Bay School News

Teacher Profile - Janet Griffin February 29 2016, 1 Comment

Janet Griffin will be teaching how to Construct a Felted Animal on Saturday, March 19 9am - 12:30pm.  In this class the students will manipulate wool yarn and silk fibers to build an animal of their choice.

Janet is a retired art specialist from Gloucester County Public Schools. She taught in Hampton City Schools before staying at Petsworth elementary School for the last 25 years. She continues to be a guest teacher at other Gloucester Elementary schools. She certainly enjoyed her teaching of art to young children and has always been amazed how children can teach her! Now she looks forward to learning from adults. She grew-up in a military family, so everything was organized! Janet graduated from Old Dominion University, Magna cum laude, (that means she worked very hard and had no social life). 

Janet's own artistic work is tapestry weaving, balanced between the 60” Macomber and 30” Leclerc looms. Her favorite weaving is Theo Moorman’s tapestry technique. Janet lives in Gloucester Courthouse with her husband Jim and two crazy cats.

A few questions to Janet

What made you start teaching?

I knew I wanted to teach from the time I was a little girl. I was one of the first children in the brand new kindergarten program in Germany way back in 1959. Perhaps some of that is from bossing my younger brother around. As a eight-year-old I can certainly remember playing school with my childhood friends.

 

 

 

What do you get out of teaching?

Yes it's Joy. Yes it's sharing of knowledge. Yes it's knowing that my students are learning a new thing. That would be the case in young or older students, as in adults.

 

Tell me something people would be surprised to find out about you.

I was the first person in my family ever to go to college and graduate. My dad did go and take college classes while he was in the military, however he never achieved a degree. So the surprising thing here might be that I have dyslexia. It's a mild form where I see a lot of things backwards, or even say a lot of things in reverse of what I am thinking.