Alexandria DePagter, the new art teacher at New Berlin West, teaches classes like drawing, sculpture, ceramics, and photography. This is her third year teaching art.
Before coming to teach at New Berlin West, Depagter worked at Stratford High School for two years. From beginners to advanced art classes, Depagter was the only art teacher at Stratford.
“I decided to come to West for a couple of reasons: first, I heard it was a really awesome school district,” Depagter said. “Second, I was really looking to work with a department of art teachers because at my last school, I was all by myself.”
Now that Depagter works with two other art teachers at West, Nicki DeKoch and Rebecca Klug, she says that it is “pretty great to collaborate and work together with them.”
Depagter enjoys teaching all of her classes. When talking about her favorite class to teach, DePagter said, “that’s hard because each class is so different, I don’t even want to pick!”
DePagter wraps up her thoughts on coming to teach at West by saying, “[West] was the perfect position because I really, really enjoy drawing, and I really enjoy all of the graphic arts. Plus, I still get to do a little bit of sculpture and ceramics as well.”
After graduating high school, DePagter went to college at UW-Madison and graduated in 2015. She always knew she wanted to be an art teacher.
“I did for a while consider going to PA school because I think the human body is really interesting, but I’m really glad I chose to be an art teacher.”
DePagter graduated college with an art education degree K-12. She practiced teaching at many different schools.
“I was at Lindbergh Elementary, Oregon High School in Oregon, Wisconsin, and then James Madison Memorial,” DePagter said. “James Madison Memorial has five art teachers, so that was really cool because there was a teacher who only taught ceramics and a teacher who only taught graphics.”
Depagter also really liked her printmaking independent studies, and drawing people while she was at college.
“We [at college] had a scanner when we were doing self portraits,” DePagter said. “We had to press our faces on the glass so it looked like we were trapped in the picture plate – that was my favorite piece.”
DePagter grew up in Duisburg, a small town in Sheboygan. Now that DePagter teaches in a new city (New Berlin), she loves to explore.
“I’ve been trying to check out of the sights to see around this area,” DePagter said.
DePagter is half adopted and has a brother, Adrian, twelve years younger than her. When talking about her brother, DePagter said, “it’s his first year in middle school, and he goes to Duisburg Middle and High School; he’s in sixth grade.”
Finally, to wrap things up, DePagter spoke about what it means to her to be a teacher:
“I really enjoy the spirit of high school and the atmosphere in my different art classes. Seeing how different all of the students are is really inspiring to me as an artist. Being around budding artists – it’s really cool for me. I also love all of the materials we get to experiment and work with; I think it’s awesome.”
