What Being an Art Student as an Adult Taught Me About Teaching Others

When you spend most of your career teaching others, it’s easy to forget what it feels like to be the learner. Taking art classes as an adult gave me the chance to sit on the other side of the table—and the lessons I took away have reshaped how I train people at work.

I’ve always been a pragmatic, logic-driven person who loves math and structure. For years, I avoided art because I assumed I wasn’t “creative enough.” I believed artistic talent was something you either had or didn’t—and I certainly didn’t. It wasn’t until I was looking for ways to decompress after long days of system implementations that I found myself in an art class.

To my surprise, those classes not only helped me relax, but they also taught me powerful lessons about how people learn.

Art Observation 1: The Learning Is in the Messiness

And boy, do I make a mess. One pottery teacher would often step in and fix things for me. The result? I didn’t learn a thing from her doing that.

Project Training Lesson 1:

Let learners struggle—at least a little. Ask questions. Give them space to try, fail, and figure it out. In system implementations, the richest learning often happens during testing—when things don’t go as planned, and people have to break problems down and investigate.

Art Observation 2: Even Art Has a Process

I used to think artists stared at a blank page and just painted masterpieces. In reality, they studied scenes, noticed movement, sketched drafts, mixed colors, and built layers. Once I understood the process, art felt far less intimidating.

Project Training Lesson 2:

Always teach the process from start to finish. Show what triggers it, walk through the middle, and explain how it ends. Too often, training focuses only on the “middle” steps—but understanding the inputs and outputs gives learners critical context.

Art Observation 3: Different Teachers, Different Insights

Each class brought a new instructor with unique strengths and perspectives. As I learned from different voices, certain concepts clicked in ways they hadn’t before.

Project Training Lesson 3:

Expose learners to multiple perspectives. Adult learners often need to hear things more than once—and in different ways—before it sticks. Different voices and approaches increase retention.

Art Observation 4: Context Makes Learning Engaging

Learning about the evolution of art—its time periods, materials, discoveries, and the cultural events that shaped it—brought the subject to life. The “why” behind the work made it more interesting.

Project Training Lesson 4:

Never skip the “why.” Training is more than showing how to do something—it’s about explaining the background, reasoning, and purpose. This context cements the learning.

The Big Takeaway

Stepping into the learner’s shoes reminded me that training isn’t just about delivering instructions—it’s about guiding discovery. Whether you’re shaping clay or implementing a new system, the best learning happens when curiosity meets patience.