Ms. Gayle Asch is currently an art teacher in the Bronx High School of Science. Ms. Asch attended the School of Visual Arts, located here in New York City, with a full scholarship. Graduating in 1989, Ms. Asch secured her Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts.  She followed up by attending the College of New Rochelle to gain her Masters of Arts Degree in Art Education and moved on to Mercy College for her Masters of Science Degree in School Administrations and Supervision.

 

Cheng Dong: What field of art are you an expert in?

Gayle Asch: Well, I studied illustration with a leaning towards Fine Art, meaning that my works are not very commercial. I am adept at painting, drawing, sculpture, digital art, and photography. So, a little bit of everything.

Cheng Dong: How did you pursue art before you became a teacher?

Gayle Asch: I was a freelance illustrator for about five to seven years. During that time was when I started to teach, to make a little bit of extra money because you don’t make any money freelancing. I did afterschool programs, taught arts to kids and I started working as a substitute teacher in New York City high schools at that time, in 1990 as a matter of fact.

Cheng Dong: What would you consider to be some major accomplishments during your freelancing period?

Gayle Asch: I have several pieces published in magazines. I had some pieces in groups shows.

Cheng Dong: Paintings?

Gayle Asch: Yes, some collages actually. But I started to feel that it was a difficult life to live. I was at a point of my life where I have to make a decision as to what I was going to do, so I chose to teach fulltime.

Cheng Dong: How come you chose to become a fulltime teacher instead of anything else?

Gayle Asch: I enjoyed the connections I shared with the students. As time went on, I liked it more and started teaching summer school here in Bronx Science before I decided to switch to fulltime in 1993. The kids were really phenomenal here and I realized how much I could accomplish in this school. As a result I started sending my resume here every year until there was finally a job opening in 1997. In terms of how I became a teacher; while I still pursued fine arts it was a very hard life, a very self-centered and lonely life in my opinion. If you chose the freelance lifestyle, you won’t have daily connection with people unless you seek them out. Again, it’s somewhat narcissistic because you have to believe that everything you want to do and say is important enough to put down for people to see. I guess it is not my personally to be such person, I preferred to help others, to give art to other  people. I see my mission here in Bronx Science as giving back to society, versus sitting there and taking.

Cheng Dong: What fields of art do you teach in Bronx Science? Do they match your studies?

Gayle Asch: I basically teach whatever the administration gives me to teach here. No matter what I teach I always approach it the same way, from a creative point of view. I think the most essential thing to Bronx Science students is to help them see their own creativity and to help them trust themselves. This is difficult here because Bronx Science students tend to want right answers, and they don’t like it when there are no right answers, making them very nervous.

Cheng Dong: I had the same problem myself.

Gayle Asch: I know you did. My mission is to help kids like you see that they can come up with their own answers and questions. For those who are already creative, it’s nice for them to be able to explore the benefits. But there are so many kids here who didn’t have the opportunity to be creative. This is because they have taken arts out of school, so many kids come to my class without having art at all in their life until high school. To me you should have art every year since birth. My own kids at home are always doing arts, writing poems and such; I try to keep that going in their lives because I feel that’s important.

Cheng Dong: Why do you think that teaching is important?

Gayle Asch: To me it is important because people are only children once. To me teenagers are the group I always wanted to work with. They are not quite adults yet they think like adults, so they have a lot of potential, especially in art. To me teaching is important so I can give back to society instead of living the bleak lifestyle as a freelancer. Having a career as a teacher will make me feel, at retirement, that I actually gave back to society instead of just taking from it.

Cheng Dong: Most teachers have a developed sense of the importance of their own subject. As an art teacher, how would you rate the importance of teaching art? Comparing among the courses in Bronx Science

Gayle Asch: That’s the problem here. For one, I don’t believe the administration thinks art is important here at all. This is a difficult place to work, I get minimal supply support and no emotional support at all. I try not to think about those things because I can’t control anyone but myself. I personally believe the art classes here are very important for kids in Bronx Science because it helps you learn to trust yourself, to answer question, to ask questions, and to think outside the box. That is what the real world is about; real world is not about regurgitation of information that somebody gave you. In the real world if you want to know something, you have to find out on your own. Sometimes you have to look at many different sources and decide what the middle path is. To me art does that if taught in my way, which is from a creative point of view. Art is not about being right, it is about finding your “right”.

Cheng Dong: Well you can tell from the name of the school that it’s not going to concentrate on the arts field. After all, it is the Bronx High School of “Science”.

Gayle Asch: Correct, but science and art should be interrelated. They have been for a long time in history; some of the greatest scientists are artists and some of the greatest artists were scientists. It wasn’t until the 1700s that the two “divorced”. To this day there are many people in the science field who are artists. In CERN they have an art lab, where artists are invited to work and live there. This is so the physicists can interact with the artists and observe the artists’ way to think, and ultimately think like artists. The idea is that, like art, science don’t always have a right answer. A true scientist first posts the question then goes to answer the question, so artists are like that as well. The two fields are very alike in how both requires deciding what you are going to do in a million different choices. They should be related, but are they related in this school? No, they are not. I would like to see arts in this school take a greater part, and I think we need to do that in order to bring this school to the 21st century. However unfortunately, people are not all as open-minded.

Cheng Dong: Based on your views of art, how would you define creativity?

Gayle Asch: To me creativity is about creating your own answer and questions despite influences from the outside. Being creative is to make something out of nothing. Some people see artists as magicians because they can turn something people see as worthless into materials for something else.