Ms. Smelser’s Educator Story
Stephanie A. Smelser began in New Haven Connecticut at Yale New Haven Hospital. Her loving parents tended to Stephanie until she was off to Kindergarten at The David Street Elementary School in New Haven, Connecticut.
Stephanie Smelser’s gratitude for the New Haven public school teachers who then daily provided her with consistency and encouragement during her formative years sustains her to this day!
Stephanie’s positive experience at The Davis Street Elementary School fueled her desire to begin her first educational art teaching assignment upon graduating from Towson University in Baltimore Maryland in 1998 at the High School in the Community on Water Street in New Haven.
Stephanie has taught mostly in New Haven since 1998. Her invisible gratitude has been like an inner force or battery driving Stephanie to have endless energy, patience, and compassion for all her students just as she received!
Stephanie had unique positive educational role models: Nilda Morales district art supervisor and her Facilitator Karen Wolfe who in the late 1990s nominated her Stephanie to win the Disney Award for first-rate High School art teaching skills and curricular district writing developments.
Stephanie Smelser began teaching in 1998 at The High School in the Community in New Haven, CT. Her interdisciplinary philosophy, blending of S.T.E.A.M. disciplines, team teaching, collaborative innovative teaching, and has been her teaching philosophy in her studio art classes since 1998!! Co-teaching blockclasses at this teacher-run magnet school were problem-solving at their finest… Stephanie’s woven academic teaching pedagogy has been deeply embedded, and a solid force, an inner passion, is a flame igniting many curriculum units today! Co-teaching with artist Dawoud Bey when he was a visiting resident artist at Yale University, (now) principal Philip Piazza Analyze This, and teacher Kate Noel are still Stephanie’s favorite collaborative teaching experiences, which she has much professional gratitude for!
Stephanie has helped with curriculum writing units of study since 1998. Stephanie offers PD sessions to teachers, and schools to help generate internally connected units and innovative course titles that will impact the students. Just like Analyze, This did in the 1990s!
Most recently, Stephanie published this unit:
22.01.04: Spiral Introspective: Discover Spirals through Art in S.T.E.A.M
Stephanie’s interdisciplinary way of teaching began 2 decades before she received 2021 her sixth-year degree in S.T.E.A.M. from Sacred Heart University. Stephanie also received the silver Isabella Farrington education award.
Stephanie has a strong belief that students must be internally connected to the learning at hand through an educational partnership that is built on trust, and a solid co-creation partnership or alliance, that’s the key! Without the key she says, Good luck!
