Faces of 501: Barbie Atkins
Barbie Atkins is in her fourth year teaching art to Robinson Middle School students, where she “builds confidence in young humans and creates odd things.” On the weekends, she volunteers at Stormont Vail Health snuggling babies in the NICU. In her time at Topeka Public Schools she has been honored with the first-year teacher Distinguished Staff Award and the state-wide new teacher Horizon Award. She has also led district professional development, new teacher orientation and is a part of the TPS Fine Arts Curriculum Team.
“I've always created. Art
was my outlet growing up. It helped me
through a lot. I grew up in a small town in southeast Kansas. When I was
little, I would walk myself to the library, sit on the floor in the art section
surrounded by a mound of books and copy out of 'how to draw' manuals. I
always knew my life would involve art, but I didn't set out to become a
teacher until after I graduated from college. I did some soul searching
and decided that what I really wanted out of life was to work with kids. I'm at
my happiest when I'm helping my students see their potential. I get to spend
every day sculpting weird creatures, painting imaginary scenes, and generally
being weird with some of the coolest humans I have ever met.”
“A long time ago, I read
that middle school was a deciding factor for the future of students'
interests. This is the age that kids fall in love with ideas and
activities: they decide now if they are going to be life-long lovers of
the arts. I don't remember where I read this and I don't know if it's
true, but it is an idea that has stuck with me throughout my education and
career. This desire to show young people how wonderful the arts are drives my
classroom. I have this amazing opportunity to open up an entire world of
creativity, imagination, and discovery for my kids - I think that is unique to
this age group. People also tell me that you have to be crazy to teach
middle school, I prefer the term eccentric. This age group can change the
world: they are smart, inventive, passionate and brave.”
“When I was an education
student, I merely thought of myself as a future teacher. Once I started
teaching, I discovered that 'teacher' is merely a job title. It is so
much more than that. Most of my day is making sure that basic needs are
getting met. The learning, the creating, the critical thinking: none of
that happens without all that other stuff out of the way first. This
relationship does makes my job difficult though: Last year at eighth
grade graduation, I was supposed to present art awards to my departing
students, but I ended up crying in front of, like, 500 people, I was just so
proud of my little artists.”
“Every day in art class is
an act of bravery. In my opinion, artists are in this unique position that
many other subjects don't find themselves in. Creating is a vulnerable activity
and it takes a brave person to make something original and show it to
others. This is one of the many beautiful things about art education and
why it is so necessary at all levels of learning. In class, we spend a
lot of time working together to create a safe environment where students feel
secure enough to try new things, make and work through mistakes, and then have
the courage to show their hard work to their peers. This is a process and
it has to be practiced every day. I model kindness in my interactions with
students and staff, we talk about how we should treat each other, we come up
with rules together and our critiques always include encouraging words.
We support each other because we know how hard it is to be
so vulnerable. My students might come to me saying ‘I can't do that’
and they leave saying ‘I'll just keep trying.’ I suppose that I'm somewhat of a
broken record when it comes to that.”