Growing up, Jules Belmont never imagined she would be a teacher. After watching her mother, who was a kindergarten teacher for 30 years, work late into the evenings almost every night, she did not consider it as a career path she wanted to pursue.
That changed as she got older.
“I went on to be an artist and eventually left the country to go to Ecuador and every, like, job I had throughout that time was always either educating children or being a trainer or being a teacher’s assistant, and so I’d realized I’d kind of always fallen into a teaching capacity of some sort,” Belmont said.
While in Ecuador, Belmont taught English to students from preschool through seventh grade, and found that children learned the language better through arts, music and dance.
“I (thought) back to, ‘What did my mom do with all these kindergarteners?’ And they had so much fun, so then I had realized I do love teaching the arts,” Belmont said.
After returning to the United States from Ecuador, Belmont completed her master’s degree and teaching license at the University of Minnesota and was placed at Oak Point Elementary School as a student teacher. She ended up never leaving.
Now, after being the full-time art teacher at Oak Point for seven years, Belmont was named the Minnesota Elementary Art Educator of the Year earlier this month by the Art Educators of Minnesota (AEM), a statewide organization that aims to provide professional growth opportunities for Minnesota art teachers and advocate for quality art education for students.
The Minnesota Elementary Art Educator of the Year Award is one of several awards AEM gives out every year, including the Rookie Art Educator of the Year, the Emeritus Art Educator of the Year and the state- and national-level Minnesota Art Educator of the Year Award.
For those who have worked with Belmont before, her winning the elementary-level honor was not surprising.
“She’s not just an art teacher, like the fact that she has such a deep background in art itself,” Oak Point Principal Theresa Marty said. “It feels like the kids are, if you were to go up and look in the cases and things, it’s like real artist’s work, right? The kids get a chance just to really explore and do creativity and curiosity and critical thinking.”
Belmont’s nomination was a community effort. She was nominated by the mother of a student who attends Oak Point and afterward had to submit additional recommendations to be officially considered for the award. Belmont asked two other Oak Point teachers for recommendations, and they immediately agreed.
Belmont will be officially recognized for her award, along with the other honorees, at the AEM Fall Conference on Nov. 7-8. She will also present a session titled “Supporting Indigenous Culture in Elementary Art,” one of the subjects she is most passionate about.
The talk, which was announced on AEM’s Instagram, will offer “tips and resources for enriching and cultivating Dakota and Ojibwe indigenous culture in elementary art.”
The opportunity to present one of her passions at a large conference feels almost as meaningful to Belmont as the award itself. Beyond the professional and personal growth it offers, she said, it also helps bring more recognition to art educators — and teachers as a whole — for the work they do.
Overall, however, Belmont knows this award is bigger than her.
“(This award means) that the arts in Minnesota are honored and recognized,” Belmont said. “The fact that Minnesota’s had this organization, Art Educators of Minnesota, and it’s been growing the last few years, it just confirms to me that our arts community is just so supportive, it’s growing, and we are, a lot of times, the heart of the school because so many kids can connect to the arts.”
