Get To Know: New Elementary Art Teacher Ms. Caralee McGraw

Art has always been a passion for Ms. Caralee McGraw. An Erie native, Ms. McGraw studied art education at Edinboro University before beginning her teaching career overseas in Thailand. It was there that she discovered a connection between teaching art and teaching math. Over the course of her teaching career, she’s taught middle school math, high school art, and now elementary school art. After ten years in Phoenix, Arizona, she returned to Pennsylvania last year as a long-term substitute in the Riverview School District before arriving in the Steel Valley School District.

Ms. McGraw alternates between Barrett and Park Elementary. She shared more about her passion for art, the difference between teaching art to elementary students versus high school students, and provided a look at what her students will be working on throughout the rest of the year.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

You have an interesting background with math and art. How did that develop?

My undergrad was in art education and then when I graduated from Edinboro University, I traveled to Southeast Asia. I got a teaching position teaching in Thailand for school. So I taught in Thailand for a school year, and I learned that I really liked math and I was good at teaching a middle school level. I wouldn't say I'm a genius and I'm not going to teach anything above that. But as somebody who struggled with math, using colors and art supplies in order to color code math, and really keep them organized, was really successful. So, I went back to the states and I got my master's in special ed and math. I'm certified in all three areas. After I got my masters, I was out in Phoenix and stayed there until I came back here.

How did your passion for art develop? Was it something you were always interested in as a kid?

I was always just talented at art. I loved it. It was the one class I never had an issue going to, always have really cool connections with my art teachers. It was a great way to have some outlets for myself going through the typical things that teenagers go through. And then when I went to Edinboro, it was just surrounded by art at that time. It was a major art campus. I have some of my really good friends from there and I had a couple of teachers that I just thought to myself, “Well, I want to do what they did for me,” and I went into it with that in mind. I do my own art on the side, I commission art. I always am involved in community projects - like I'm working on a mural - so I try to stay really active with art as much as I can in and out of the classroom.

You worked mostly with high school students as an art teacher. Now, you’re working with elementary students. Obviously, it’s very different. But what’s the main difference in trying to reach younger students and get them to focus on art?

You're not aware of how much little kids don't know. It could be as simple as folding the paper in half - you really have to show them like what that looks like, how to fold it, how to line it up. You take all those things for granted as a high school teacher because they've been through that. It’s like it was going backwards and really thinking about basic fundamentals. How do I get the kids to understand the necessary steps to even get to my project? And that was a learning curve for me. Also, there's zero downtime. In high school, I can give a project, I can still make some videos. They're so capable at that age, they like it at that age. They know if they're good or not good at that age, and you can really just let them do their thing.

Here, every child needs guidance and they need reassurance too.  You're building their confidence in the art world. As a high school teacher, I got so many kids who are like, “I suck at art, I'm not good at art,” and they had to take the intro class. I was like, “Who is telling you these things? How are you even getting to this point where you think you're bad at art already at this stage in life?” So it's like really building up their confidence, keeping everything super organized and prepared ahead of time, or even just my systems. Every single week. I'm like, “Okay, how can I do this better? How can I like make my life a little bit easier?” It’s been very different and it's definitely challenging, I think in a good way.

What are you hoping that the kindergarteners and first graders grasp early on? And how does that change for the third and fourth graders?

With kindergarten and first, it's really more about being able to use both hands and using the fine motor skills. Can I get them to hold down something and trace? Can I get them to follow steps accurately? But I also want them to explore in different mediums; not to be like this master artist by the end of it - and some of them are really good at kindergarten by this age and it’s crazy - but more just so they can control it. They understand the difference. They’re just getting accustomed to things and getting experience with things, but it's really zoning in on the fine motor skills. I'm pushing for second, third, fourth grade to be better artists. I want them to understand techniques that they can use. I want them to know even at a young age, if they just like zone in and concentrate and practice, they can get to that point. So, I am really pushing and implementing a lot of those high school skills even with the younger kids.

You mentioned using different mediums. What are some of the examples of what the kids are using?

In the beginning, we worked with crayons a lot and doing different things with crayons - learning how to blend, learning how to control, how to properly take care of them. Then we worked with markers and even showed them that they can build crayon on top of markers. With the markers we worked a lot with warms versus cools. We worked a lot with patterns, how to take the broad (tip) versus the thin and create different patterns. And then we've started to push into the chalk pastels. We'll go into oil pastels next and then I'll go back into chalk pastels and show even a different technique where they use water and paint with it. I'm trying to build through what makes sense before I just like plop into paint land or clay land. I want to make sure they're prepared and prepped for that before I dive into that.

Any fun projects in class coming up?

I tried to keep the mediums the same because I teach between the two schools. So we are going to the oil pastels. I always like to hang up what's going to happen next, that way when they come in, they kind of have an idea of what they're going to move to. So they're going to learn how to use oil pastels and create kind of like a tie dye, do some blending, and then you can sort of see per grade level where I take them to in different levels after that. Oil pastels are usually pretty exciting, but I think they like the chalk pastels best because they blend a lot easier. But we'll see.

You mentioned the fact that you do your own art. Is there a project or something that you're really proud of or something that you feel like sharing?         

I do a lot of pet commission pieces, so people send me pictures of their pets and I work on pet pictures. I do a lot of that for Christmas time. I do a lot of memorial pieces for people who have passed away and the family contacts me to do the portraits. I am starting to push into more of a graphic scene. There's a local company that hired me to do some like apparel graphic designs. So, I'm trying to incorporate their logo with Pittsburgh scenery. I dabble in a little bit of everything and it definitely keeps me busy.

Do you have a favorite medium? And do you have an artist who really inspired you?

Keith Haring is somebody that I really enjoyed because he just pushed the boundaries. He came up with something fun and something that was very his style. And it's still being blown up today. So, I do love Keith Haring’s work, but that's not the type of art that I do. I'm more of a fine artist. I'm photorealistic. I probably love working with clay more than anything. It's just hard to have the luxury to work with clay. But when I get into it, I can forget about a whole day. Just get into it. Edward Hopper is another one that I really enjoy, and he's vastly different from Keith Haring.