Kevin Summers knsummers@alumni.cmu.edu As a teacher I emphasize an interdisciplinary approach – connecting grade level material, students’ lives, choices and real-world experiences. To achieve students must be active participants in a learning community, instilled with a sense of obligation to interrogate their world. In a learner-centred pedagogy my role is to create a stage where students can legitimately participate in the social processes of learning; as well as monitor and asses each student’s individual learning. I am successful when students are competent, critical learners who set and achieve their own goals in the construction of new knowledge. Students create knowledge both individually and as part of a social community. Individually students apply and analyze learned material. Group interaction and reciprocal participatory practice allow students to evaluate their learning by negotiating the relationship between their own learning outcomes and the social practices of the classroom. Art practice is a kind of thinking, a way of being and a way to engage in experiential learning. Art helps students develop community and global connections, adopt sustainable practices, and appreciate the beauty of their own life experience and community.