Profile :: Hannah Joseph
Interviewer:: Jonah Sidman

Why don’t you describe your project?

I am painting a mural at Prospect Elementary.  I’m doing a 2-story staircase by myself in the back of the building, and there’s a separate staircase in the front of the building that two other Oberlin students are doing.

The IB coordinator for Prospect wanted something on the wall to reflect their new IB philosophy because they’ve recently switched to the IB program.  So either literacy or internationally themed, basically.  So she and I met and discussed this during last semester and we came up with a mural that has a bunch of characters from their curriculum, so by the time the students get to fifth grade they’ll be familiar with all of the characters that are on the wall.  You know, like Cat in the Hat, Harry Potter, I could take you through all of the characters. They’re all interacting in different ways and they’re all popping out of this book that this monstrous kid, stretched across like eight feet, is reading.

Twice a week I have two different groups of students that come and help out for an hour. 

Elementary school students?

Yeah, fifth graders specifically.  Fifth grade art students.  And it’s fun.  They’re a pretty good help.  I just figure out who wants to do what, and assign them to different parts of the mural, tell them they’re doing Harry’s cape or whatever, and give them paint.

Did you design the whole thing yourself?

Yeah.  Basically I came up with the idea of having characters interacting and coming out of this book.  And because of the specification of the literary theme and the elementary school-aged kids, I wanted the kids to really be able to associate with what was going on.  It’s a really echo-y stairwell, and the idea was to capture their attention so they would shut up a little bit!  So I posted these sheets in the teacher’s lounge and said, you know, “What’s your favorite book from the curriculum?  What do you think would be really important to have on the wall?”  So I got a whole slew of characters, narrowed it down to the ones that I loved, and basically sketched them out a whole bunch of times.  I’d done a whole bunch of sketches, but I did most of my work once I got into the space and I saw how monstrously huge it is.

Prospect is a cool place to work at.  I would recommend it to other Oberlin students who’d want to work with either teachers or students.  It’s a really extremely welcoming community.  All the teachers always stop by and see how I’m doing, in addition to all the students that always run by and go “HARRY POTTER! I RECOGNIZE IT! HARRY POTTER!”  and then they start, like, freaking out and everybody comes and are like “IT’S A NEW ONE! OH MY GOSH!”

Between every class?

No, not even between every class.  ALL the time, all day!

So you mostly just paint?

Pretty much.  I get to the school around 10:30 and I paint til 7 pm.  It’s a big, big project.

Would you like to say anything about your interests, or about yourself?

OK, sure.  I love art and I love working with kids, so I figured this would be the perfect project for me (my major is undecided, however art is being considered, I suppose).  I definitely think that being in the school and just hearing kids talk and teachers interact with them has really made me solidify my dream of becoming a teacher.  Not necessarily as my ultimate profession, but probably a Teach for America type thing, or something like that.  I was talking to another Oberlin student that’s doing the other mural, and she just said that she looks at teachers and can associate more with the students than with the teachers themselves, and she just thinks that someone who could visualize the kid’s position would actually do a better job teaching.  And I can totally see that.  You know, the teachers yell at kids for wanting to look at the mural or wanting to get a drink of water and I’m just like “You’re silly!  I want to be a teacher and be better than you!”  I just feel like a little kid—when they’re yelling at them, I feel like they’re yelling at me!