tradition Jacque established is the election of a prize winning art piece each year in each of her classes.
Those pieces are lovingly stowed away and then framed and brought forth again out of the art room and out to share at the banquet sometimes to the surprise and often to delight of the student artists, faculty, families and guests, but especially to the joy of their beloved teacher, encourager, guider, and eternal cheerleader, Jacque Sperling.
