As the sun radiates, the paint starts to melt. Sighing in relief as she looks at the mural she has spent hours on, she takes a step back to look at her work from a different view. She is overcome with happiness knowing that people will enjoy her work outside of the classroom, whether that is in Canton, Ohio, or Tanzania, Africa. 

Sarah Zustin has many years of experience as an art teacher teaching middle school students, but this will be her first year working with high schoolers and in the Revere Local Schools. She will be teaching Introduction to Art classes both at Revere Middle School and Revere High School. 

Zustin talked about her relationship with art while she was growing up. 

“I was always fairly artsy. I grew up dancing, and I just enjoyed art class. I went into college undecided. I had no clue what I wanted to do,” Zustin said. 

While she was in college, a friend of hers recommended getting a degree in art education, which reconnected her love for the work in that field. Zustin had worked with middle schoolers for a while and wanted to face a challenge in her occupation. Zustin explained why she wanted to work at Revere.

“I’ve heard a lot of great things about Revere schools. My husband was a teacher here for two years, twelve years ago, so he knew what the environment was about, and he knew how good of a culture is at Revere schools. I was ready for something new and challenging,” Zustin said. 

Zustin is teaching both middle school and high school art classes. She talked about the types of classes she teaches at Revere.

“[At] the middle school, I’m doing [an] intro to art, so it is pretty similar to elements of art here [at RHS]. . .  I teach two element classes, and I’m teaching two 3-D [art classes, which are] going to look similar to the ceramics and multimedia classes,” Zustin said. 

Zustin enjoys that high school teachers have more control over what they teach, as long as the students’ work completes the requirements of the assignment. She finds ways for her students to come up with the subject that they would enjoy creating art about, while also making sure that the project is at their skill level.

“There are a set of standards, but they are very flexible from where I am able to manipulate the project based on achieving levels. If someone is accelerating, I can push them a little farther, where if someone is at the beginning level, we can talk about basics,” Zustin said.

Zustin is also starting to adjust to having older students. She started to notice differences when it comes to teaching at the high school level. 

“I’m noticing a lot of things about the high school kids, I still have a lot that I can relate to . . . middle school kids, they get a little more excited about the lesson that I prepare and the activities we do, but I think that’s all about growing up as well,” Zustin said. 

Besides the classes she already teaches, Zustin has an interest in teaching other classes in the future.

“I’m interested in teaching photography . . . I really like jewelry making, so if I could incorporate that into the 3-D [art class], that would be awesome too. And I [would] like [to teach] painting,” Zustin said. 

RHS art teacher Jennifer Seegert explained the curriculum in Elements of Art class.

“We focus on the actual elements of art, which are the building blocks of art. You need to make sure that everyone has a good understanding of line drawing, shading, the concept of the color wheel and color theory,” Seegert said. 

Seegert explained why she enjoyed teaching Elements of Art.

“This year I don’t teach elements, and I kind of like it because of that. It is fun to see them get excited about something they thought they couldn’t do. It is usually younger kids, but I do not dislike that at all because that helps me get a head start [in] getting to know people,” Seegert said. 

Art teacher Robert Pierson explained the importance of taking elements before taking another art elective. 

“We want as many kids taking that class above elements as possible. Right now, I have over 24 kids in advanced placement art. Every single one of them started in elements of art,” Pierson said. 

Faculty in the art department welcome Zustin to Revere and are excited to see what kind of projects Zustin and her students create.