The September Mailbag: Class Sizes, Student Helpers, and Projects that Fail (Ep. 433)

Tim:

Welcome to Art Ed Radio, the podcast for art teachers. This show is produced by the Art of Education University, and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz.

It’s the first podcast of the month, so of course it is the mailbag episode, Amanda is here and ready to answer some questions! Thank you to all of you who wrote in via email and thank you to those of you who answered our questions on social media. I’m excited to do a check-in on how people are doing at the beginning of the school year and how things are going. And those of you who are going to finally START school this week or next, let me just say that everyone is a little bit jealous but still very happy for you.

I mentioned last week that everyone has different goals for their classroom for the beginning of the year. Some people want to get routines and procedures down immediately, others just want kids to enjoy coming to the art room, some people want to have a mix of artmaking and logistics and how the classroom is going to run. So we have a few questions along those lines today, and I’m looking forward to talking about them.

Let me bring on Amanda and we will get started on the mailbag! Amanda Heyn is joining me now. Amanda, how are you?

Amanda:

I’m good. I’m a little sleepy. My kids started school yesterday, but transition time, but I’m doing well. That means I get to be back at home and not in an office for the summer, so I’m feeling pretty happy about that.

Tim:

I was going to say, it’s good to see you in the normal background that I’m used to. For me too. It’s good [inaudible 00:00:25]-

Amanda:
Oh good. Yes, that’s why I’m here.

Tim:
I was going to say, my kids have been in school for a month now, so it’s wild to me.

Amanda:
I know.

Tim:
But it’s a little different. We need to talk about that too. I wanted to kind of do a celebratory shout-out a little bit later on, just because I feel like teachers are a little more excited to be going back to school right now. Things seem to be going a little bit better, so we can chat about that in a second. But first we need story time. How are you? What’s been going on with you? What’s new in the past month?

Amanda:
Yeah, okay. Well, I have three things.

Tim:
Oh, okay.

Amanda:

Number one, this is garden adjacent, so if you’re not somebody who likes garden talk, again, just fast-forward. Poisonous plants are taking over my yard and I’m not really sure what to do about it. There’s this thing called poke berry and I didn’t know it was poisonous until my friend is redoing one of our front gardens and she was like, “Oh, there’s poisonous plants in here.” And I was like, “What?” She’s like, “Yeah, these are poisonous.” Then I looked it up on the internet and it ranges from, “That’s definitely not poisonous, just don’t eat it.” All the way to, “This causes a poison oak like rash.” My way of dealing with that is just letting them grow five feet tall, because I don’t know what do I do?

But it’s not my fault, it’s the neighbor’s fault because it’s lining one whole side of their house where they can’t see, but we’re not friendly with them, so I don’t know what to do. I feel like this is my own mailbag question. If anybody has advice for this tricky, nuanced situation, please email us. Anyway so I can pull them out of my yard, but I can’t do anything… It’s by where my kids play and I don’t know how poisonous they are. Anyway, that’s happening. My second thing is, it’s back to school. My kids had a clean-up day at their school where families can go and help, and the first year we went, when my younger son was starting, they were like, “Can anyone here do bulletin boards? It’s kind of tricky.” I was like-

Tim:
You’re like, “I’m a bulletin board expert.”

Amanda:
“Can anyone here do…” I got this. Now we’re on year five and they just save it. They just put my name on the sheet, nobody else can take it.

Tim:
I love it.

Amanda:
So this year my kids joined in for the first time, so now they know how to put up a bulletin board. I just feel like I’m really passing down the skills of my trade to my family.

Tim:
Absolutely. Something gets passed from generation to generation.

Amanda:
So should they ever work in education or anywhere there’s a bulletin board-

Tim:
They’ll be on top of it.

Amanda:
… maybe a library.

Tim:
Can I make a quick confession?

Amanda:
Yeah.

Tim:
I feel like I may have said this on the podcast before, but I’m not sure. I only had two years as an elementary art teacher and I was traveling between schools. I did not have any bulletin board responsibilities. I have never put up a bulletin board.

Amanda:
Oh my God, we have to change this. How can you change it? We must…

Tim:
Maybe we need a bulletin board for my background when we’re recording or when I’m in Zoom meetings and then I just need to change that out. This is a terrible idea, I don’t want any part of this.

Amanda:
No, no. You haven’t experienced the joy of picking out your borders and then using the die cut machine to do your letters and then pinning everything up and seeing if you like it, and then the satisfying staple gun. I feel a lot of people are nodding along to me.

Tim:
This all sounds terrible to me. I don’t know.

Amanda:
People are not.

Tim:
When you said staple gun, I got a little intrigued-

Amanda:
Get your tools out.

Tim:
Yeah, overall, no, I don’t like this.

Amanda:
Okay, that’s fair. But I’m shocked about that.

Tim:
Yeah. I don’t know. I feel like there’s just something I probably missed out on in never having put together one, but-

Amanda:
You didn’t do it-

Tim:
… I’m okay with that.

Amanda:
… when we did the art room makeover.

Tim:
No, I was not in charge of that.

Amanda:
No, I was.

Tim:
I know, I know. I don’t know. I guess if somebody wants to invite me into their classroom to come put up a bulletin board, it’ll be very questionable how the end product is going to look, but I would be willing to give it a try.

Amanda:
Okay. I really like this for you.

Tim:
Okay. Sorry about this little jaunt off course, but you did have a third story that I think you wanted to tell.

Amanda:
Well, it’s not really a story, it’s just like I have something to tell everybody and I can’t tell them yet, and it’s eating me from the inside and I can’t… I just want to tell everybody so badly we have something new coming.

Tim:
We’re like two weeks away at this point.

Amanda:
I know. Please get on our email list. Please follow us on Instagram. It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever done here and I’ve done so many things, launched so many things, revamped so many things, and this is by far the most fun and exciting for everybody. I don’t know. That’s all I can say. That’s really annoying. I get really annoyed when people do that, but I just… You know what it is.

Tim:
You have to bring it up. No, I’m excited too. We have big announcement coming in a couple of weeks. We have a podcast coming about it in three weeks. So just stick with us and you’ll find out and you’ll love it.

Amanda:
I think that could say, it’s going to provide new opportunities for collaboration, creativity, connections-

Tim:
Connections. Yeah.

Amanda:
I’ll say that.

Tim:
Okay. I like this. That’s good. Okay, now everybody’s either-

Amanda:
What’s your story?

Tim:
… intrigued or really annoyed at this point after. I just have one quick story. My kids both run cross country, which I think I’ve talked about before. They had time trials to see whether you’re going to be on varsity or JV or whatever, so kids are just running all out. It’s like a real race before the races actually start. My son is kind of middle of the pack and he was really just going all out to try and catch this kid at the end of their race. It’s a minute to go, you could see them both come in, they’re both just sprinting as hard as they can to try and finish. My son lost by a matter of two or three seconds and he was just worn out and just exhausted after doing this. But the kid next to him was literally puking into the grass like three or four times, which is not uncommon during cross country races. It’s just go all out for three miles of running and then they throw up. A lot of races will just have a trash can at the end of the race.

Amanda:
Why do people go running? This is my whole argument. I don’t get it.

Tim:
Yeah, it’s gross. It’s bad. Apologies to anybody who did not want to hear about that. But I was just going to share my son’s comment and I just said, “I’m kind of disappointed to lose by just a couple seconds.” And he is like, “Yeah, but did you see him after the race? I was watching him puke and I just thought to myself, ‘who’s the real winner here?'” I guess that is the correct approach.

Amanda:
I really do. Okay, I like this story again.

Tim:
Yeah, that was a good one. But anyway, I have lots of cross country meets coming for the foreseeable future, but it’s nice to get outside and watch my kids run. I enjoy it. It’ll be good. It’ll be a fun couple of months for this season, so that should be good.

Okay. Before we get into the Mailbag, I wanted to start with these celebrations. Like I said, just talking to all of my friends, all the teachers, I know people seem more energetic, more enthused about being back to school. I was talking to my friend Mandy, who teaches fifth grade and she’s like, “Nobody has hit me or kicked me or cussed at me yet, so things are going great.”

Amanda:
Wow.

Tim:
It’s like, “Well, if that’s one of the perspectives that you want to take, that’s fine. Whatever works for you.” No, she said her kids have been much better. My wife is thrilled with her students that she has this year, which I think is great. We actually asked on Instagram and Facebook what’s going well for people and a ton of great responses. @ArianaSuave said, “Students are excited and engaged.” @msmurphyart said, “Student excitement is really good this year.” A lot of people are loving how eager students are to be back and to learn, which is a big change from past few years. And [inaudible 00:09:45] said she has a new visual timer and the visual timer is a hit. Which I don’t know, do you have any thoughts on visual timers? I never used one.

Amanda:
I have a whole podcast on visual timers and me, but I will just say the visual timer for our household, our personal household, has been a literal game changer. We use it multiple times a day, every single day. So I can see… They were just starting to be a thing when I left the classroom, honestly, so I never got a chance to use it with my students, but I definitely would if I was in the classroom right now.

Tim:
Yeah, it seems like such a great thing to invest in. And then Kelly Burge on Facebook said that she did foam block printing on the first day with second and third-graders, which are very brave with Kelly. So they each got to take two prints home and made a collaboration poster.

Amanda:
Holy cow.

Tim:
That’s real impressive for first days of the school. Then of course a bunch of people pointed out that the school has not started for them yet, which very happy for you too as well. Then a lot of teachers are excited for new phone policies at their school. My kids, they’re both in high school now and their school has locked down the phones and just talking to all of their teachers, they’re thrilled with it. The kids enjoy it because of all the reasons we’ve talked about these things ad nauseum. But kids are pretty happy with it for the most part too, at least my kids, their friends, people they talk to. Anyway, lots of things to celebrate is the long and short of it. But what are you hearing from teachers you’re talking to? What are your impressions of the school year so far?

Amanda:
Very similar. People are just excited to be back. The thing that I keep hearing is that it just feels different. It feels different this year. I don’t even know if I’d go so far to say normal, but just because of what it even is normal after the last five years, that’s hard to qualify. But it just feels different and it feels good.

My kiddo’s school also has a new phone policy and we got my newly minted middle schooler a smartwatch for the first time and we were explaining that it was going to be in school mode and he was like, “What if I have to check the weather?” And I was like, “What? Just look out the window. What are you talking about?” Anyway, I’m also personally excited about that. I feel like that’s a lot of the discussion happening in schools, also in parenting groups I’m in, just the role of technology. It feels like we’re coming to maybe a good point with that and a lot more people are realizing what the role of technology is in school and trying to do things to help kids who are not capable of making those decisions for themselves. But yeah, just a lot of excitement and enthusiasm for trying new things and it feels exciting to me.

Tim:
Yeah, I agree. I love hearing that from so many teachers and I love anytime we can get together and talk amongst our teachers and share stories, share ideas and everything that comes with that. It’s all good to hear. All right, we are ready-

Amanda:
Is it time?

Tim:
Can you make the announcement?

Amanda:
Yes. Let’s open up the Mailbag.

Tim:
Okay. Our first question is from Chloe in Michigan. Chloe emailed me to ask you a question. She says, “This is for Amanda. I’ve heard you talk before about giving kids helper jobs, which is something I want to do in my classroom, but don’t know where to start. What jobs do you give them? How do you explain them and how do you pick the kids?”

Amanda:
I love this question. Thanks Chloe. Okay. There are a few different ways you can approach this. There are many systems that you can look to for people online or whatever, but I’m going to give you mine and the system that I used was for elementary, so I want to make that clear, but I do think it could be adapted to many ages. It’s funny because I saw this question and I was like, “Yeah, I know. I remember what I did.” Then I was like, “But what exactly were the jobs.” So I found a YouTube video from literally 12 years ago on the AOEU website.

Tim:
Is this still on the AOEU… What?

Amanda:
Where I explained this to myself to refresh my memory. Again, I remembered the basics, but I couldn’t quite remember exactly what jobs I had in this specific system. So the system is super simple. I had four groups of tables that sat eight students each. Each table group was assigned a color, and then I had a chart that depicted four different consistent rotating jobs that came up really frequently in the art room. So that was washing tables, drying tables, straightening and organizing the table caddies, and then picking up the floor and pushing in the chairs. So these were reasonably things that would have to be done most art classes.

The chart then had movable colored dots so I could swap which tables were assigned to which jobs really easily. Then the job was depicted with a picture, so there was no reading involved and just a colored dot. So even kindergartners could use this chart. Then I would assign each table group to a specific job for about a month. So for example, purple tables were in charge of washing the tables in October, and then I would rotate the colors and then they’d be on table drying duty for November or whatever. This system worked really, really well because the kids learned it in kindergarten and then they remembered it. It’s not hard. They remembered it all throughout.

In terms of teaching the kids how to do this, it looked a few different ways over the years. Sometimes I would set up stations where they would rotate between learning the cleaning station and then some easy art making stations, free drawer pattern blocks or whatever was appropriate for the grade level I was teaching. That was one way that I did it. So beginning of the year stations are great anyway, fold in teaching them how to take care of the art room in those stations or in those beginning of your activities. Another time I just did a demonstration for one of the cleaning jobs at the end of each class for a month, and rotate through until they’ve seen them all. But maybe my favorite thing to do was make a video. So you make a short video about the dos and don’ts of each job. It’s really fun if you can recruit student council kids to help you act the wrong way, like things that kids think [inaudible 00:16:31]-

Tim:
I’m envisioning infomercials where people just spill popcorn all over themselves because they can’t hold a bowl correctly. Is that what we’re thinking?

Amanda:
Exactly.

Tim:
Okay.

Amanda:
This is really great too., because you make it once, you can reuse it year after year and it saves your voice, at the beginning of the year, we know we’re talking all day long. Then also every class gets the exact same info and if you need a refresher, you just pull out the video again. Anyway, depending on what works for you.

Tim:
Can I ask a question real quick?

Amanda:
Yes.

Tim:
I’m just thinking of people who don’t have the time to make a video and are perhaps less type A than you. Are there other ways-

Amanda:
What do mean?

Tim:
Are there other ways to approach this that if you don’t have the time or the desire to set up an elaborate color-coded system?

Amanda:
Yeah. Okay. Well, I would push back a tiny bit and say the time that you spend will save you literal hours.

Tim:
Fair. Yes.

Amanda:
But there are times, there are many jobs outside of those four jobs that you need to do, like washing brushes or refilling supplies or testing markers. Or I think we have actually a cleanup job resource that maybe we can link to the show notes that’s 50 or 60 jobs that you can have your kids do.

Tim:
I know exactly what you’re talking about. We’ll put that in the show notes.

Amanda:
Yeah, if you need ideas. But here’s what I would say for that. If you want your kids to do a different job or any job, make sure it is a job you can explain in two minutes or less, because you do not have time to stop in the middle of class and teach an entire giant routine. There’s two ways to think about the kids you choose. Either kids you really trust or kids who need a job. Do you know what I mean when I say kids who need a job?

Tim:
We all know what you mean.

Amanda:
I have a personal child who needs a job sometimes. In that case, I would make sure the rest of the class is running smoothly. I would stop those kids a couple of minutes early, pull them aside, give them your two-minute demonstration. Do the job in front of them so that they can see what you’re doing. Don’t just say, “Go wash the paintbrushes. Here’s how you do it very quickly,” and then leave them to it. If you do it that way, I would pick a very small group of kids so you’re monitoring sort of your regular class and then you only have one to three other kids doing other things that you’re worrying about. So you’re not teaching a whole table, you’re not telling 10 kids to go do something. It’s a few select kiddos that need to do a specific job and that you feel can do that job independently.

Tim:
Okay, great advice. Thank you. Thank you.

Amanda:
You’re welcome.

Tim:
Our next question is from Cyndi in Florida. Cindy says, “I knew Pre-K was going to be crazy, but wow.” In all caps.

Amanda:
That’s so many W’s.

Tim:
“Do you have any ideas that can help me? I see them three days a week for 25 minutes. Should I just do five-minute stations or is there a better way to set it up for them? What can those stations be?” So Amanda, Pre-K advice.

Amanda:
Yeah. Okay. I will say I never taught Pre-K. However, my kids went to a Reggio preschool that did a ton of art, had a dedicated art studio. I spent a lot of time in there volunteering, and I did a ton of art at home with my own kids when they were that age, so I’m going to kind of pull from those experiences. I would also encourage you to check out an article by a past writer Lee Tenhove, who did teach Pre-K, and it’s called Eight Ways to Sing Dance and Play Your Way to a Successful Pre-K Art Period. So if you can link that, that would be great.

Tim:
That is a very good article. Yes.

Amanda:
Okay. So first I do think stations can absolutely work. I would keep the same stations for multiple class periods so that kids get used to what to do at each one. You do not want them coming and you’re trying to teach them four new stations-

Tim:
Every single time.

Amanda:
Every single time.

Tim:
No, not anymore.

Amanda:
Then you can rotate new ones in every once in a while or start to mix and match them. But if know what happens at the block station, great. Why don’t you do that a couple of times? I would also think about how to break up the period in other ways with things like read alouds and movement breaks. So think about a very simple routine that you can do. Again, we’re trying to build a system for these kiddos so they know what to expect and you know what to expect. Maybe that’s book then a song or a movement break, then they watch you do something and then they do it. So very, very simple. I’m happy to hear you only have 25 minutes with them and not an hour.

Tim:
Right. Because I’ve heard teachers who have 50 minutes with three and four year olds, and like, “What do you even do?” So yes.

Amanda:
Right. Totally.

Tim:
And I would just point out that it doesn’t necessarily matter what the routine is, just that you have a routine.

Amanda:
Totally.

Tim:
Those are great examples, but Cindy, do what works for you. Whatever you want that routine to be, that’s fine. Just stay consistent so the kids know what to expect. Like you said. Go ahead.

Amanda:
My last tip is just think about process over product. Kids at this age, it’s much more beneficial for them to experiment versus make something. So I wouldn’t default to crafts, unless you’re working on a specific fine motor skill. I would give them other things to do and then just let them experiment and play with materials. And if you need some sort of product to send home, one thing I really love about the Reggio philosophy is documentation. We would just get a ton of pictures. So maybe the documentation, the product of art class is a photo of each kiddo getting their hands messy in some clay or something like that.

Tim:
And you can just talk about why that experience is important to them, what they’re learning, things like that. Parents and admins will love something like that if you do need a product, so that’s good advice. Really quickly, could we brainstorm just a list, like ideas for stations?

Amanda:
Yes.

Tim:
I’ll give you a second to think while I… Because as you were talking, I was just thinking about what are the stations that are going to be good? You mentioned blocks, I think that’s a good one. I was thinking about Duplos, just because I have my kids’ Lego construction right in front of me, so that made me think about that. I thought about clay just because kids love doing hands-on, and then maybe just big supplies like jumbo crayons or things that pre-K kids can use and hold. I don’t know. What about you? What stations do you think would be good for that age?

Amanda:
Well, I would think about developing motor skills, whether that’s fine motor skills or gross motor skills honestly, at that age. Again, some of these are going to be appropriate for your kids, some of them won’t, so take the ideas that work for you.

Tim:
Yeah, I suppose I should put the disclaimer before I start talking about Duplo’s and-

Amanda:
Well, it’s funny, in a Reggio setting, they use real art materials, so acrylic paint, Sharpie markers, it’s really wild. They also have six kids at a time or three kids at a time for the really little ones. We’re not doing that in a public school setting with 25 kiddos. But yes, anything that gets them building. So we said building blocks and Duplo’s. Pattern blocks are really great, whether you have them match the pattern that comes on the sheets that come with those, or just free form build patterns can be really fun. Magnets on a white board kids love that.

Another one that I’m stealing from Reggio is get a light table and have translucent objects on top of it. So they’re kind of building, but they’re also playing with light and color and transparency. That’s super, super fun. You can have them build with small PVC pipes and elbows, which is super fun. To teach them how to paint, I forget, if somebody remembers where this idea came from, please tell me, but painting with water on construction paper. So there’s no paint even. I know somebody gave us this idea, I don’t know if it’s in an old article or whatever. I’ll see if maybe we can find it and link it in the show notes, but maybe it was an old now presentation, I can’t remember. But I thought that was a brilliant idea. You know what might be Lindsay Moss, A-R-T 1-2-3 on YouTube.

Tim:
I think you’re right.

Amanda:
Okay. Everybody should check that series out, because they have a lot of applicable things here. Also, so I would let them paint eventually. Washable, washable, washable, tempera and easels is really important at this age. They don’t have enough fine motor skills generally to do super well on a tabletop, but if you put it on a big easel and give them a big chunky brush and two colors, they’ll be happy. Again, I would do that at a station so you have two kids painting at a time.

Tim:
Yes.

Amanda:
Then my last idea is shaving cream on a table and then have them draw with their fingers into it. Again, really highly sensory experiences will capture these kiddos, I think.

Tim:
Yeah, that’s a fun one for every age. I remember hearing about that and trying it with my high schoolers and oh my God, they loved it. That works for anybody, but I think that’s a great idea. All right, well thank you for all of those suggestions. I think that’ll be good. And Cindy, good luck.

Amanda:
Yes, let us know how it’s going. Let us know if you try any of those things, and what happens.

Tim:
We would love some updates if you want to follow up. Okay, next question is from Hannah in California. Hannah says, “Have you ever failed a project at the beginning of the year?” Oh yes. Many times. We’ll talk about that. “Just had something totally flop. I tried to do some silhouette, self-portrait, but the kids hated them and they turned out terrible. I think I’ve turned things around now, but do you have any advice on what to do when something doesn’t work or just totally goes awry? Also, if you have any ideas for my next project, I would appreciate it. We are doing neuro graphic art right now and the kids are loving it.” So Amanda, please be vulnerable and talk about your failures.

Amanda:
I think I’ve already done that on this podcast. My biggest to date failure rag rugs. I don’t know if I got into it before . . .

Tim:
I remember you talking about this.

Amanda:
But okay. The fourth graders at my school did Pioneer Days and I was like, “Yes, we’re going to make rag rugs. Then they can each make a mini one and we can make a collaborative one, they can live in the art room.” What was I thinking? First of all, you have to teach kids how to braid. Second, you have to teach kids how to tie knots. And third, you have to teach them how to sew. Obviously this was in my second year of teaching, I didn’t know better. But I went all in. I collected old T-shirts from the community. I washed them at my house. I cut them into… I put so much effort into this. If I’m being honest, probably in the first 20 minutes I was like, “Oh my God, I made a big mistake.”

Tim:
What have I done?

Amanda:
But I persevered for probably three class periods and then I was like, “This is the disaster. It is never going to work.” I think actually it takes more guts to just be like, “Hey, we’re done.” Rather than to push through. Because it’s so good for kids to see that quite honestly. But yeah, it was bad. It was bad in terms of the time suck, there were definitely kids crying. It was just bad. What about you?

Tim:
I should not laugh about kids crying. But no, it happens. I would just say I have failed all of the things all of the times. It’s not a rare experience for me to just have a project completely go off the rails, it’s just something that comes from trying new things consistently. I was not a teacher who did the same thing year after year, so I’m always trying new things and sometimes they work and sometimes, oh, they do not. In Hannah’s case, I would say it’s not ideal to have that happen at the beginning of the year, but at the same time, those lessons that you learn, like you just mentioned, those lessons you learn from failing can carry on throughout the year.

I would just say, the first time that I realized, “Oh, this project is going nowhere quickly, we probably need to,” like you said, “Wrap it up and just call it off.” That’s tough to do. That’s very tough to do, especially the first time that it happens. But I will say, as soon as I said, “Hey, I don’t think this is working, I noticed that you all are hating it and I think we should probably just bring this to an end.” Just the palpable sense of relief in classroom was incredible. I felt relief just saying that. You could see all of the kids just exhale and, “Okay, good, let’s move on.” So they were pretty receptive to just letting that one go. Like I said, I think it’s great for kids to be able to see, we make mistakes, we learn from them, we do things differently moving on. Nobody likes to fail a lesson, but there are a lot of valuable lessons to be learned from that project or that lesson if you do call it off early. So I would say don’t be afraid to do that.

Amanda:
Yeah, I agree. Just own it, like, “What did you learn?” I think that’s another important piece, what did you learn from this experience? You can share that with your kids and be like, “It wasn’t a total loss. We learned, we don’t like making rag rugs. We learned maybe we’re not ready for this, maybe we need to build some skills before we try this again.” Whatever it is, and then just move on and the kids will be very happy to go along with something else.

Tim:
Yeah. Also, Hannah said, “I would love ideas for your next project.” I would say, if you don’t have anything in mind specifically, ask your kids. Ask them what they want to learn, what they want to do, what they want to try, and then you can learn that together. Even if you want to bring in the past failure and say, “Hey, this last one didn’t work. This is something we’re going to try,” because you all are interested. Let’s see how it goes and just kind of learn that together with them. I think that can be a good way to go about it.

Amanda:
Or if they’re loving neuro graphic art, what could you stretch that in some way? Could you do a neuro graphic portrait or maybe they would enjoy Zentangles once a month. Think about what they are enjoying about your current experience and how can you use that as a thread to connect to wherever you go next.

Tim:
Yeah, whether that’s line work or color or abstraction or whatever, just take lessons-

Amanda:
Yeah, maybe it’s the watercolor if you’re coloring them that way. Kind of let them lead you.

Tim:
Yeah, I think that’s great advice. Okay, next question is from Carrie in New Hampshire. Carrie says, “I have my first art club meeting at the beginning of September and I’m not sure what to do with them. What are your best art club ideas? I have all of the supplies and can do pretty much anything. This is for middle school.”

Amanda:
Okay. I did not do art club, but I did run a couple of small SEL… I guess it was art club, but it was just during the school day with a small group of kids. But first I want you to check out Art Show Secrets over on Instagram, which we are releasing right now. It traces Sarah Kryesky and Jen Russell through a whole year of planning their art show. But one cool thing that Sarah talks about throughout, is how she has her art club heavily involved in her art show every year. So giving those kids a real sense of responsibility and leadership through the art show, through art club, I think is really cool. She also has a great pro pack, if you have pro called running an elementary art club. Again, I know it’s not middle school, but I think you can take a lot of the ideas Sarah talks about, they’re very applicable to older grade levels.

But I would think about, it can be really tricky to figure out what to do if you only have a broad question of, “What should I do with my art club?” That’s a really hard question to answer. So I would give you some other questions to think about, which are, what is the purpose of your art club? What skills do you want your kids to have after participating in art club? Whether those are media-based skills or like I said, maybe they’re leadership skills or collaborative skills. Do you want students to develop more as individual artists and have their own thing to do, or do you want them to develop more as collaborators? Are there any ways art club can make your life easier? So again, can you have the kids help care for the studio, help hang up work? Chances are if they’re in art club, it’s because they love being in the art room. They love you as a teacher. They just want to know more about the whole process. And so I think that’s a great opportunity to give them, quite honestly.

Are there any big projects you wanted to tackle that art club would help with? Or are there any processes or techniques or materials or projects that you’ve wanted to try but you’ve been too apprehensive to do with a big group? Art club is a great lab, for lack of a better word, for you as a teacher to try out and see, “Okay, what are kids struggling with, what are they liking?” Things like that. Then the last question I would have is, what do your students want to do? Kind of like we just talked about, put it back on them. What are they hoping to get out of art club? Why did they sign up? What kinds of things do they hope they’ll be doing? I think that can drive a lot of what you do as well.

Tim:
Yeah, I think that’s great. I will sort of capitalize on that last question too and I would just say what your students want to do is kind of the key question that drives what Art Club can do, or for me, that was always the case. Honestly, a lot of times kids don’t care what they do, they just want to be in art club. They want to do some creating, but more than that, like you said, Amanda, they want to hang out in the art room. They probably want to be with you as a teacher or they want to hang out with their friends and do fun things. So don’t stress too much about exactly what you’re doing, just have something for them to do. It can be anything, they’re probably going to enjoy it. As long as it’s something that’s a little bit fun, then they will be happy to be there.

I would just say, I approached art club or have approached Art Club in two different ways throughout my career. I’ve done a very involved, very intense sort of thing when I was first building my art program. Then I’ve also done a hands off once a month thing when I got tired of that. I think either approach can be reasonable and it works fine. When I first started, I was trying to build my program, trying to get kids to sign up for art classes, so we met every week. Just because, well, again, I’m providing a space for kids to hang out and just kind of create. Sometimes I wouldn’t even have lessons for them just be like, “Hey, keep drawing whatever.” Or, “Here’s some markers, go crazy with whatever you want to draw.” But they just wanted to be there. I was going to be there cleaning my room or grading stuff or setting up for whatever. Just kind of providing a space for them.

Now in good conscience, I cannot recommend that people do that, especially if you’re not getting paid much to do that. But if it’s something that you’re okay with and want to do while you’re building your program, then go for it. But yeah, we did everything. We made T-shirts. Kids loved having T-shirts. They loved being a part of the group. I told one of my friends who was living in Germany at the time about art club and after that realized that people all around the world knew about our art club, so we called it the World Famous Art Club.

Amanda:
Amazing.

Tim:
Kids latched onto that too, like, “Oh yeah, they hear about us everywhere.” That’s a good way to just get involved in just providing a space, I think is the right way to think about art club. Then if you just do it once a month, that’s fine too because kids are still involved. They still have the opportunity to come in the art room, create some things, hang out with their friends, and I think that should be your goal and you don’t necessarily need to do anything more than that. What you do is less important than just the fact that you are providing an opportunity for the kids. So whatever they’re interested in, whatever you want to try out, go through that beautiful checklist of questions that Amanda put together, and I think that can give you some guidance on where to go with that. Amanda, that is all of the email questions. Can we check in on Instagram and what people were saying or asking on Instagram?

Amanda:
Yes, we have two questions from Instagram. We asked what people were struggling with this year and we’d love to help you brainstorm some things. @Abbyapplesauce, @Roseknowit, these are good Instagram handles, and @Marionnaki said, “Class sizes!” Tim, do you have any thoughts there?

Tim:
Yeah, I do. If I can just tell a quick story. My very first year of moving to the high school, I got to my ceramics class and I had three levels of ceramics and 39 kids total in my classroom, which is not a great way to start your first year at the high school. I just had to learn really quickly how to deal with that. Just in the same manner of Amanda asking you a million questions, rapid fire about what you want to get out of your art club, I will share just a few ideas that really help me in dealing with huge class sizes.

I think spending a lot of time talking about or figuring out logistics and your systems for everything from passing out paper to handing out materials, how all of that’s going to work is going to be really important. Get as much shelving and as much storage as you can to put projects on, whether that is 2D, 3D, whatever. You need places to put all of that work. You need to make very clear that names have to go on everything, whether that be paper or ceramics project or whatever else you have. Make sure everything’s labeled, preferably with classes so you can keep things as organized as possible and give the kids more time to clean up. Make sure that they are taking plenty of time, more time than you think you need, because there’s a lot of supervising for you to do and you want to make sure that everything gets cleaned up, nothing gets left behind, so give them more time that you need.

Then I would also just approach that with administrators and see what kind of help they can offer you, whether you talk… Don’t go in and say, “Oh, my class size is huge, I can’t do this.” Talk to them like, “Hey, there are not enough chairs in my classroom for all of the kids that I have and that’s a concern for me. As far as safety, I’m not sure I can supervise all these kids. What recommendations do you have?” Or just talking about art, “This is a huge strain on my budget to be teaching 38 kids, to be teaching 42 kids.” And just ask them what advice they have, what help they can give you. It may or may not be actually helpful, but it is something that’s worth exploring.

All right. Thank you to Amanda! I appreciate her coming on, and appreciate her sharing her experiences and her expertise, as always. And as always, the show notes will have the resources, articles, podcasts, videos, and everything else we mentioned today, so it should all be easy to access for you.

We’ll wrap things up there. Thank you again to everyone who took the time to write in, we always love hearing from you! Hopefully we had some advice today that can be helpful to you, or if you think it may be helpful for someone else, we always appreciate you sharing and passing along these episodes. Best of luck to everyone as we continue to dive in to this school year!

Art Ed Radio is produced by the Art of Education University, with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. 

Thank you for listening! We will be back next week with an oldie but a goodie, as I think it will be perfect for literacy month in September and International Dot Day coming up on the 15th-ish. We’re going into the archives to find a great interview with the one and only Peter Reynolds. I’m excited for you to hear it next week!