Teacher Feature: Ms. Calvano

Ms. Calvano started teaching at BHS this year. She teaches 7^th grade Art and the Adaptive Arts. She has previously taught in Upstate New York, Lindenhurst, Sayville, Deer Park, and other Long Island towns. Her favorite thing about being a teacher is “when I see something I’m trying to teach click in my student’s head. And you see the lightbulb go off, and they’re like ‘oh, okay’! That’s my favorite part.” She believes this is the most rewarding part of being a teacher.

Ms. Calvano is from Sayville, where she went to high school. There, she was captain of her cheerleading team and was also voted “most artistic”. An additional fun fact is that she was a cheerleader all the way through middle school and high school. Ms. Calvano went to Nazareth College in upstate New York. She chose the small school for its rare Art Ed major, the beautiful campus, and its tight-knit community.

Remarkably, Ms. Calvano was only a toddler when she knew she wanted to be an art teacher! She remembers that when she was about four, she had drawn an image of Snoopy she saw on a sheet hanging over her living room door. When her mom saw it and asked her why she drew it, she said, “Because I want to be an art teacher,” and decided then and there.

All students have different strengths and sometimes feel uncomfortable in art class. To encourage students who may be lacking confidence, Ms. Calvano tells them on the first day of school that “this is a safe space” and that everyone is good at a different type of art, “you just have to find your niche”. While her own favorite niches of art are doing realism, colored pencils, and portraits, she still likes to branch out and try new techniques and styles. If Ms. Calvano could choose to spend the day at either the Guggenheim, the MoMA, or the MET, she said she would choose the MET because it has all of the art she loves and has so any different styles, like sculpture and painting.