Expertise

Welcome to my little spot on the internet, I’m your host, Cynthia Gaub.

Since 2004, I have been teaching 6-8th graders at North Middle School. The classes I teach combine visual arts, digital arts and Computer Technology.

When I am not teaching I love reading, gardening, creating art and playing with my dogs. If you are interested in seeing what I create, check out my art website at Art and Cloth or follow me on Instagram.

EDUCATION: I graduated from The Evergreen State College in 1989, with a Fine Arts Degree with courses covering performance and visual arts such as Film/video, Drawing/painting, Fashion Design along with Small Business Management and Education.

After working in retail, managing a Seattle Art Gallery, and showing my artwork in Seattle galleries, I returned to school in 1999. Graduating from City University a year later with a Master in Teaching, I began teaching middle school.

TEACHING: My first teaching job was teaching Drama and English for the Edmonds School District for four years. My time there included producing several student plays, writing scripts for student performances, and earning grants to support these endeavors.

I finally snagged an art teaching job for the Everett School District in 2004 at the school in my own neighborhood. Students in Visual Arts explore a variety of mediums in the Teaching For Artistic Behavior Classroom by accessing studios and meeting challenges based on themes and genres. In Digital Art, students explore visual arts mediums that require technology, such as animation, photography, video and podcasting. In Computer Technology, students learn basic computer skills including publishing, research and using the internet safely. When we switched from trimester to semester system in 2013, these classes were melded into one digital arts class where kids have both traditional and digital mediums to explore.

PRESENTING: Starting in 2006, I began presenting at local, state and national conferences. I still present almost every year at the Washington State Art Educators Art Conference. I have presented in NYC, Seattle and San Diego at the  National Conference. I was also fortunate to teach for the district’s professional development department when we had the money for great professional development. I taught over 100 district teachers how to use podcasting, blogging and video in their classrooms. During my years as a Technology Mentor in the district, I also presented at NCCE.

PUBLISHING: Beginning in 2014, I decided to start sharing my ideas, lessons and methods in wider audiences by submitting my work to various publications. I have a list of my many articles and features that you can read here. 

LEADING: Since 2014 I have become more involved with my state professional association. If you are not a member of NAEA and/or your state association… find it and join it! The more I give the more I get from this awesome group of educators and leaders. I started as awards chair and have since become co-president of the Washington Art Education Association. www.waea.net

The purpose of this web blog is to showcase the lessons and artwork I use with my middle school students. I talk a lot about Teaching For Artistic Behavior and how I modify it for my classroom. The information provided is intended for those interested in the middle school arts. You will also see links to my lessons and galleries of student art.

I am pleased to share what I have, but please do NOT republish without permission. Feel free to link to my pages and let me know in a comment if you find them valuable. I always love to hear how my lessons work for other people.

This website is not intended for my students (we have a district provided learning management system for them) but for other teaching professionals.

I am always grateful of the online help I received from Judy at the Incredible Art Department and the wonderful teachers at Yahoo TAB group.