Doug Lack
Art Teacher and Fine Arts District Coordinator
Holliston, MA
We first met Doug Lack when we were touring Holliston High School to meet with the principal about some potential work with her staff. Holliston staff are known for their progressive outlook in working with teens in a more contemporary learning environment. Doug Lack was in his art room when we first met him and it was immediately evident to us that his enthusiasm and commitment to arts education represented a teacher who was not just in a job but living his mission in life.
The Art of Human Life
“So yes, I think art saves lives every day, and I'm really thankful that I'm in this place and am able to share my passion and my love of art.” Art teacher Doug Lack speaks in a gallery filled, from floor to ceiling, with an art project produced by all the students in his school district, a stunning cardboard cityscape with everything from buildings to zeppelins, music to biographies of those living there.
A sudden and life-threatening illness that resulted in a four-month hospitalization changed all that. Doug believes that communicating with doctors through his capability to share images of what he was experiencing saved his life. A conversation with a doctor about his ability to teach the doctors led to him thinking about becoming a teacher which he went back to school to pursue. Today, he coordinates art for the Holliston School district where he also teaches art and is chair of the arts department at his high school. He brings the entire district together each year around a project that unites K-12 children in making art. Here’s a story about the village project.
Doug was born a creative. Today he has found his place in life in his art classroom at Holliston High School in Holliston, Massachusetts, he shares as he moves through hallways where student art work fills the spaces. He didn’t start out his career after college with an intention of becoming an art teacher. From his earliest memories, he always wanted to be an artist and his greatest joy as a child was making art. He went to the Massachusetts College of Art where he majored in graphic design with an intention of going into a career in advertising.
Social emotional learning matters
“I can think of a specific student who last year was thinking of leaving school,” Doug recounts, telling a story he understands deeply, “She had high anxiety. She also has an autoimmune disease that makes things difficult for her physically and mentally. She's always wanted to be a doctor,” the kind of profession usually near the top of the career choice list in a distant suburb of both Boston and Providence, Rhode Island. “She was really going to leave school and try an alternative, maybe go to a pre-college for her senior year. But, she started coming to the art room. She didn't even have art as a class but she started coming in the art room. She discovered how therapeutic and helpful it was in her life. Now she is going to apply to art schools. She figured that she wanted to be a doctor because she wanted to help people. She realized she can help people with art or in some other creative way. Now she's thinking about being an architect or a medical illustrator. That's just one story. There are so many stories of students discovering themselves in the art room - expressing themselves -communicating in ways that they just can’t in academic areas or other places in their life.”
The experience of art gives meaning to life
“There are so many stories of students discovering themselves in the art room expressing themselves, communicating in ways that they can’t in other academic areas or in other places in their life.” For Doug, there is a deep understanding that both the creation of art and the experience of art gives meaning to life, gives a power of life students may not get elsewhere.
Art represents love and energy
“The challenge is how do we respectfully take the show down,” Doug says, because there is a life-cycle to art, as in everything, and he knows the importance of that. “I've been talking with one of the teachers who teaches cinematography and the idea is to create some kind of documentary about taking it down. My first instinct was to get a couple kids to dress up as King Kong and Godzilla and kind of rampage through the city. I feel like the space deserves some kind of proper closure because of the love and energy that went into the creation of it.”
Doug Lack is a life-long learner
That Mr. Lack was Massachusetts Art Teacher of the Year in 2006, that he has been repeatedly honored, that he encourages other teachers through articles and presentations, hasn’t stopped his pursuit of his own learning. “To maintain currency,” he says, “I continue to take course work in educational theory as well as studio art. I am currently on the faculty of the Danforth Art Museum School, in Framingham, Massachusetts. I constantly look at art, think about art, think about communication, and think about what kids need from us.”
Community of learners
“We have visiting artists come in. We have graduates come back which is great for our current students to see where you can go from here. We've got some kids doing some great things so it's always inspiring. I think it's more meaningful for these kids to say, “wow this person went to the same school as me and she’s doing this. I could do this, too.” I think that's always very important to bring kids back.”