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Art teacher Tanya Bachman does not allow her students to throw away unfinished work and start over with a fresh piece of paper. Her reason reaches far deeper than stretching a tight art budget.

“There are no mistakes in art. Only surprises,” said Bachman. “I’m not a quitter. I don’t let them quit. I teach them to persevere.”

Indeed, Bachman is not a quitter. She’s beaten breast cancer. Twice. A sign near her desk proclaims who Bachman is: “Survivor.”

“It made me treasure the small things in life,” she said. “You can’t control what happens in your life, but you can control your reaction to what happens.”

Bachman, 46, brings that positive attitude into her classroom at Laurin Middle School in Battle Ground. Last fall, she was awarded the 2014 Middle Level Educator of the Year award by the Washington Art Education Association.

On a typical day, Bachman teaches six art classes a day to her middle school students in fifth through eighth grades. Students roll up their sleeves and use pens, pencils, paint, clay, collage and much more.

“My philosophy is, I want my students to dabble so they can try many mediums and find what they really like,” Bachman said.

Student artwork covers her walls. To give her students a wider audience, Bachman arranges art shows at her school and in the community.

She invites professional artists into her classroom to give her students a glimpse of real-world art. Kyle Shold, a freelance illustrator and graphic designer, volunteers in Bachman’s class and is working with her to start an after-school art class.

He first met Bachman when his daughter was in her class. He recalled looking around her classroom and realizing that what his daughter and her classmates were learning was far more advanced than the art classes he’d taken in school.

“In my art class, we did crafts,” Shold said. “Tanya does studies of an art style as part of the curriculum. I wish that when I was in middle school and high school that I had that kind of art class. She has three-dimensional forms of a sphere and a cone so the kids can look at it and learn how to shade them. She has a lot of projects that don’t just cover one thing, like drawing. She goes out of her way to make sure it’s a well-rounded experience, and not just fun time.”

Coping with cancer

Within a one-year period, Bachman, her sister and mother were diagnosed with cancer. Bachman, 31 at the time, and her mother survived. Her beloved sister, Sonya R. Day, did not. When Day died at age 33, she left behind a daughter, Nkemdilim Aduka, who was 4 years old.

Bachman has embraced the role of auntie-mommy to her niece, Nkem, now 16 and a sophomore at Camas High School. She’s become her niece’s guardian, cheerleader and chauffeur for the promising scientist, student government leader, and track and field athlete.

“I am a very proud auntie-mommy,” Bachman said about her niece, who lives with Bachman and her long-time partner, Zachary Gaug.

Gaug stood by Bachman through her two bouts with cancer: surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy treatments. He also was there through her mom and sister’s fights with cancer.

“He’s my steadfast rock, my best friend and life partner,” Bachman said of Gaug.

Ten years after Bachman was first diagnosed, her cancer recurred. Both times, she lost her hair and chose to go to school bald rather than wear a wig. Some days, she drove straight from school to cancer treatment.

Since her battles with cancer, Bachman has been a support to two students with leukemia, one student with brain cancer and three staff members with breast cancer.

“The heroes in my life are the kids with cancer who have lost their hair,” said Bachman, who has donated more than four feet of her dark, curly hair for wigs for cancer patients.

Path to teaching

Bachman’s path to teaching not a straight line, but a meandering path. She was working in a dental office helping patients with billing when she had a day off and volunteered in an elementary school classroom.

That experience changed the course of Bachman’s life. It was so meaningful that she realized she wanted to be a teacher. A decade after graduating from high school, she returned to college and earned her master’s degree in teaching.

A poster on the wall reads: “Art class rocks.” Classical piano music played softly in the background. Paintbrushes in hand, students focused on their work.

Walking around her classroom, Bachman observed her students drawing abstract shapes and coloring them in a monochromatic color scheme.

“Anyone else need a green refill?” Bachman asked.

A student raised his hand. Bachman squirted tempera paint onto his palette. Bachman continued strolling around her classroom, stopping to offer encouragement and advice.

“Oh, Trevor! That’s amazing!” she told a boy. “I have the best job in the world,” Bachman said. “The students have the talent. I get to watch their talent unfold. I just pull it out of them.”

Shold, the professional artist, says he appreciates Bachman teaching art in a serious, in-depth way.

“Tanya sees art as an important fixture for kids,” said Shold. “In order to become a well-rounded individual, knowing about art and experiencing art is essential. It’s something important you should learn, just like you’re learning how to craft an essay or do math. Learning color theory, learning what shading and tinting are, one and two-point perspective. All of these things in art are important, and Tanya treats it very seriously.”

Bachman looked around her classroom at her students busy making art.

“I get to see that proud moment — that empowerment of the kids saying, ‘I did this!’ ” she said. “They can take this talent with them. Art can be a hobby, a passion or a career. Every day, this is the best gift. This is part of my healing.”