I was a stay at home dad before 2015, but that title no longer applied as my son was in school full time. I had no idea how I was getting back into the work force. I was a graphic designer before my son was born, but that occupation morphed into something I no longer cared to do, so I fully expected to settle on whatever retail job came my way. Earlier that year, God placed a thought in my head…
I dismissed it outright because I was too busy trying to find a job. A couple weeks later my son was talking me up to his art teacher at school about my comics, and she emailed me asking to teach all four third grade classes as a guest artist.
I looked up and said, “Ok God I get the hint!”, but the snag was I had ZERO experience teaching. None, nada, zilch. It was something never on my radar ever in my life. ZERO! I had just three weeks to make a lesson plan with no idea how to pull it off.
I nervously taught a very rough draft of what would become my KIDS COMIC WORKSHOP to those four classes. After my guest appearance, I polished the one hour class into a six session workshop, and by October I was teaching classes at a local business that had a back room to rent out… and those classes sold out. This, however, doesn’t end there.
God kept throwing me head first into the fire. Shortly after I taught those classes, I was approached by a charter school to be a long term art substitute because their teacher was going on maternity leave. It’s hard finding long term school subs, especially something specialized like art, so they wanted me to teach comics to their kids. I pretty much had the job before the interview even began.
Within six months I went from my only teaching experience being four third grade classes to teaching 1st – 8th graders at a charter school by November. I had to hit the ground running HARD, and what originally was meant to be a 1.5 month gig turned into four because the art teacher wasn’t ready to return. (Who can blame her?)
The problem was my comic workshop only covered the original 1.5 months I was meant to be there, so now I had to scramble to teach other things I had no experience teaching. I quickly developed the philosophy of, “I only have to be one step ahead of the kids”, and that got me through a lot of the early years of teaching…. well, that, and MANY internet searches and adult beverages.
I can’t say it was a pleasant experience being there, mainly because I was not equipped to handle large groups of unruly kids. I always had respect for teachers before that point, but living in the trenches for that short time gave me a whole new appreciation. It was draining, but it also was my boot camp to prepare me for everything else that went along with this new business venture God threw me in.
Since that time, I expanded my class list and added several GIRLSCOUT art related badges and after school classes around St. Louis. I was already teaching ONLINE classes two years before the pandemic hit, allowing me to immediately pivot into online only when all that chaos ensued. At that time I was so slammed with work that there was a four month period I didn’t have a single day off. I often had to pack my lunch to eat it in my room because once classes began, I couldn’t resurface until the evening.
Unfortunately at the time of writing this, my class load across the board has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, so I’m looking at this as a pruning moment from God. At the end of 2019, He let me know that one day I would have my own teaching space, but that has not played out yet. (Maybe you could help?) I have a couple class things in the works for the Fall, but it’s too early to go into detail just yet.
I want to thank you for reading this long history, as well as just having the interest in following what I do for a living. The vast majority of what I do is through word of mouth, so if you would be so kind to share this website with anyone you know who have children 6-18 years old who love to draw, I would REALLY appreciate it!
Until next time…
Todd