Celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week with Morgan Singleton

Editor’s note: As part of our celebration of National Teacher Appreciation Week, we are highlighting a few outstanding educators from classrooms across the state. We thank all of our extraordinary teachers for their focus on evidence-based instruction and providing students what they need to meet high expectations and realize their incredible potential.

Today’s Q&A spotlight features Morgan Singleton. Singleton is a 13-year art teacher at Clarke Community Schools, where she fosters creativity each day for students in grades 6-12. For Teacher Appreciation Week, Singleton shared why she is passionate about teaching and how she has grown as an educator throughout the years.

What is your favorite memory or teaching moment in the classroom? 
My favorite memories are moments when students have an artistic breakthrough: a victory of expression, risk taking or development. You can see the light bulb come on and the joy and pride on their faces when something clicks for them. Moments of caring from students stand out as well.  Recently, a student knew my dog was sick and created custom Pokemon cards with her picture and printed them using an Instax camera.  Another student, appalled to use my industrial toilet paper from the custodian’s closet instead of Kleenex, exclaimed “What is this? PRISON?” Later, he gifted me Kleenex for my classroom.  Acts of love from teen boys look different, but the heart is there.

Why are you passionate about teaching? What things do you love about working with students? 
One of the joys of getting to work with students from sixth grade until graduation is building relationships with them as they grow, figure out who they are and how they fit in the world. Every day is different and surprising. The themes and ideas that students choose to explore continue to blow me away and inspire my own art-making. My job is to create spaces where students can create art that speaks and expresses themselves and their unique, personal experience. Creating a space where they can transform themselves and be transformed by hearing about and reflecting upon the experiences of others so they can learn to be thinkers and creators, instead of followers and consumers.

What do you think are the keys to a student’s success and how do you help foster continued learning? 
The key to student success is helping students find and develop their voice. Students should be able to create art that speaks and express themselves by creating authentic art that is unique to their personal experience. My master’s research focused on empowering student voice using Teaching for Artistic Behavior and the Studio Habits of Mind and deepened my practice and commitment to this philosophy.  

The curriculum I developed for my classroom is fully choice-based and focuses on the creative process, idea generation and personal meaning-making through art.  Students don’t follow directions to create projects; rather, they develop ideas to create their own personally connected artwork. Middle school artists, especially, are reaching a crisis of confidence in their abilities and need support to keep taking art classes in the future. To break the ice with my sixth grade students, I have them create the ugliest artwork that they can at the beginning of their exploratory. I stress to all students that I am grading their thinking and not their artwork. Through my teaching, I emphasize growth, process and creativity over product.  

How have you grown as an educator? What advice would you give to a new teacher starting out in the field?
I continuously improve by surrounding myself with professional excellence through Art Educators of Iowa (AEI) and the Iowa Alliance for Arts Education (IAAE). I have served AEI since 2010 in various roles including President from 2022-24. I am currently serving as AEI’s Past President and on the executive board of the IAAE. My experience has given me the confidence to consider myself a leader and speak with presence in front of groups. AEI has provided me opportunities to present at state conferences, attend the IAAE Leadership Institute, represent Iowa at the bi-annual National Art Education Association (NAEA) Western Region Conference, attend NAEA National Leadership Convention and represent Iowa as our delegate for NAEA National Convention. I have also gotten to plan and lead professional development at the state level.

I remember looking up to the leaders in these organizations at the beginning of my career and wanting to make sure the quality of my instruction could measure up. It has been rewarding to transition from being mentored by great art education leaders to becoming one and getting to mentor the next generation in the profession. I would encourage younger teachers to get involved in their professional organizations and always be looking for ways to get a little bit better each year.  

Who was a teacher that made a positive impact in your life? What things did they do to make learning meaningful? 
My high school art teacher, Maggie Harlow, changed my life.  She pushed me and other students to not settle for “good enough” and to dig in and find weaknesses that could be places of growth.  Her classroom was a place where I became comfortable and safe enough to start to break out of my shell and find my voice.