Fine arts teacher Michael Gaudreau looks around at his class of students.  However, these are not normal students.  Gaudreau is teaching other art teachers in a clay workshop to help them improve their teaching methods.

Due to his extensive teaching and clay working techniques, Gaudreau was asked by Graduate Art Education Instructor Mary Munday to attend the 2012 Maryland Art Education Association presentation “Out of Our Hands, The Potential of K- 12 Clay” on Oct. 19 in Silver Spring, Maryland.

This event was held to provide public and private school teachers from around Maryland with different ways to teach their students about art.  This is the first time Gaudreau was represented in a forum like this.

“It was fun to be able to have John Carroll represented in such a large forum,” Gaudreau said.  “I think everyone enjoyed themselves.”

While there, Gaudreau gave a 15 minute presentation to a group of about 12 people, telling them about the lessons he teaches to his students and different techniques he uses.  “It was a good ice breaker,” Gaudreau said.  “My goal was to show them new ways of working with clay for beginners.”

After the presentation, Gaudreau gave a two hour hands-on workshop, where techniques were demonstrated and practiced by about 25 art teachers and supervisors from the Maryland area.  He then modeled rock cairns.

“Rock cairns are piles of rock that look as if they are balanced,” Gaudreau explained.  “Many people have told me of rock cairns they’ve seen in Europe and Peru, but that they’ve never seen them made out of clay before.  They were all very excited to bring that back to classrooms,” Gaudreau said.

In a letter of thanks addressed to Gaudreau, Munday said “I looked around and saw everyone, from supervisors, to teachers, to art education students meaningfully engaged in making unique and brilliant pieces of clay.”

Caitlin Wolfarth is a News Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.org.