Evangel Classical Christian School Art Teacher Pushes Students to Slow Down, Sit Still, and See
By Lori Culpepper
In an age of instant gratification and overstimulation, teaching students to sit still and truly see something is a challenging task. At Evangel Classical Christian School (ECCS) in Alabaster, art teacher, Julia Hankins, is finding this to be very true. Yet, her goal remains to help train the abilities of her students so they can sit, see, and communicate visually.
“Kids have grown up with YouTube videos of artists making art very quickly because the process is sped up and played at five times the real speed,” Hankins says. “They have this understanding, wrongly, that art is only for fun. That either you’re good at it or you’re not, that it happens quickly, and that if you can’t do it perfectly, then there’s no reason to try. This is something I’m constantly pushing back against.”
Hankins has been an art teacher for 19 years, and for all of those, she has been at ECCS. Art teaches many necessary skills that overlap with other subjects, and Hankins says that in a classical Christian model of teaching, all subjects are connected. “We aim to educate the entire child. Of course, on a scholastic level, but also on a spiritual level and physical level, and we’re trying to hit all different parts of child development,” she says.
During elementary school, kids are learning basic building blocks, then in middle school, they are naturally more argumentative and questioning everything around them. In high school, Hankins says they’ve started grappling with some of the more difficult issues, and they’re also becoming more eloquent and able to speak about their ideas.
“How I teach art—and in all of our subjects—is structured so that students are able to naturally meld into that type of instruction as they go through those different stages. We are training them along the way with a Christian world view. It’s a long process that takes the entire time they’re in school,” Hankins says.
For Meg Goodsell, a 2025 ECCS graduate and art student, her senior year culminated in winning the 2025 Congressional Art Competition with her piece, “Answered Prayer.” As one of seven district winners in Alabama, she traveled to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., to present her piece to Congressman Gary Palmer. Her art will hang in the U.S. Capitol for one year.
“In this narrative drawing, I sought to express a metaphor for prayer as God reaches down to meet His people who 
call to Him in their need,” Goodsell says. “I was inspired by the expressive quality in which John Singer Sargent paints the hands of his subjects, and I wanted to imitate Sargent’s ability to express both emotion and intention in simple gestures. The photo references of my hands used for this drawing were taken by a classmate.”
Throughout the years, Goodsell and several other ECCS students have thrived in the art program and gone on to enter and win various local, statewide, and national art competitions with many different types of works. As a studio art teacher, Hankins says she introduces her students to different materials and media, such as pencil, charcoal, pastel, watercolor, acrylic, and clay. She says they start working from two-dimensional references to help with seeing and understanding large global shapes, then they move into more intricate shapes. They also study three-dimensional references, such as small still life pieces made from objects in nature, like twigs, branches, and berries.
Hankins says her students use observational skills to look at and record what’s in front of them while she constantly comes back to line, shape, and color, which are the elements and principles of art woven through every assignment. “They are learning to see. That’s really important in art,” she says.
Hankins says beauty is also always a big focus since it’s one of the main ingredients for art. “Some people would argue that art doesn’t have to be beautiful, but I would argue that we respond to things that are around us, and we are attracted to things that bring us joy and beauty,” she says. “In developing a child’s tastes and loves, we show them beautiful works of art, let them listen to masterpieces in music, and help them understand the excellence of the patterns in math. In all of these things they are exposed to truth, beauty, and goodness.”
The Christian worldview that serves as an umbrella over everything done in art classes, and all other classes at ECCS, is crucial, Hankins adds. “It’s truthful to depict things that are sometimes difficult or not always the most beautiful thing, but we need a reason for it to be there. We don’t gravitate toward ugliness for the sake of ugliness. Or evil for evil’s sake. If there is a negative, there has to be a redemption in that work.”
In today’s culture, she says it’s so important for students to understand this. “My goal in the art department has been to help train the abilities of my students so they can communicate visually, because these are very powerful tools at their disposal,” Hankins says. “We not only train students to be successful writers and orators, to write and speak good words to change minds and hearts, but we also to do that in visual art, which is an instant communicator. It can communicate an idea very quickly.”
While the art program for older ECCS students in sixth through 12th grades has been around for many years with Hankins at the helm, younger students will now have the opportunity to begin sitting, seeing, and creating as the program expands for the 2025-2026 school year.
Mrs. Hankins’ top five pieces of advice for new teachers:
- Love your students.
- Begin and end each day thinking of something you’re thankful for.
- Continually assess your curriculum and the way you present it.
- Each school year, look for a way that you can further your own skills in the subject or subjects you teach. Being excited about the material is the best way to ignite the interest in others!
- Take it one day at a time and take notes for your future self on what worked and what didn’t at the end of each unit.