Inspiring teachers

 The Science teachers at the school where I work bring their passion to life in the service of education. I am painting a few of them as a "class act" series. These works are all acrylic on found papers, done in a day or two. There is more... but here is Mr. Moore!

Mr. Moore really should have a TV channel. If only every teacher were as inspiring. He has the constant rapt attention of his pupils. Everyday it is safe to say that he rocks their world in the garden, the kitchen and the lab. He is a magician,... miraculous and marvelous.

Mr. Moore and the middle school garden

Dr Nagel has to share classrooms so I most often see her in the hallways or paths between rooms with her arms full of petri dishes and a microscope. Her love of being outdoors is the inspiration of our new school tree map. When I first arrived, eight years ago, she gave me a tour of the grounds and the names of several iconic new trees entered my vocabulary, such as the Bismark, the Buttonwood, and the Gumbo limbo/Tourist tree.

Dr. Nagel between classes and worlds

Dr. Llinas at the coral tank

Dr. Llinas is the one who nudges the school to higher levels of environmental stewardship. He has us cleaning beaches, composting in the dining hall and even recycling our dry erase markers, and truly...way more initiatives are to his credit than I could list here. His coral lab has half a dozen tanks bubbling with marine life. I often go there with antsy art students to calm them down... and inspire them.

The other Science teachers are just as crazy great. One brings her dog to work and has a room filled with medical illustrations drawn by students. She teaches us yoga after school in there. Another science teacher brings his giant tortoise for my students to draw, (i.e.:live action drawing), and he tags snakes found in the courtyard. He built a butterfly garden and once he and his students released a rehabilitated falcon on our football field. 

These teachers make my working day pretty supurb.

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