December Mailbag: Devon Rodriguez, Holiday Gifts, and the Joys of Teaching (Ep. 398)

Welcome to Art Ed Radio, the podcast for our teachers. This show is produced by the Art of Education University, and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz. Friends, welcome to December. It is December 5th. We just finished one holiday break. We are just weeks away from another exciting winter break, and here to get you through those interminable three weeks, Amanda Heyn to entertain all of us. Amanda, thank you for coming back, doing another mailbag. How are you?

I’m great. I feel pressure now to be entertaining, but I think I can handle it.

I think you can do it for half an hour. That’s really all we need.

Okay. I am actually doing great. Last time I was here, I was doing terrible. I don’t know if you remember.

I do.

I did not hold back with that question, but I’m doing much better now. My classes are coming to a close. I’ve decided to take the next semester off because it turns out when you do a project on burnout, you learn a lot about burnout. You learn how to identify it and you learn what to do about it, which is…

I was going to say, and you’ve identified some things, is what you’re saying.

I’ve identified it in myself and so I’m taking a break and I’m so excited and I’m excited about the holidays. It snowed in Wisconsin, which I’m usually not a fan of at this point of the year, but it’s very sparkly and holiday ish, so I like it. How are you?

Just the right time. I’m doing well. We also got snow in Nebraska. I’m always excited for snow, and so…

But not to ski in it.

No, not to ski in it, no. We’ve learned that that’s a bad idea. We’ve discussed that. Just for aesthetic purposes. I like the snow being on the ground and so that’s been good. But yeah, like I said, just these few weeks in between Thanksgiving break and winter break are always tough. There’s so much going on and so much to do, but then once you get through it, it’s spectacular. I’m very much looking forward to time off later this month, so…

Same.

That’s going to be good. Okay. So last time, we were teasing a little bit our trip to New York and just a couple of weeks ago we actually went to New York and we interviewed Devon Rodriguez, who’s going to be our feature presenter for the NOW conference. If you were listening to this and you have not seen that announcement, surprise, it’s Devon.

Surprise. Just so you know, it’s the guy on TikTok who draws people on the subway. I feel like people sometimes don’t know his name, so if you just audibly gasped, I don’t blame you because he’s very famous. Maybe you didn’t know that was his name and now you do, and we’re very excited about it.

Yeah, I think that’s going to be… So before we talk about Devon in our interview, I think we should just talk about our whole trip to New York. It was a whirlwind. We were there for a day and a half. Very quick, but it was good. So we first got there, we met up and we went to the MoMA Museum of Modern Art, and if you’re following us on Instagram, Amanda put up a poll of what painting do you really want to see? And so I made you stop at six other things I really want to see, but we got to Van Gogh’s Starry Night because that’s what everybody voted on. That was very cool. But yeah, I also got to see Brandon Cousey’s Burden Space, which I love. Got to see Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory. What were you excited about? Did I just take the highlights from you? I don’t know, I’m sorry.

No, I was excited about the chocolate room.

Oh yes, there was an installation that was completely made of chocolate

And that was cool. Oh, Ed Ruscha. There was an exhibit there, which I thought I didn’t like until I got to the giant landscape paintings with the absurd phrases written over the top, and then I was like, oh my gosh, actually this is my new favorite artist. So that was cool. I like when art is surprising like that. When you think, “I don’t know, this is not resonating,” And then you see one and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve been wrong for the last 15 minutes.” Before you got to New York, I was actually in New York with my husband for our anniversary, and as a comparison, we went to see the Woman in Gold at the Neue Gallery. I mean, I recommend seeing that painting, but oh my gosh, that was the most pretentious art experience I have ever had. You had to go through multiple metal detectors, get checked by multiple people.

It was very expensive, and there’s one room, and then I got literally shouted at from across the room for trying to take a picture and I was like, A, there’s no signs that I saw because I’m a rule follower and B, I have been to the Louvre. You can take a picture of the Mona Lisa. We took a picture of Starry Night the next day. I just didn’t get it. I don’t know. And it was very fancy and it was just not my scene. But the painting was spectacular, I’m glad I saw it, but man, if you’re in New York, please go to the MoMA and not Yes, yes.

Great. Also, can we talk about the gift shop?

Yeah, we can talk about the gift shop.

Okay. So do you want me to go first here because I have…

You have an item that you need to…

I have a heartbreaking story to tell. So anyway, there’s the gift shop in the MoMA, there’s also one across the street from the museum.

We love a museum with two gift shops.

Multiple gift shops.

And we did go in both.

One in the basement, one across the street. But from across the street, I saw a Keith Haring basketball and I was like, this is incredible. And then after I saw that, they also had a Basquiat basketball, which there’s some sort of pronunciation and pun there that I haven’t quite figured out, a Basquiat ball. I can’t get it to flow. Unimportant. But anyway, I saw those and I was like, “I have to buy these. I have to buy both of these.” I was like, “Oh God, how expensive are they going to be?” And I was like, 50 bucks. That seems expensive, maybe. And then I checked my bank account and I was like, okay, even if they’re 60 bucks, I can get both of them. We’ll be all right. I’ll figure out how to ship them home. I need these. And I go in and the basketballs are $135 a piece. It was just a gut punch. I was like, I’m never going to own either of these. I really wanted them both. They’re perfect for my studio.

I love them so much and they’re not even remotely affordable for me. So anyway, I had to pass on those and it was heartbreaking. But there was a lot of other cool stuff to look at in the gift shop, I guess. But it was a tough experience overall for me.

Yeah, I’m really sorry. That was heartbreaking to witness. I wanted this light that looked like a book. You opened it and the pages… It was like a glowing book light. I don’t really know how to explain it other than that, but that also was… It was like $265. So I got some straws, some beautiful glass straws there.

Yes, those were nice.

Yeah, I was happy with that purchase.

But the life lesson is don’t be an educator if you want to buy cool stuff because it’s difficult. But anyway, it was overall very cool. I really enjoyed going to the MoMA. And then the next day, we actually got to interview Devon, and… I’ll give you the floor. What was your experience with Devon?

Oh my gosh. Well, first we had to do a reverse escape room to find his studio.

Oh my God. It was great.

Limited information.

In Manhattan, we can’t tell you any more than that.

Right. I mean, we literally can’t because I could never find that place again, and it was the most nondescript building I’ve ever witnessed. So I don’t know. Yeah, we got there, we got to go up to his studio. He was working on a giant commission for a famous person. I don’t even know what I can say or not say, but it was really incredible to see his work in person. It’s just so striking in person. It’s just really beautiful. He really is capturing some sort of essence of these people. It was also really interesting to see his process. He’s one of those artists who just picks a spot and renders it perfectly and then moves three inches to the left and repeats that, which is just not at all the way I was taught to work, that I work, that I can work. Very similar to CJ Hendry if you watch her videos where she just renders this one little spot beautifully.

And then he was just a gem. Oh my God. He was just a gem of a human. So nice. I think I put on Instagram, “The rumors are true.” He’s just the nicest person I’ve ever met. So fun to hang out with him while the crew was setting up the video equipment and just an incredible interview that he gave that is going to really resonate with art educators. He’s someone who really holds his art teachers on a pedestal and really gives them a lot of credit for where he is and the artist he is, and it was just really beautiful to listen to. I got a little teary eyed as I’m known to do. But yeah, I don’t know. What would you add?

Oh, I don’t think I would add much. I would just echo, he is one of the nicest people that we’ve ever interviewed, just so incredibly kind, so down to earth, and it was fantastic. I don’t know. He was laughing with us about so many great things. He did this stupid sketch with us. He was so patient, doing selfies with the film crew who just loved him. And it made me laugh too because I don’t watch a ton of YouTube stuff, but he had one of those awards for having…

Yeah, the Diamond Award.

Yeah, the Diamond Award for 10 million subscribers. And our video crew was just in awe of that. I think they literally said at one point, “Did you ever think you’d get to hold one of these in your lifetime?”

And I was holding it and I was like, “It’s so shiny. I love it.”

What is this thing? I’m not sure. So there’s definitely a disconnect there. But anyway, he was just letting us check that out. And like I said, he just took a million pictures, he hung out and told us so many good stories, just genuinely a great guy. So I love that. And then, yeah, like you said, while I was conducting the interview, I kind of got lost in my questions because I was just listening to his answers and like, oh, this is so good, and then I’d forget what I was going to be asking next. That rarely happens. So yeah, I’m excited for just that entire interview to be shown at the NOW conference for everybody to be able to see that.

You should come if you haven’t signed up yet.

Yes.

Obviously. It’s going to be great.

Sounds good. All right. And then are we ready to move on to the mailbag now?

Yeah. Can I say it and then the sound will play?

Yes, please do.

Okay. Okay, let’s open up the mailbag.

All right, excellent. And then Amanda, we need to clip in another sound, which is the voicemail. Do you want to introduce that too?

Sure. This voicemail is from Maggie. Thank you for calling in.

All right. I think that is a very good question from Maggie. Amanda, would you like to answer this one?

I would. Okay. So yes, this is a great question. It’s going to have an unsatisfying answer, which is, it depends. It depends on your teaching style, what your students are ready for, the school schedule, where you are in the school year and more. So, okay, I want to kind of give you a way to think about this question to answer it for yourself. So first of all, I would ask yourself, what do you define as a big project? I’m doing air quotes, but you can’t see it. In kindergarten, that might be something that stretches to class periods, that might be a big project for your kindergartners and what they can handle. In fifth grade, it might be something that stretches four or five class periods. It also depends on, do you have 30 minute classes, 60 minute classes? There’s a lot of variables here. I think another thing that could make something a big project is how big of a deal it is for you to prep or how complex the concepts are for kids to grasp.

So like clay and glaze, I would say, even if that’s a one day project, that is a big project, right?

Yes.

So there are a few different things to consider. So one is, what skills do students have to have to successfully complete a big project? So when you’re thinking about how many of these do I want to do, you need to think about what is the lead up into those projects. So early in the year, you’re probably doing more skill building projects or skill building activities before a big project, but over time, those can compound. So one example I have for you is, my first year of teaching, I had the students do this project, which was sort of like a legacy project at the school, like once you got to fifth grade, you do this project, and it was, you have to put your own twist on the Mona Lisa. So they were 12 by 18 drawings and full color oil pastels blending. This is a big project for 10 and 11 year olds.

So what I did is I waited until the end of the year. So we had already learned about color mixing and blending. They already had experience with oil pastels from a few different projects. We had done a different portrait project, so they already knew how to draw a face. So they were pretty ready for that project without a ton of lead in time. If I had tried that project at the beginning of the year, I would’ve needed six classes to prepare them to even start that, right? So if you’re looking for a number, I will give you one, but just take it with a grain of salt, right? So let’s assume a big project is taking at least three class periods, let’s pretend it requires a significant amount of preparation from you of some kind. So my 100% non-scientific gut feeling, generic but do your own thing answer is three to five per year per grade level.

One a quarter maybe is another way you could think of that as this big sort of, I don’t know if you want to use the word capstone or final assessment or whatever of what you’re leading up to. That’s my suggestion.

No, I think that’s great advice. When I taught elementary and I didn’t see kids that often, but one per quarter was the goal for us. And I think just like you said, it’s very important to think about how you’re scaffolding your skills and your knowledge and all the things that kids have to be ready for to go into a big project. But if you can put all that together and then, yeah, like you said, I think one per quarter is just a good non-scientific adapt for your situation sort of goal, so I think that’s a good way to answer.

Well, and you also have to think about your own sanity. I mean, if you’re teaching K through five, that’s sixth grade levels, six times four is 24 big projects a year. That’s significant.

That’s a lot. That’s a lot. So again, just adapt it to where you are and I’d say spend some time thinking through it rather than saying, “Oh, I’m going to accomplish X.” Think about what works and sit down, figure it out and that will give you your answer, for sure. Okay, next we have an email from Lexi. It’s kind of a long one, but I think it’s interesting for sure. So excited to talk about this one.

This is from Lexi. She says, “I’m currently working a nine to five job as an interior designer and I’m looking to switch careers to become a high school art teacher. Both my parents are music teachers, so I can’t avoid the desire to also be in teaching, plus desk jobs are totally not my thing. I’ve been listening to your podcast preparing myself for this switch, but I would love to hear your advice about the logistics into this new world I’ll be entering. How do you afford it? I’m planning to get a part-time job, take out a loan, apply for scholarships as I work towards certification, but it’s all quite daunting. I don’t want to be in debt forever.” Okay, so there’s 0.1.

Question two, “Are there any hacks out there that make this process easier? There’s a million resources and scholarships available, but it’s entirely overwhelming on the big old interweb. Are there other people in the world who have made a career switch a few years ago after graduating into art ed?” And then she says, “I feel alone in this process, especially since my parents have been warning me how difficult teaching is in this day and age. It seems like I’m crazy for making this decision, but I know the job will give me so much happiness in the long run. Any advice is welcome. I would love to hear from you guys.” So Amanda, a lot of points to hit, but can I give this to you first? What would your advice be for Lexi?

Yes. So first of all, I resonate with a lot of this, mostly the fact that your parents are warning you not to do it. I was not in a different career, but in college. I was encouraged to go into a different field. I was encouraged to go into architecture because I was strong in math and art and I was like, I know I’ll hate it. I know I’ll hate it. So then, of course, I’m a teenager, now I’m threatening to move to New York and literally be Devon Rodriguez before he existed. I was like, “I’m just going to sell my art on the street.” Whatever. So I am admiring of anyone who is really following their passion. And also I’m so glad you’re listening to this podcast. That’s so amazing. So welcome. Thanks Lexi. I also resonate with the runs in the family vibe. My mom was a teacher. I saw that growing up. That was admirable to me. So there’s a lot of things that make sense to me about why you’re wanting to do this.

Yeah. Can I add in just really quickly, nobody in my family is a teacher, so that was a lonely conversation. My wife’s family, my wife is a fifth-generation teacher.

Oh my gosh. Amazing.

And so we just go in aunts, uncles, everybody on that side of the family and just go like, I’m home. We can just talk about teaching and it’s great and I love it so much. So yeah. I hate the phrase ‘It’s in your blood’, but sometimes you just feel like that’s where you need to be. And like I said, that resonates with me. So anyway, go ahead.

Okay, so advice. Well, we all, first of all, have things we don’t like about work, right? Wanting a change of pace is also just a valid reason, aside from the fact that it might be literally in your soul, maybe your job is just terrible and you want to get out. Our time on earth is very short. You do you, follow your dreams. However, that said, I think the trick with teaching is that it has to be something you are extremely passionate about because there are a lot of things that come with the career that are amazing, and there are also a lot of things that are unpleasant, like really intense student behavior, a wide variety of support from admin, both good and non-existent, paperwork, long hours. I could go on. But I think what I would do in your shoes is before you make any life altering decisions, before you take out a loan, before you try to figure this out, I would find a place to volunteer with kids, preferably in an actual classroom setting, preferably in a few classroom settings.

People are always looking for volunteers to come in. You probably will need a background check and to sort of explain what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. And if you can’t get into schools, there are arts programs at museums or local studios or what have you. But I would spend a significant amount of time with kids in those settings to make sure that that is exactly what you want to do because… My second a point here is that you don’t always get to choose what level you want to teach. So you may think like, oh, it would be a dream to teach high school students in a studio setting. And that may be true, but for example, in Wisconsin, I’m certified K 12, and so I was lucky to find an elementary position, which is what I wanted to do, but I had a lot of friends who spent time teaching levels that were not their first choice and they had to really adapt to those situations. So just another thing to keep in mind.

Yeah, I think that’s all important to consider. I don’t know, I would just tell Lexi, welcome to the teaching profession. Super excited to have you here. I love when anybody really wants to teach because it’s so rewarding and like you said, Amanda, there are a lot of headaches that come with it, but at the same time, it’s also the greatest job in the world. So if you know you want to do it, I would encourage you to dive in. As far as affording it, oh boy.

Do you want to be able to buy Keith Herring basketballs, yes or no? If you don’t care about that, go for it.

Yes, absolutely. That’s a great measuring stick right there. That’s the litmus test. But yeah, I mean, do what you need to do to get certified and come in and just realize that that’s a sacrifice that you need to make. As far as are there any hacks out there? I don’t feel like to just make that transition from outside of education to an art career. So I don’t know. I emailed Lexi back and I suggested that she check out Facebook groups and just see if there’s anybody there because I was just thinking through our whole Art of Ed staff. We have hundreds of people that work here and very few of them have come from outside careers into art education. I don’t think there’s a lot out there. So I think if you just jump into the art teacher Facebook groups and just put an all call out there and be like, “Hey, has anybody done this? What advice do you have for me?”

Hopefully you can find somebody with some other experience and can kind of talk you through that. But yeah, I would just say, like you said, teaching is incredibly difficult, but if you know in your heart that you want to do it and if that’s the passion that you have, then absolutely go for it because like I said, it’s so rewarding and just so, so worth it. Yeah. I would encourage you to pursue that, Lexi and anybody else who’s randomly listening and want to go check this out. I would say go for it. Just make sure you have a clear idea and a clear vision of what you’re getting yourself into, but I think it’ll be worth it for you. All right, next question. This is not nearly as long as Lexi’s question. This is from Luke in Kansas and he just says, “What are you doing over winter break?”

Oh, I love this question. It’s fun because guess what I’m doing?

I hope a lot of nothing.

It’s nothing. I’m doing nothing. I’m going to read so many books, I’m going to take a lot of baths, I’m going to go for a lot of walks, I’m going to eat a lot of cookies. I will probably organize something because that is also relaxing to me. Once, Lindsay Moss and I bonded over how we both organized the garage cardboard over winter break and that was very soothing to our souls.

I love it.

So yeah, I’m not doing anything like nothing. What about you?

That is my goal as well. I’m very busy right now with my job and coaching basketball and taking two grad courses with AOEU and it’s just a lot. And then all of a sudden on December 22nd, all of that stops for a week and a half and I can’t wait to do nothing. And so, I think there’s going to be a lot of long walks with my dog, two and three-hour walks. I’m super excited to have the time to do that. Probably listen to a lot of records with my daughter, probably build some Legos or do some baking with my son, so we’re good, and then just watch some terrible TV with my wife. Also, I need to tell you about this. I wanted to ask you, so might as well just do it in public on the podcast.

Apparently, I just learned about this, one of my wife’s hobbies is to just scroll Netflix and add stuff in the to watch category. I don’t do a lot of TV or a lot of Netflix, so I don’t know, and I’m not sure if this is a thing for people, but when she’s bored or needs something new, she’ll just scroll through Netflix and add shows that she wants to watch. And her cue has literally hundreds of series that she wants to get into sometime. Do you do this? Do you know anybody who does this? Because it seems so weird to me.

Okay, I have something I do that is adjacent to this, but in short, no, definitely not hundreds. That makes me feel like… It’s like when I find a new podcast I like and then I find out there’s been five seasons, I’m like, oh my God, I can’t listen to all this. It give me anxiety. So I’m not adding hundreds. I like to keep my list… Maybe I’m old, I like to keep my list in a document on my computer. So I do have document on my computer that’s like books to read, shows to watch, and then if I can’t find something, I’ll reference that. What I do do is go into my kids’ account and I like things that I want them to watch and I dislike things that I don’t want them to watch.

Interesting.

I learned this parenting hack maybe a month ago on Instagram and I was like, oh my god. I don’t know if I’ve talked about this on the podcast. They’re obsessed with Garfield. They read every Garfield book in the library. There are 70 Garfield books. They read them all this summer. And then there’s this show that’s just like… I have nothing against Garfield or Lasagna or whatever, but this Garfield show is dumb. And so I’m trying to train the algorithm to not show them the Garfield Show. It’s not bad enough for me to ban it, but, you know.

Yeah.

Oh, speaking of, I don’t know how long we want this podcast to be, but really quickly, in New York, my husband and I stumbled upon a shop called Pillow Cat. It was just a bookstore that sold vintage books about animals and I picked out two vintage Garfield books that they hadn’t read.

Of course.

I would like you to guess how many dollars she told me I was going to have to pay for two of these books.

Were they $135 like the basketball?

No, but they were…

No, let me… Reasonably, those books could cost…

Like little books.

So reasonably, I would think those are $10 maybe. So I’m going to say, I don’t know, book bookstore market, $28 for the two books.

It was $54.

For two books?

Garfield books. And I was like, what do I do? I’ve spent time petting this lady’s cat, I am here, I have to buy something. And I was like, “I’m just going to have one.” And she was like, “Yeah, they’re like first editions.” And I was like, “I don’t think anyone caress.”

I don’t think your 7-year-old is going to care.

I felt a little validated when I got home. I searched the one we had. I searched for it on eBay and it was going for like $16, so New York price 25 or whatever, fine, but I wasn’t about to just drop $54 on Garfield books and I feel regretful that I dropped $22 on…

Yeah, that’s fair. Everybody’s takeaway from this podcast where we’re just like, Tim and Amanda, need to quit complaining about New York prices for…

Okay. But to answer your question, no, I don’t do that, and no, I don’t know anyone else who does do that.

Sounds good. I was just curious. But I will say when it’s time to pick something out in a couple of weeks that we’re going to binge watch, a lot of options there.

I would like you to come back in January or February with your top recommendations.

Okay. I will make a note of that.

Okay, great.

When we do the January podcast, we can just talk about all the shows that I just watched.

Yeah.

That’ll be good. Okay, cool. Next question is, “Recommendations for best gifts for an art teacher. My family wants ideas for what to buy me, but I don’t really need anything. What is something fun or something really useful that I should ask for?” This is from Emma in Illinois. So Amanda, what should Emma be looking for for a holiday gift?

Well, again, no one can see my face, but I am delighted by this question. Gift giving is my love language. I love to get gifts, but I also love to find the perfect gift, so I have many ideas for you, Emma. Okay, number one, look for experiences, right? Get a gift certificate to a spa, get a massage, get a facial, get a manicure with nail art. That always makes me so happy and I always get a gift certificate for that because I never want to pay for it. Look for tickets to a movie, a concert, a performance, get a membership to a local museum or help them pay for you to come to the NOW conference. I think that would be a perfect gift.

I’m glad you could work that in.

Okay, number two, second category, I think you should look for services. So get your house deep cleaned, get your car detailed. I did this for the first time.

Car detailing is the best.

Oh my gosh. You get a new car for like $200. It’s wild. Especially, I don’t know if you have kids, but if you have a lot of crushed goldfish in your backseat, that is money well spent. Or they could pay for a meal service or grocery delivery for you. Just take something off your plate, right? Pay money to take something off your plate. Okay. Do you want a thing? Maybe you do want an object. My recommendations are a fun makeup palette, and you can just do an art project on your face every day. That’s fun. You could get cute, comfortable shoes to wear in the classroom. I just got a pair of yellow vans, high tops, and they make me so happy.

I had a pair of magenta shoes in high school, coincidentally that I got on a trip to New York City where you couldn’t just buy anything on the internet and it felt very cool. So anyway, cool shoes. At the museum gift shop, we saw a Van Gohg Lego set where you could build the Starry Night.

That was so cool.

Oh my gosh, that would be a really fun gift. Or my last suggestion is original art. Have them pick out a piece of art for you or give you a gift certificate to Etsy or whatever so you can pick out a piece of original art.

Yeah, all very good suggestions.

I could talk for 12 more podcasts about it, but I’ll stop there. Do you have any ideas?

Well, I do have some ideas. I was just going to tell you, you’re talking about the price of car detailing and now I am going over in my mind, would I rather have my car detailed or do I want that Basquiat basketball?

Oh my gosh.

I really need to get over this, don’t I? Okay, so for Emma, I thought of a few things. I took sort of the classroom perspective for this, things that would be cool for your classroom. Your Lego set got me thinking, that Van Gogh one is very cool because it’s like three dimensional version of Starry Night. It’s very neat. But I know they also make a flat Hokusai, The Great Wave one, which I think is really cool. And then my son just showed me a couple of weeks ago this modern art Lego piece where it’s got a bunch of small pieces, but then it’s got these half circles and these cool lines and designs and you put together your own ‘modern art piece’. And I think that would be really fun to have either for yourself or for your classroom. So I think that would be cool.

I was thinking about clothes or shoes, like Hoka shoes have taken the running world by storm and now I see nurses all wear Hokas, my barber wears Hokas, anybody who’s on their feet all day. If you haven’t seen these shoes, they have four inches of padding. They’re ridiculous, but they’re so comfortable. And so if you’re on your feet all day teaching, that might be a good idea. They usually come in pretty bright, pretty fun colors if you like that sort of thing, so that’d be cool. Any fun shirts if you’re able to wear T-shirts to school, anything art related.

Or you could go to the AOEU store.

Oh my god, always bringing it back to AOEU products.

I’m just saying.

No, that actually is cool, like the art teacher energy!

Good vibes and art supplies. There’s good stuff in there.

Yeah, there’s some cool stuff there. I think Spotify premium would be cool if you listen to music in class, have them pay for premium, then you can put together all these playlists, you won’t have any commercials, then that’s good for your classroom. Other fun stuff, I’d tell you about the art teacher Barbie or those Funko Pop dolls with the big heads. I have all those artist ones. Have you seen those artist puppets with Salvador Dali or Da Vinci puppets? Those would be super fun for the classroom. And then Emma asked about useful stuff. I think just quality materials. I always have a really nice hardcover sketchbook that I use for my visual journal, that is good to show students, or just get some really nice supplies, some oil pastels, some colored pencils, some drawing pencils, whatever, and just kind of let kids explore with those and they can see what really nice materials are like. So those are some decent suggestions.

So anyway. That was a super fun question, so thanks Emma. That was good. Okay, last question. This is from Kim in Colorado. She says, “Advice for the end of the semester. I have some classes that are happening after work is done and I’m not sure how to fill that time. Do you have recommendations for art related movies I could watch with my class or one day lessons that I could teach? This is for high school, by the way, but I bet other teachers might want to hear for their level too.” That is from Kim. And Kim, I’m just going to say, and I’m going to put this out there for everybody. Please edit your emails. I’m trying to read this from Kim and there are misspellings and there are grammar mistakes and there are not enough commas. And this is not…

I didn’t know you were going to actually say that. We cannot say that. People are not going to… They’re not write in if…

Okay, fine. Fine. Okay.

We’re going to make Kim feel so bad, and then we’re also going to make everyone who’s ever wrote in, wrote in, written in also feel bad we’re judging them, and then no one is going to write in.

I was just going to say I’m not judging you, I’m just saying that you should get Grammarly, especially when you’re sending these as a professional.

You cannot. We can’t.

All right. Cutting that out then. All right. Do you want to answer this first or you want me to?

You can because I answered all the other ones first.

Okay. Back in 3, 2, 1. Okay, Kim, I have a few good suggestions for you. I think they’re good, anyway. Movies that I love to show my high schoolers, a couple are documentaries, one is Andy Goldsworthy, it’s called Rivers and Tides. Andy Goldsworthy that does all the nature related sculptures, does a lot of really, really cool stuff. And this shows him working with ice and working with driftwood and working with leaves to put his sculptures together. Kids are fascinated by that one. Maya Lynn, there’s a documentary called a Strong Clear Vision, about her designing and putting together the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C, all the politics that went behind that. And I don’t know, I talk to my kids all the time about that artwork because I think it’s just incredible, and so they’re a little familiar with it, saying the documentary is very cool. Exit Through the Gift Shop is a great one on street art. Banksy had a hand in putting that together and there’s always the question that’s like, “Is this real?” And it leads to some great discussions in class, so I really like that one.

And then I also love to show the Wallace and Gromit short films and then the movies too. It’s claymation and they’ve been doing it for 30 years. We’re actually building the characters out of clay and doing stop motion animation with them. So I’d recommend just looking up a little bit about how they make those so you can explain to your students exactly how that’s done. And then watching those are just absolutely fascinating. They’re really funny. The first three that they made are pretty short too, so you can definitely fit them in a single class period. So I really like those Wallace and Gromit things. And then as far as drawing or one day lessons, I always just use sketchbook prompts or fun prompts to fill a day whenever I need to fill a day. So I would honestly just go www.theartofeducation.edu, search and type in prompts and there will be 10 lists and articles, 12 lists and articles, just so many things for you to choose from. You can easily find something that can fill a day and be engaging for kids.

Yeah, totally. I would also say you have to watch the whole movie before you show it. You have to because you don’t know what your specific kids are going to pick up on. You know your kids’ best. Even if another teacher says it’s fine, you have to watch the whole thing. So, sorry. While you’re folding laundry or something.

There was a Spanish teacher at my school that showed the Frida movie.

Oh boy.

With Salma Hayek without previewing it.

Oh boy.

There’s some very intimate scenes in there that did not go over well.

No, I can imagine. Right. So, okay, other ideas? I’m going to say it again because it’s always true, the perfect one day lesson is truly great for any grade level, we can link to it.

I was gust going to say let’s link to that for the fourth straight podcast.

The 45th time. It’s good. It’s like soothing for the kids, we really get into it, it’s just fun and it’s the perfect amount of time for one class period. But we also have a ton of one day lessons available in Flex, so if you’re a member there, there’s a whole collection about drawing connections, another one about sketchbook practices and another one about meaning-making through sketchbooks that are full of one day lessons for you. I’m a fan of having them help clean up and organize and prep for the next semester, like learning…

Oh, lots of kids love to do that.

Yeah. And learning how to take care of the studio space, testing markers, sharpening pencils, cutting paper, if you have maybe a senior who you trust to do that. I’m going to take that back. Don’t make them cut paper. It’s probably not worth the liability. But any tasks that you have that they can do to help you get ready are worthwhile. And then, I always like to have kids cut snowflakes. And not just fold them in eight, but teach them a snowflake actually has six points on it, not eight. You can easily Google something to help you learn how to fold a square in such a way that when you cut it, it will come out to six, and it’s just super fun to have them help.

You could decorate a bulletin board, they can take them home, they can cut them out and then decorate them with, if you have special markers that you bring out, I always had these shiny markers or whatever. So that’s another fun thing that brings in math and it’s just a fun and relaxing way to hang out. Who can make the most intricate one? You can have contests. Can somebody make something recognizable in their snowflake? There’s a lot you can do with that. So those would be my suggestions.

All right. All good suggestions. Thank you. All right. We have not emptied the mailbag, but we do need to end our podcast here because we’ve been here for a while. Amanda, thank you, as always. Do you have any advice, any suggestions, anything you want to tell people for the last two to three weeks here before we’re on winter break?

I would just say you’re almost done. Every day you wake up, you can be like, “I’m almost done.” You’re going to make it, and then we’re all going to get a break and it’s going to be amazing.

Yes. Love it. Love it. That’s great advice. All right, thank you Amanda. We’ll talk to you again next month.

All right. Bye.

Tim Bogatz:

Thank you to Amanda, I had a lot of fun with that conversation, I hope you all did as well! We will make sure we link to the Perfect One Day Lesson, as we apparently ALWAYS have to do, and we will get all of the other relevant links into the show notes as well.

A couple of housekeeping notes before I wrap things up . . . AOEU is going to be closed from December 22nd until January 2nd, so during those weeks, we will have a couple of archived episodes up in the podcast feed. But I will make sure they are really good episodes!

What that means, though, is the next mailbag episode will not be until the SECOND Tuesday in January. I hope that doesn’t throw off your schedule too much, I know you always look forward to these conversations on the first monday of the month. If you’re super upset about that, please feel free to email me and complain. If you’re not upset, please feel free to email me with questions for the January mailbag! Amanda and I would love to hear from you. You can also leave us a voicemail by calling (515) 209-2595.

Finally, next week I have a very cool episode. As you may have heard, our community team here from AOEU recently did an art room makeover, which we were VERY excited to do. And there are a few YouTube episodes documenting the process, which are great. Imagine an HGTV makeover show, but for an art room–it’s very cool. But if you’re listening to this on Tuesday, the first episode came out yesterday, and two more episodes will be coming out later this week on AOEU’s YouTube. Go check that out, it’s entertaining, and it’s cool project. We’re really proud of all of it, and we would love for you to check it out.

Art Ed Radio is produced by the Art of Education University with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Thank you as always for listening, and we will talk to you next week!