A YEAR OF CHALLENGES
DELCO TEACHERS OVERCAME COVID TO DELIVER FOR STUDENTS:
The mercurial 2020/21 academic year gave Karen Bellamy the chance to put the qualities that earned her the 2020 Excellence in Teaching award for her district on full display. The experience of two decades of commitment to her art students through rapid technological advancement in the classroom was needed more than ever in the virtual and hy- brid learning at Media Elemen- tary School during the pandemic environment.
With the nature of the aca- demic year and the 2020 Partners in Education ceremony suspended, the 2020 class of Excellence of Teaching award winners will be honored this week in a virtual celebration, including Bellamy as the Rose Tree Media School District recipient.
The initial news came in a prophetically unpredictable manner, as her principal asked to take a phone call from the art room, checking that the call forwarding had gone through. “I did not know any of the behind the scenes workings that were going on until I received a phone call from the (Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union) foundation,” said Bellamy. “I was teaching a first-grade class… and I received the call telling me I had received this award. I was speechless and in shock.”
Bellamy has spent eight of her 21 years in the field at Media Elementary School, following time in the Lower Merion and Upper Darby school districts. For the art appreciation side of the curriculum, the two decades saw a seismic shift from ordering posters, buying materials from museums and cutting up art print calendars to deliver visual aids. “I can think back when it was a big deal to have a multimedia projector to be able to project what was on your computer screen,” she said. “I remember writing grants to be able to have access to that. Now everybody has that information at their fingertips. In this past year students all have their own iPads.”
With the move to virtual classes and then a hybrid schedule, Bellamy fell back on her experience in different art mediums and four years in the publishing industry to shape art lessons for the new learning environment.
“We had to design lessons that were adaptive as possible, know
“I did not know any of the behind the scenes workings that were going on until I received a phone call from the (Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union) foundation. I was teaching a firstgrade class… and I received the call telling me I had received this award. I was speechless and in shock.”
— Art teacher Karen Bellamy on learning she earned the 2020
ing that students had different resources available in their homes,” she said, working in conjunction with elementary art teachers at other RTMSD schools. Bellamy looked back on her commercial art time at Chilton Publishing in Radnor before entering the teaching field as the four drew up plans for an art curriculum website over the summer of 2020. “It’s organized projects for every grade level. A user could follow along and be able to find the stepby step process for every project,” she said. Her commercial art work at Chilton had included designing Internet advertising for projects.
As stay-at-home orders were eased, parents and caregivers were able to pick up art materials for use at home and a balance was struck as hybrid schedules began. “We adapted a lot of our lessons to accommodate whether students were in school or at home. We had to be sure that there was equity in the education so if you were a virtual learner you had access to as much materials as in school,” she said. “We would modify our expectations, too – it isn’t a fair expectation for working parents to be able to supervise a child who’s using paints in their house,” she said. “I wouldn’t expect a 7-year-old to be able to set up a workspace to use paint without supervision.”
Bellamy’s path to teaching began informally in her own childhood. “I was the little girl who always liked to draw and create, and I always liked school. I would play school with my sister and my friends,” she said. “When I discovered later on I could not only be a teacher but teach art I just followed that passion and was fortunate enough to land a job in that profession.”
A lifelong resident of Narberth, Montgomery County, her time at St. Margaret’s parochial school did not include formal art class but did further her interest. “My classroom teacher would be responsible for providing an art lesson on Fridays; I always loved Fridays because that was the day I’d get to have art at school,” she said. Her high school years at Archbishop John Carroll would finally introduce Bellamy to a structured art environment.
The first art teacher I had she was really strict and demanded a lot from her students, but in turn she enabled all of us to become very disciplined and develop our skills and build that foundation that may have been lacking in my earlier years,” she said. Other teachers realized cross-curricular possibilites for Bellamy to build her art knowledge. “My social studies teacher was great, too. When had to do a research paper, she would have me research an artist or a time period in art that was connected to whatever we were learning about,” she said.
Bellamy then elected to attend Rosemont College to major in art and pursue a teaching certificate. “That’s when I really was able to go into the classroom and meet some art teachers who really mentored me along way,” she said, naming Nancy Falcone at Merion Elementary in the Lower Merion School District as a key mentor in classroom management and teaching strategies.
Seeing a glut on the market for teachers upon graduation, Bellamy entered her four years in the publishing field. “When I worked in publishing, I knew that I was bound to follow my true calling of teaching because any time somebody was hired, I wound up being
Bellamy credits parents in the arts-centric Media community as key to students’ success, citing the school’s parentorganized spring art show. “Every student in first through fifth grade has one of his or her works mounted and displayed in our cafeteria and throughout the first floor of the building,” she said. The Parent Teacher Group … sets up all the displays. Honestly from September until the show in April it becomes a second job. Parents are spending sometimes 20 hours a week the art room helping,” she said. Another parent-driven initiative is the school’s Legacy Project for fifth grade classes to create a school gift, which in past years has involved professional artist parents contributing their skills to help students.
the person who would help the new hires become familiar with their position and did a lot of informal training,” she said.
The time at Chilton also introduced Bellamy to an environment of rapid technological change, seeing the company’s trade magazines move from building pages by cold type to computer design, and working in the new medium of Internet ads that came across the production artist desk.
Bellamy used the financial flexibility of paying off her student loans while in publishing to begin substitute teaching. The Upper Darby position was for a two and a half day week, split between Bywood, Highland Park and Stonehurst Hills elementary schools, allowing her to continue subbing in Lower Merion on Fridays. “I continued substituting and that’s when you really gain real world classroom management experience,” she said. Bellamy then accepted a full-time position at Stonehurst Hills, staying six and a half years before moving on to Hillcrest for five and a half.
One constant across schools has to provide students with arts experiences they would not likely gain outside of the classroom, either hands on with materials or with art appreciation lessons.
“I try really hard to introduce as many different types of media to the students and give them information about different cultures and art from different time periods, so that they don’t have limitations,” she said. “We have a ceramic kiln (at Media Elementary), so I can use clay with students.” The variety of mediums has been useful in keeping students engaged. “You might have a student who doesn’t particularly love drawing but you give them a piece of clay and they might suddenly come alive and are able to tap into their creative side that they didn’t know they had before,” she said, recounting an incident with a student struggling with
drawing before finding a natural aptitude for sculpting. “He didn’t know he had that kind of hidden talent until he had an opportunity to have it brought out in art class,” she said.
“He had that kind of hidden talent until he had an opportunity to have it brought out in art class,” she said.
Bellamy has seen successes in her classroom carry forward both in and out of art. “I’m thinking of the kids who might initially be reluctant learners in art, and they will change their attitude about it and wind up becoming really proud of their accomplishments through their hard work and persistence,” she said.
“There are times I’ve used that little plug like ‘drawing is going to help you develop your hand eye coordination,’” she said. “That’s going to help you no matter what you do in life, whether you’re an athlete or you decide you want to get better at playing video games,” she said, laughing.
Some has taken the confidence gained in the art room to further their own artist pursuits. “I had a student in Upper Darby who I only taught fifth grade art but he went on and continued to take classes and in high school he received a really prestigious award,” she said, receiving updates from student Jude Marks when he would return to visit Stonehurst Hills. Marks received the Best in Show Award for his self-portrait in U.S. Rep. Patrick Meehan’s 7th District Congressional Art Show during his junior year at Upper Darby High School. His work was displayed in Congress for one year.
Bellamy provided the Times with a list of other student accomplishments, including having artwork from Rose Tree Media schools exhibited at the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., in April 2018. The display included self-portraits from eight Media Elementary fifthgraders, who then were guests of honor at the show’s closing ceremony. A year later, two fourthgraders took home wins in the state Liquor Control Board Alcohol Awareness post contest out of 800 K-12 entries. “One was a grade-level winner and the other students the first-place print winner,” she said. The works were then displayed at the state museum in Harrisburg.
Bellamy credits parents in the arts-centric Media community as key to students’ success, citing the school’s parent-organized spring art show. “Every student in first through fifth grade has one of his or her works mounted and displayed in our cafeteria and throughout the first floor of the building,” she said. The Parent Teacher Group … sets up all the displays. Honestly from September until the show in April it becomes a second job. Parents are spending sometimes 20 hours a week the art room helping,” she said. Another parent-driven initiative is the school’s Legacy Project for fifth grade classes to create a school gift, which in past years has involved professional artist parents contributing their skills to help students.
She also credits her own parents in supporting her career path, insisting she attend college and find personally fulfilling work. Beyond that, her father “volunteered by hanging backdrops for school concerts, cut dowels for art projects, and painted parts of my former classroom,” she said. Her parents and husband have been in regular attendance at the spring art shows and assisted with preparation. During the lockdown orders of spring 2020 with limited access to the school, her husband also aided in dismantling the art show for Bellamy to file the works into portfolios for families to bring home.
She also credits her own parents in supporting her career path, insisting she attend college and find personally fulfilling work. Beyond that, her father “volunteered by hanging backdrops for school concerts, cut dowels for art projects, and painted parts of my former classroom,” she said. Her parents and husband have been in regular attendance at the spring art shows and assisted with preparation. During the lockdown orders of spring 2020 with limited access to the school, her husband also aided in dismantling the art show for Bellamy to file the works into portfolios for families to bring home.