Life put Kim Prati’s plans to be an art teacher on hold for more than 15 years, but the successful designer and mother of two still found ways to share her talent and enthusiasm with children. Now, she’s pursuing her master’s degree in education at McDaniel to refine those teaching skills.

“I think I’ve always wanted to teach,” says Prati, smiling as she shows photos of clay murals she’s helped fourth- and fifth-graders create. “But I’ve always wondered if I was doing it right.”

McDaniel’s BEST (Better Educators for Students of Tomorrow) program, designed for career-changing adults who want to teach, is providing Prati with the bridge between design and teaching.

For it was teaching that she planned during her years at the College of William and Mary. Then, during the summer of 1986, she spent a semester studying in Cortona, Italy. She studied art and fell in love with Jose Prati, a college student born in Venezuela, who was also studying in Italy. They married and together built a life with their two sons, Joseph and Nathan, and careers in the arts. Jose Prati produces silkscreened and embroidered T-shirts and textiles at Commonground Printing, the business he founded 15 years ago in Rockville.

A list of awards testifies to Kim Prati’s acumen in design and advertising. Exhibits of her sculpture and ceramics leave no doubt that she is an accomplished artist. And there on her resume too are the after-school art classes and the in-school art projects she’s taught.

Although she always volunteered to help with art projects in her sons’ schools and scout troops, her first official foray into teaching was an after-school art class in 2003 sponsored by the PTA of Candlewood Elementary School in Derwood, Md.

“It featured the messy kind of art such as papier mache, clay, sculpture and mixed media,” she says of the class that was filled to capacity and repeated either in the spring or fall of every year since.

She also has taught after-school programs sponsored by Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) and the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (AHCMC) in several other elementary schools and was invited to help fifth-graders produce a tile portrait mural as their “graduation” gift to Darnestown Elementary in Darnestown, Md.

Through grants from the AHCMC, she has taught and produced a nature relief clay tile mural with third-graders, a sea-life clay mural with fourth-graders, and Mayan art clay panels with two groups of sixth-graders.

Each project is tied into the curriculum in some way, and all remain on permanent exhibit at their respective schools. Fourth-graders researched a specific sea animal or plant before crafting it in clay. Sixth-graders learned about Mayan culture and art, which often used the processional to represent ceremonies in their lives, before doing their own holiday processional in clay.

“Kids are so creative,” Prati says. “You never know what they are going to come up with – I’m so inspired and motivated by their creativity.”

McDaniel Associate Professor of Education Ochieng'  K'Olewe sees a proactive teacher in his student, one who invites the community into her class.

“I believe that the BEST certification program will enhance her skills further to be an effective and affective teacher who cares about the learning of her students, as already evident in the art programs she coordinates,” K'Olewe says. “Her very rich background as an artist will continue to serve her well as a teacher.”

Prati began the BEST program in January of 2005 and will finish the program in December of 2007. She has been working through the program while running her own design business, kp designs, and teaching classes and workshops part time. Her husband and sons are cheering her on – and every course seems to refine or reinforce what her students’ accomplishments have shown all along.
 
Kim Prati is a teacher.