As summer draws to a close and the new school year is set to begin, Shannon Frey is busy getting her classroom ready to inspire her new and returning students for the year. Shannon has spent the last 18 years teaching art at Garfield Middle School, although that wasn’t originally the plan.
On her way to another teaching interview, she got lost and found herself at Garfield. Knowing she would be late to her interview, she requested to use the school’s phone and administrators overheard her say that she was an art teacher. Later that same day, she received a call from Garfield saying they were also in search of an art teacher and they would love to interview here. And the rest, as they say, is history.
“I fell in love with the school and the kids,” Shannon said. “They reminded me a lot of myself.”
Shannon grew up in a nontraditional way, having been homeless for the majority of her youth due to an accident in the family.
“The age bracket that my students are in now is the age bracket I was homeless, and throughout my high school years as well,” she recalled.
During those years, she was shuffled around from hotels and tents, but her mother consistently maintained the priority that Shannon get her education. When she finally made it to college, she originally went to become a doctor. She started taking more and more art classes, and eventually, she fell in love with it. In addition, Shannon didn’t want another child to feel alone the way she did growing up, and she felt that she could best help those kids through art.
“I really didn’t feel like I had many teachers that even noticed something was wrong in my life,” she said.
Many of her coworkers and friends have asked how she could stay at Garfield for so long, but for Shannon, the choice is easy.
“I’ve always been very unsettled in my life with regard to growing up that I wanted that stability,” she explained. “That’s my home.”
Shannon knows that she wears many more hats than just ‘art teacher’ .
“I’m a counselor, I’m a nurse, I’m a teacher, I’m all these things, sometimes even before 8 o’clock in the morning,” she said. “You never know what’s going to be thrown at you each day.”
While many find the middle school age to be one of the more difficult ages in the classroom, Shannon finds that it fits her exactly, and as an art teacher she enjoys watching them change.
“As an art teacher, I have a way of seeing the process, not just the product,” said Shannon. “I get to see them slowly grow, reach obstacles, and problem solve. If I was teaching something else, I don’t necessarily know if I’d get to see that the way I do as an art teacher.”
Since middle school is such an influential time in a child’s life, Shannon finds joy in watching her students express themselves through art.
“Sometimes the accidents are what makes it so beautiful and everybody’s life is that way,” Shannon explained. “A lot of my kids get that because their lives might not be quite as beautiful and there might be things that come up that area a struggle, but how can you turn that into a positive?”
Shannon uses her platform as a teacher to help teach more than just art related lessons.
“My job is to teach them that it’s more than just art,” she said. “Everything in this world was created through art, whether it’s the chairs we sit in or the cars we drive. Everything we have in this world started from an artist or designer.”
As she heads into another year, she is excited to take on each day with the vigor and excitement it deserves.
“My biggest thing with them is, how are you going to be remembered?” she asked. “I could never put into words how each of these kids have made a mark on my life.”