Hartl reflects on more than a decade molding not just clay, but young minds

With the block schedule at ARHS, students have the option to take many more electives in their schedule, so most people end up taking not one, but many art classes by the time they graduate.

Of those courses, an extremely popular choice is Ceramics.

Teacher Hannah Hartl has been teaching Ceramics at ARHS for 18 years. A core memory of her time here at ARHS is the first art exhibit in 2009 when all the art teachers and students came together to put on a formal show; this is now an annual tradition where students’ work is displayed at Amherst College.

“It was just really impressive what the students had made, to see the abilities within high school students,” said Hartl. 

Hartl’s favorite thing about her job is “how seriously the students take their art” and that “the community support is so strong.”

She also loves “seeing the joy that art brings to students.” Over her years working as a ceramics teacher, she feels as though she’s mastered the skill of “teaching students to be passionate about their art.”

But Hartl didn’t start by teaching high school students. Her first experience with teaching began after graduating from Wheaton College where she double majored in Art and Art history. She spent a year at Ostragrieve College, an art school in Sweden where she learned the skills of ceramics. 

After college, she studied architecture and taught at a Montessori school. She said that “assisting kindergarteners with ceramics was the thing she looked forward to the most.”

It amazed her how “free with their art” the kids were, “how unafraid of judgment.” She began to realize that teaching might be something she wanted to pursue in the future. “I just loved teaching kids,” Hartl said.

“I feel like that was a good place to start as a teacher,” Hartl said about the young students. but then moved to older ones. So she went to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts for her graduate program, where she was certified to teach art in a secondary school.

Now that she works with high schoolers, she is able to use teenage teaching assistants in the classroom, who work alongside Hartl while helping others finish their assignments. Hartl said having a TA in the classroom is “a huge help” but she’s “picky” about who gets to be one. “The person has to be very motivated, excited to help others, and know how to help others,” Hartl said.

One of her favorite assignments is the students’ “self-portrait teapots assignment” that she has planned for the advanced ceramics students, for which students design teapots around their own identities. She loves how different the teapots end up.

Hartl talked about how other teachers often come in and guess which student made what teapot and they are often correct. “The teapots can be very expressive,” Hartl said.

In addition to helping students make unique art, Hartl uses the class to help her community. One example of this is the Empty Bowls Project, which began in 2009.

“I volunteered at the Survival Center and they asked if we wanted to donate bowls,” she said. Ever since then, students have made multiple bowls in class and donated one that is later sold with soup in a fundraiser for the Survival Center, which then receives the proceeds and extra bowls.

Students often say, “I’m so glad you made us do that,” she said.  

One of Hartl’s own goals is to continue to inspire students, but also to continue to be an artist herself.