TEACHER'S CORNER: FINE ARTS TEACHER DOESN'T OPPOSE A LITTLE ANARCHY

Brother Joseph Sebek doesn't have a "teacher's corner" of his own at St. Vincent de Paul Grade School.

"I have the benefit of a constantly changing environment for teaching fine arts to the students," Sebek said.

Sebek takes his show into each room with a specially-built art cart that displays "lots of neat stuff that I use in exploring the visual arts," he said.

Sebek taught fine arts at public and Catholic schools in Malden and Perryville before becoming a Vincentian Brother.

His assignments have included college seminary teaching of fine arts, parochial ministry in parishes in California and Missouri, and being a hospital chaplain.

Someone watching Sebek teaching a class might think he was presiding over anarchy.

"Sometimes that might be close to the truth," he said.

"A little free reign is necessary for a student to explore how they need to express or communicate an idea with the tools they have at hand.

"I try to teach with a balance of tight direction and freedom of action so students will learn how to manipulate the media they work with to achieve a goal of communication," he said.

Sebek delights in showing his students that they can actually do what they think they can't.

The notion of "can't do" is learned from somewhere outside themselves, he said.

"Children want to share things inside themselves with others, but being children, they don't always know the means to do that sharing...yet," he said.

Teachers can show students how to share and communicate things and learn about the world.

Sebek said some students make a mess, make too much noise and so, often, can't finish their projects because of time constraints.

"Others are neat as a pin, quietly communicating the most sublime emotions with everything from pencil lines or scraps of yarn to potato prints and watercolor.

"They're all wanting to say something in a picture that's worth a thousand words," he said.

The best of their developing humanity is brought to the surface.

"To be a part of this; to offer the opportunity for children to become aware of their world inside, and the world outside themselves: This is why I teach," Sebek said.