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| Annie Zebekoglu |
| Visual Arts, Lexington High School |
| Annie Zebekoglu teaches Foundations of Art, Drawing
and Painting, Conceptual Graphic Design, and Cultural Expression through
Textile Design, and other arts courses. |
| Mrs. Zeybekoglu graduated from Smith with an A.B. in
Fine Arts and holds a Master of Arts in Teaching Art from Harvard.
When she finished her formal schooling she worked briefly as a professional
puppeteer, designing and building puppets and performing for children
in hospital settings. She wrote and produced a show for young children
at the Jocelyn Diabetic Clinic aimed at teaching them how to deal
with diabetes in a way that children could understand and relate to. |
| Mrs. Zeybekoglu has taught art at Park School in Brookline,
Cambridge School of Weston and Wheelock College; she spent the 20
years before coming to LHS running her own business as a graphic designer
in Boston. Clients included the Harvard Graduate School of Design,
several architectural firms, Park School, Cambridge School of Weston,
Concord Academy and Children’s Hospital. As an example of how
diverse a designer’s job can be, one project for Children’s
Hospital’s neuro-behavioral infant and child studies department
included designing and constructing a special bunting for premature
newborns. |
| In the late ’70s, she took a leave of absence
from Park School in order to accept the opportunity of designing a
book and discovered that the more balanced life of part-time teaching
and part-time professional work as a graphic designer suited her best
at that time. She has returned to full-time teaching because it “pushes
me––in a useful way––to consider ways of communicating
ideas actively. . . teaching is very growth-provoking . . . and forces
me to reconsider my own work.” As she watches and facilitates
the growth of her students it affects her own work. |
| As a teacher, one of her primary goals is to become
“dispensable” to students. She feels she has succeeded when
a student can adopt a project as his/her own and proceed without close
direction from her. Students are encouraged to take risks with their
work, whether the ultimate result is a “success” or not.
She cares more about the process than the final result because it
is in the process of creation and exploration that students are learning
the most. She endeavors to provide experiences that allow students
to become comfortable expressing themselves visually. Her assignments
are framed to define problems, urging students to find individual
solutions or interpretations. |
| Ms. Zeybekoglu lives in Boston with her family. They
have traveled widely to many countries including Greece, England,
Turkey, Mexico, Canada, France, Germany and Morocco. |
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