Malia Cadle won the teacher of the month award in August. She is a Medea Creek Middle School art teacher and has been teaching for 15 years. 

“I teach all of the art classes. We do have a new art teacher, but I teach all of the different levels; I have an intro to art class for the seventh-eighth graders and two classes for the seventh-eighth art showcase, which is a painting intensive class. I also teach New Media art which is a graphic design and photography-focused class,” she said. 

Not only does Cadle teach art classes, but in the past, she has also supervised clubs.

“I’ve done everything from art club to cheese club, to anime club. I’ve done a lot of different clubs,” she said. 

Cadle’s favorite club is probably the most unique, the cheese club. 

“The cheese club was my favorite club, I did it in my first few years of teaching just because it was so different from my normal classes,” Cadle said. “I love art but having a cheese club where we ate different cheeses and talked about cheese, that was a very interesting and fun club to do.” 

Cadle also spoke about how she measures personal success in her career.

“This isn’t necessarily recognized officially, but I feel like my best achievement is within the classroom when a student comes to me and lets me know that they are proud of their artwork. They’ll either say ‘Oh, I really like this’ or ‘I feel like I’ve learned so much,’” Cadle said. “So I guess the achievement I am most proud of is when a student is proud of their artwork.”

As for why she is an art teacher, Cadle leads with her passion for the subject.

“I am an art teacher because I am an artist. I love art. I love the classes and then the feeling that this is my art studio,” Cadle said. “I did art with the students and I really liked it. I also think my favorite classes are traditional art, drawing, painting and clays.”