Jeff Hall becomes first two-time Patricia E. Taylor Teaching Award recipient.
When Jeff Hall travels to South Africa this June, the journey will be about far more than a stamp in his passport.
For the Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School visual arts teacher, it will be an opportunity to experience African art and culture firsthand – and bring those insights back to his classroom.
The trip is supported by the Patricia E. (Pat) Taylor Teaching Award, funded by the Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School Foundation. Hall was the award’s inaugural recipient in 2013, and with this latest recognition he has become the first teacher in school history to receive it twice. For a school whose mission includes international studies, the goal is simple: Send teachers out to learn so they can bring the world back to their students.
Hall, a visual arts teacher in his 19th year at Maggie Walker and his 32nd year in the classroom, has built his career around that idea.
This year’s award will support a three-week trip to South Africa, where Hall plans to immerse himself in African art and culture with the same curiosity that shapes his teaching. The trip also begins with a candid acknowledgment that he has gaps in his own education to fill.
“I did not have a great art historical training in the art of the continent of Africa,” Hall said. “Africa is obviously a continent – not one country – but the art history books have largely treated it as such.”
That realization became the starting point for a proposal rooted in learning more deeply and teaching more truthfully. Hall wants to encounter African art not as a textbook category, but as something lived, used, performed and experienced.
“What I have found is that when you see art in person, as opposed to on a computer screen,” he said, “it really enhances your ability to explain it better to students.”
Western art is often designed to hang on a wall and be observed from a distance, he noted.
But “African art is meant to be experienced in motion and in use.”
Learning from place
Hall’s itinerary reflects that philosophy. He plans to travel through Cape Town, Johannesburg and Kruger National Park, visiting major arts institutions such as the Zeitz and Iziko museums as well as contemporary galleries and cultural sites that illuminate both traditional and modern artistic practices. He also hopes to meet artists working across the African continent.
Among the traditions he is most eager to explore is Ndebele art, known for its bold geometric paintings on homes and intricate beadwork filled with symbolism. In researching the trip, Hall has already been struck by how much there is to learn within a single artistic medium.
“While someone might say ‘this is just beading,’” he said, “this is a whole other level of deep dive.”
The work carries layers of meaning through color, pattern and design. In some traditions, beadwork can even serve as a form of communication, with a woman gifting a piece to express interest in a man.
Hall also plans to visit Robben Island and other sites tied to the legacy of apartheid.
“Art has always thrived in challenging times,” he said. “Even in some of the worst times and the worst of places, art is still being produced, sometimes as documentation and sometimes as just a human reaction to a situation.”
Even after decades in the classroom, Hall still talks more like a student than an expert.
“The longer you teach, the more you realize how little you know,” he said. “There’s just so much more to know.”
That mindset shapes how he approaches his classroom at Maggie Walker. Although his courses are studio-based, he intentionally weaves art history and cultural context into projects so students understand that art does not emerge in isolation.
Bringing the world back to students
Hall plans to bring his South Africa experience directly into the classroom. He hopes to return with photographs, recordings and research that can enrich future units on Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as ideas for hands-on projects inspired by beadwork and other artistic traditions. As the award requires, he also will share insights from his travel with colleagues at a faculty meeting, helping extend the impact of his experience throughout the building.
He also hopes to collaborate with the art club on a new interior mural reflecting African themes, helping broaden the school’s visual representation of world cultures.
Just as important, Hall wants students to follow the trip as it unfolds – much as they did during his first Pat Taylor Teaching Award journey in 2013, when he traveled to Berlin, Venice and Istanbul to explore the political role of art across history.
Through blogging and social media updates, he plans to share discoveries in real time.
“Exposure to diverse cultural perspectives ensures that gifted students see themselves reflected in the curriculum,” Hall said. “This experience will strengthen my ability to connect them to art as a universal expression of our shared humanity.”
The recently closed “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys” exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts included several African artists Hall plans to study more deeply in June. A recent field trip to the museum allowed him to introduce those artists – and many other Black artists across other cultures – to his students.
A legacy that continues
The Pat Taylor Teaching Award is designed to create ripple effects. One teacher studies a topic, but the return reaches far beyond a single lesson, shaping how students understand cultures, histories and artistic traditions around the world.
For Hall, that impact is inseparable from the woman whose name is attached to the award.
Taylor, who died in late 2025, helped recruit Hall to Maggie Walker nearly two decades ago. At the time, he had founded the Center for the Arts at Henrico High School, and Taylor saw what he could help build at Maggie Walker.
Hall remembers her as “a force of nature” – a gifted early administrator instrumental to the founding of the Governor’s School who believed deeply in teachers, removed obstacles and championed bold ideas during the school’s formative years. When Taylor encouraged him to join the school, she offered reassurance that still resonates today.
“If you can dream it,” she told him, “you can make it happen at Maggie Walker.”