Batavia art teachers stress real-world experience in innovative arts programs

Batavia High School graphic arts teacher Kathleen Tieri Ton knows the importance of keeping the school’s arts programs up to date with the latest technology.

Because it’s a Career and Technical Education program, the offerings constantly have to stay aligned with current trends, Tieri Ton said. As job duties change, the program transitions as well “to better reflect the field,” she said.

Along with revitalizing older arts courses with new technology, Tieri Ton said she has proposed a new Game Art and Design course.

“That class is going to be so popular I know already,” she said. “Just because of the gaming industry and how much it connects to young people. It’s just so interesting because the skills relate to not just the gaming industry, but app design and animation and 3D modeling. ... There’s just so many cool paths that the kids can take.”

Tieri Ton said she studied studio art with a concentration in photography at Indiana University. After college, she found work as a projectionist, a movie theater manager and at a photography lab. She said the experiences helped her decide to become a teacher.

“I did a lot of media work and then realized that I kind of wanted to give back,” she said. “I went and applied to Columbia College Chicago’s Art Education program, which no longer exists. I got my master of arts in teaching and started in the city as a traditional art teacher.”

Because of her work experience, Tieri Ton was able to earn a Career and Tech Education certification, which allowed her to teach tech-heavy art and media classes.

Tieri Ton continued to work in the city until 2015, when she started teaching at Batavia High School. She said one of the highlights of working with the program has been helping students with projects that are both creative and technical.

“Sometimes they live more in the CTE world and sometimes they live more in the art world,” she said. “What’s been great about Batavia is I kind of truly exist in both places.”

Tieri Ton’s classes focus on different areas of digital art, including commercial graphic design. Students across the school’s arts program have access to industry-level software and tech, she said.

Student projects don’t exist in a vacuum, either. Tieri Ton said students often will lend their artistic abilities to the benefit of real clients.

“I have a student who’s a TA/independent study kiddo and she’s screen-printing,” Tieri Ton said. “I’ve got her screen-printing tote bags for a client who’s paying for these products.”

Past clients have ranged from the Batavia High School Learning Resource Center to Batavia’s Kiss the Sky record store.

“I try to give them as many real-world experiences as possible so that they really know what it feels like to be doing this,” Tieri Ton said. “The kids get to go out into the community. They get to see what it’s like to get an idea from a client all the way into a real thing.”

In addition to the graphic classes, some of the art program’s other popular offerings are its suite of video courses taught by video production teacher Jennifer Carpenter.

Carpenter said she developed an interest in video production while working at Mooseheart.

“I worked at Mooseheart for 12 years as a family teacher,” Carpenter said. “While I was working at Mooseheart and going to school for video, one of my internships was actually at BATV, which currently is located within our school. And so I interned for them and got to know them and got to know the video production teacher [at BHS].”

After leaving Mooseheart, Carpenter worked as a video producer for marketing companies before she was offered a subbing position at the high school in 2019. Carpenter became the school’s full-time video production teacher in the fall of 2019.

Like Tieri Ton, Carpenter said her prior work experience allowed her to become CTE-certified.

“One of my absolute favorite things is to see what they make,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter’s students begin by taking Video 1, a class in which they learn camera basics and editing fundamentals. Students then take Video 2, which has more emphasis on storytelling. Just like Tieri Ton’s students, Carpenter’s students have the option to take an independent study after completing the introductory courses, which is where Carpenter said student creativity shines.

“I have a student who just finished independent study and he has a dramatic narrative and a music video,” Carpenter said. “We’re currently sending them out to different festivals.”

“We also have the opportunity to intern with different people in the building,” she said. “I’ve had students go and work with teachers [to] create videos for them. We had a student who worked with [the] Culinary Arts [program] during the pandemic, so they would create these culinary ‘how-to’ [videos] with them that went out to the other classes.”

Regardless of the medium, Carpenter and Tieri Ton both said one of the most important aspects of each art class is student choice.

“To be able to have different equipment that they can use that they might not have had otherwise, to have these resources where they can just go and be free in what they want to do and really have this blank slate of ‘I get to put absolutely everything of me into this,’” Carpenter said.

Carpenter and Tieri Ton’s CTE certifications make many of their programs eligible for CTE grants.

“This is what funds programs like building trades and different engineering classes,” Tieri Ton said. “But you have to have a teacher that’s certified in career and tech ed.”

Tieri Ton hopes to continue to expand independent study options to help students better prepare for college, their careers and beyond.

“In the future their transcripts won’t even say independent study, it’ll say ‘graphics internship’ or ‘graphics portfolio,’” she said. “These kids are working so hard; I really wanted their transcripts to reflect what they’re learning and the experiences they’re getting.

“I’ve got students leaving here where they’re ready for full-time jobs,” Tieri Ton said.