July Mailbag: Snacks, Ceramic Glazes, and the Sunday Scaries (Ep. 376)

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.

Welcome, everyone. It is July. It is the first episode of July, which means we are opening up the July mailbag. With me as she always is for every mailbag episode, my partner in crime, Amanda Heyn. How are you?

Hello. I’m great. I was just thinking maybe we need a new sound effect. When you say opening the mailbag, I want to rustle something, like opening the mail bag. What do you think?

I think it’s a terrible idea.

Also, I feel like that was a crunchy snack bag I had and I feel a mailbag is like canvas.

Yeah, it’s got to be much smoother than that.

Okay. I’ll work on it for next time.

I feel like you’re taking us into FM radio territory. I don’t know. Yeah, soon we’re going to have buzzers and sounds and mailbag, mailbag, mailbag.

You know I like that. Don’t tempt me.

These are all terrible ideas, but anyway, we always like to start off with story time. So, I guess my story that I want to share, if you don’t mind me going first.

Yes, please.

I was just up in Minneapolis over the weekend and not by my choice, but we did go to the Mall of America. While we were there, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this, I saw a water-skiing squirrel.

Tell me more.

Well, we just came in on the third or fourth floor and there’s this huge crowd in the atrium way down on the first floor. I was like, “What is happening here? What are we also excited about?” I assumed it was going to be dumb, but I go and there’s a giant indoor pool in the middle of the atrium. There’s a guy with a remote control boat, and there is literally a squirrel on water skis, like trailing the boat around the pool.

Oh, my gosh.

So my kids were dying laughing at this. Then I had remembered, I feel like it used to be on SportsCenter highlights way back when I was a kid. I assume it’s not the same water squirrel 30 years later.

Yeah, do you know what is the squirrels’ lifespan? I don’t.

I can’t imagine it’s multiple decades.

Plus, even if it was the same squirrel, it would be too geriatric for water skiing.

So anyway, I was telling my kids about this and then so I was familiar with it. They thought it was great. Then my daughter got very worried that the squirrel’s not being treated well, but then she watched for 30 seconds and she’s like, “It looks like it’s having fun. It loves the treats that it’s getting. So, I think it’s probably okay.” So anyway, we watched for a minute or two and then went on to the rest of our day. But then we saw later that you could get in line and get selfies with the water-skiing squirrel.

Stop. Did you do it?

No, I didn’t.

Oh, Tim.

But it was a very long line.

I would wait 16 minutes.

Oh, I was going to say three minutes.

Okay. Well, that’s where we differ. I have a very important follow-up question and a tangent story. Did the squirrel have a name and do you know what it was?

I feel like it did have a name. It did not stick in my memory though.

Okay, that’s fine. I feel like it’s probably just speedy.

You know what? I’m going to look it up while you’re telling whatever story you have.

Well, okay. This just jogged a core memory for me. It’s one of the greatest disappointments of my life. Have I told you about the taxidermy squirrels at the local funeral home?

No. I definitely would’ve remembered this story. No, you have not told me, but now I need to know.

Okay. So, when I was in college, I was a nanny. I had a family who loved animals. One day, the mom was like, “Hey, if you’re looking for something to do, you might want to take them to the squirrel circus.” What? It turns out there’s a guy who owns a local funeral home and he thought people needed something to do at a funeral, which fair.

Maybe. Okay.

So in the basement of the funeral home, he built an entire circus of taxidermy to animals doing stuff.

Oh, my God. This is horrifying and fascinating.

I know. I mean, I may be outing myself as the biggest weirdo, but this would be a dream of mine to see it. So, we ended up not going that summer. I don’t know. We got into other things and then it closed, so I never got to see it. But there apparently are pictures online. Maybe I’ll see if we can put one on Instagram or something in a story.

We’re going to lose followers if we post that.

Are we? I don’t know. So, anyway. Oh, speaking of Instagram, we also quickly have to talk about your foray into Instagram. Can we do that before we jump into questions?

We do. Let me just tell you though, in doing my research, the water-skiing squirrel’s name is Twiggy.

Twiggy?

Twiggy, yes. T-W-I-G-G-Y. He is on TikTok if anyone is interested.

Excellent. Thank you. That’s very important.

Okay, but yes, Instagram. So, I don’t know what you want me to say. I have officially given up on Twitter. It’s been going downhill for a while. Then shout out to the three art teachers still posting on there. I appreciate you and I really enjoy your posts, but it’s not enough to make me stick around.

Sure. That’s fair.

Yeah. So, I’m all done on Twitter, which means I’ve had to jump over to Instagram. I have an account. I have not posted anything yet. I’m just trying to get used to just the visual onslaught of just images.

I think you have to be careful here, because I was like, “It’s full of rainbows and happy things.” You were like, “That’s my worst nightmare.”

Yeah, basically. So, feel like I need to desensitize myself just by going on a little bit at a time and I’ll get used to it eventually, but I don’t know. Do you have advice for me? How should I begin to navigate the world of Instagram?

Okay. I like this question a lot, because I’ve always had a personal Instagram and art teachers would try to follow me there, which was great and lovely, but it’s just pictures of my kids and I keep it pretty locked down. So, I actually recently started a public Instagram a couple of months ago and it’s been so fun. I think you have to figure out what your stick is. What are you going to share with people.

What’s your contribution? So I talk about things related to art teaching and also curious creative kids, so whether those are your own kids or kids in your classroom. So, that’s what I’ve been doing and it’s been really excellent. Then you just have to be there. I mean, it’s just like Twitter. You just have to check in and interact with people, but I feel like our listeners should weigh in on what you share there.

Yeah. What would you like me to post? Yeah.

Yeah. What do you want to see from Tim? I feel like they want to see your sketchbook practice because you have a very thriving sketchbook practice. But I don’t know if you want to share that with people.

Oh, I don’t know. That’s hard for me, but possibly, possibly.

Possibly.

We’ll see.

Well, I’ll say we have a couple of good things going on Instagram on the AOEU page. So, there’s mini masterpieces coming up, which is a daily drawing challenge where you just need a sticky note. We have Katie Gray from How Great Thou Art and Kayla Koslows at Ms Koslow’s Art Room hosting for us. So, that starts in July. I feel like that would be a natural time.

A time for me to jump in.

Jump in this month. Yeah.

I can create my own mini masterpieces.

Yeah.

Tempting, tempting.

Tempting.

I’m not committing.

Keep an eye. Okay. You can follow Tim, @TimBogatz all one word. Yeah, you can follow me, @Amanda_Heyn. Let’s see if we can get Tim to check in on Instagram once a day. It would be my dream.

Once a day. Oh, my God.

Yeah. Once a day. That’s so little.

Okay. All right. Can you hear the stress in my voice already?

Not that you have to post. We just want you to look at it.

Okay. All right. I’ll do my best. Okay. We should probably open up the mailbag, huh?

Okay. I’m not going to do the sound.

Okay. Sounds good. Appreciate it. First question is an easy one and a fun one. This is from Jeff in Maryland. He emailed me. He said, “I would love to know what are your favorite snacks to have on hand at your desk or in your classroom?”

Oh, I love this.

I know how much you love snacks, Amanda. So, you first.

I do love snacks. Okay. This is an excellent question. So, thank you, Jeff. Obviously, candy, I have a giant sweet tooth. So, dark chocolate or dark chocolate with caramel or dark chocolate with sea salt or peanut M&Ms are great because I feel like they give you protein and they’re candy or the chocolate covered almonds from Trader Joe’s, also a good idea. At my school, once a month, a team would take over the lounge with snacks and these people went all out. There was homemade guac, multiple mini crockpots. It’s Wisconsin, so there were a lot of dips with cheese. Custom cakes. I’m talking like-

Oh, wow.

… custom cakes. It was incredible. I really miss that about my time in the classroom. So, yeah, I’m all about the snacks. You have to have snacks at school. But my desk row is, if I’m being completely honest, mostly filled with candy. What about you?

There’s nothing wrong with that. I love having candy. I always had just a little spot on my desk with food, because I had a lot of kids that need food in my classroom, so I would just buy cheap granola bars. Bananas are super cheap or a big bag of cooties. Then just open that up to everybody. If you need something to eat, come get something to eat. So, always did that. That’s always handy. I used to love to have peanuts or almonds or trail mix or whatever. Then I had one kid who had a super severe peanut allergy.

An anaphylactic reaction will shut down your…

Yeah. So, I don’t know. Before the year, they’re like, “Oh, this kid’s coming in.” I was like, “Oh, God, I always have stuff.” So they had to do this deep clean of my room and everything and they’re like, “Do not bring anything in.” I was like, “Okay.” Okay. So, that brought it into that. No, no, no. So, I just transferred to just anything I can just sit there and just eat a bunch of one at a time. I love pretzels. I love Goldfish crackers.

Solid choice. Can we go on a short tangent? Are you talking classic pretzel, parmesan, flavor blasted?

Flavor blasted is too much for me. I usually go with the classic. I like the parmesan, they’re good. I’m not super picky. I’ll eat them, whatever. But I really like Goldfish. Somehow I got into the habit. I think I was just chowing down one day and then we had a fire drill and I just brought the Goldfish outside with me. So, I was just eating and then I was just sharing with kids as we’re sitting there waiting to go back into the building and it became very popular, because other classes are wandering over to get some cracker. So, I always had an extra bag for fire drills.

I love it.

That’s part of it. Shut off the lights, lock the door, grab the Goldfish.

That is a great reframe, right?

Yeah, it’s really nice.

Oh, no, this is annoying, but we get Goldfish.

It’s snack time and it made it a lot more fun. So, I don’t know. I’m sure a lot of schools have rules against feeding kids and doing whatever, but if I could make fire drills a little more fun, then I’m going to do it.

100%.

I think that’s important. All right, next up, I know you’re excited about this, our first voicemail question. So, we’re going to go ahead and play that right now.

Hey, Tim and Amanda. This is Chelsea from South Central Indiana. So, how do you avoid the prevailing Sunday scaries feeling that the month of July or August can have? I’m already seeing back to school supply displays popping up in stores.

All right. Amanda, do you want to take that?

Yes, please. First of all, thank you for sending a voicemail. I’ve been waiting for this day very patiently. So, please be inspired by Chelsea to send us your own right now. Okay. So, first of all, this is very relatable to me. I have had to talk myself down from the Sunday scaries a lot in the past. Then you take that feeling and you apply it to an entire month. It can be obviously incredibly overwhelming. So, I have two pieces of advice. My first piece of advice is you are in control of how you react to that. So, you could say, “Oh, back to school stuff is up. That’s great. I bet some people are getting their classroom ready right now. I am going to continue to relax/ignore/live my best summer life, right?”

I don’t care is an appropriate reaction.

Yeah, totally. I know I have a plan. I’m going to jump back into things on August 12th or whatever, whenever you’ve decided to do that. It’s just like when they put the winter holiday decor out the day after Halloween. I can think that’s ridiculous. I can get annoyed or I can just choose to be happy for the psychopaths who are doing that. It’s either way. Okay. Some of my favorite people are those people, so please don’t take that the wrong way. I am joking.

So, the other piece of advice is something related that I heard from one of my favorite accounts, which is the LA Minimalist. She talks about minimalism, but also mental minimalism. That is the rules are fake. Just because you think you should be doing something doesn’t make it true. Just because the school supplies are out doesn’t mean you have to engage with them. Just have a plan. Stick to your plan and remind yourself of your plan the next time you’re confronted with those giant crayons at Target.

Random story, I tried to get those giant crayons for my classroom where they had giant colored pencils. I was like, “These would be amazing decorations.” I followed up with the manager and we had a whole plan. Then they just ghosted me and I never got the supplies.

That’s so sad.

It was tragic. But to answer the question, like we talked about last month in the mailbag, enjoy your break. Please take a break for the summer and let that break continue. However you need to do that, that’s fine. In the interest of full disclosure, we’re recording this. It’s the very end of June, and I was just at my wife’s school last night helping her set up her classroom because that’s how she is able to relax. She gets it all done, gets it out of the way, and then she can go back to taking her break. So, I know everybody’s brain works differently and everybody understands what they need to do.

So, I guess for me, my best advice is just reframing it. If those Sunday scaries creep in, change your thinking, reframe your thinking, and instead of worrying about school, just start thinking about all the great things that you’re going to be doing in the next few days that have nothing to do with school. Just all of the things that you’re enjoying about summer, focus on those instead. Just send your brain in that direction. I think it’ll be incredibly helpful.

I agree.

All right. Next question, Amanda. This is from Taylor, and it’s a long one. She’s got a lot to say, but I think it’s a very good question. She says, “Hi. I’m a newer listener to the podcast, a recent college graduate. I’m about to enter my first year of teaching. Within the last few weeks, I’ve started an interview for positions which have been a whirlwind of emotions. I’m so excited to finally have my own classroom and interact with my future students every day. Going into my interviews, I felt really confident and proud of all my accomplishments. I felt eager to start my first year of teaching.” These are all great feelings. I love this. Then she says, “However, once the offer letters started coming in…” That’s plural. So, good job, Taylor.

Yeah, incredible.

She said, “I began to feel overwhelmed and began to question if I really was ready to hold my own classroom. The idea of building an entire curriculum from practically nothing weighs on me and overcomes the excitement I held just days ago. I know I have resources for my cooperating teachers, lessons planned I’ve created in university to fall back on, but the idea of needing something to teach every day for multiple classes is terrifying to me. So, my question for you, what is the best way for art teachers to build a curriculum for their first year? Where do I even start?”

Okay, this is a great question. First of all, yes, kudos to you for getting multiple offer letters. That’s incredible. This question really resonated with me because this is a core memory in my life. I remember it was my first day of school at the ripe age of 22. Who lets 22-year-olds teach, right? I remember thinking, “I’m a literal baby. Why are people trusting me with their kids?” So anyway, the first class comes to the door, the teacher leaves, and I just stand there. I just stand there waiting for somebody to do something until I remember I am the teacher. I’m in charge now.

So, first of all, I just want to say your feelings are 100% normal, 100% valid. I don’t know a new teacher who isn’t worried about this. I think it shows that you’re going to be a great teacher because you want to do such a good job and are thinking so deeply about creating a curriculum that will resonate with your students. So, Tim, do you want to take it from here?

Yeah, I appreciate you letting me jump in because I feel like you have more to say.

I do.

I don’t know if that’s it, but well, first, Taylor, let me recommend a fantastic podcast we recorded last year sometime. It’s literally called, “What do brand new teachers need to know about curriculum?” So we have an hour’s worth of my thoughts there, but I would just echo what you said, Amanda, where you’re in charge. So, you get to choose what you’re going to be teaching. There may be a little plan laid out for you. You may have a curriculum set for you by your district, but once you get hired, you can ask about that and you can see what resources they have too. But just put together things that you think are going to be enjoyable for you to teach and for your kids to learn as well. Some people just start with the basic building blocks.

We’re going to start with contour drawing, and then we’re going to build up to cross contour, and then we’ll add shading and just structure things like that. Other people love to be like, “What is the most fun? Can I break out clay or model magic right away to get my kids excited about things?” Like I said, it’s really up to you. If you’re in charge, just figure out what you’re going to want to do. I guess one just quick hack. I know Taylor said something about teaching all these different classes and all different things. You don’t necessarily have to teach different things for every grade level, especially in your first year.

If you’re bringing in new lessons that these kids haven’t done before, third grade and fourth grade and fifth grade can all do the same lesson and that can save you a lot of sanity. Anyway, those are my quick thoughts. We’ll link to that podcast if you want more in depth thoughts from Janet, Taylor, and me. So, Amanda, what else did you want to say though?

Yeah, I was going to say that too. You can always plan essentially half the lessons this year and half next year. If they’re third, fourth, and fifth, I’ll do the same lesson. Then the next year, maybe you keep that lesson for fourth grade and develop something new for fifth grade. So, that’s a great hack. I also want to say don’t be afraid to ask for help. As a new teacher, you probably are paired with a mentor teacher. There are other art teachers in your district, probably not at your school, but ask them for help. What are their best lessons? How do they structure their years? You can start to get some concrete examples of what that could look like. Like Tim mentioned, there are infinitely more resources available to you than when either Tim or I started teaching.

So, in addition to that podcast, we have a first year art teacher landing page with resources curated for first year teachers, which we will also link in the show notes. It’s not specific to curriculum, but I think it’s a great point to help you feel more confident and less alone. We also have tons of curriculum resources spread throughout our offering. So, there are lots of free articles, other podcasts. We have professional development available through pro learning, including my number one pack for anyone wanting to learn more about curriculum called the Building Blocks of Effective Curriculum. We also have a curriculum.

That’s such a good one.

So yeah, it’s such a good one. Our curriculum and professional learning are often paid for by districts more often than not. So, you can ask about that, ask your new administrator if that’s something that they could provide for you. Finally, I would not recommend this for brand new teachers, but for anyone else wondering about curriculum, there is also a designing your art curriculum graduate level course if you want a super deep dive and really want to get into writing your own. But all that said, I would start on week one, figure out what are you going to do the first week of class that will help you just maybe take the edge off of that anxiety because you have something that you want to do for that first week. Then I personally like to use a matrix system.

So, I taught elementary as well. When I was planning my curriculum, I would write kindergarten, first, second, third, fourth, all the way down the left-hand side and then all the months at the top. Then I’d start filling in with big ideas that I wanted to cover at each grade level each month. Those came from national standards, state standards, elements and principles. Then I was really passionate about cross-curricular planning. So, I would ask the teachers, “What are they learning in science, language, arts, math?”

Then once I had the concepts, then I could plan out the projects at a more granular level. So, that’s also something you might want to experiment with. But my biggest piece of advice is to have a loose plan, ask for help, and remain flexible. Chances are you’re not going to stick to the plan that you made at the beginning of the year or maybe you don’t even want to plan the whole thing out. Do quarter one and see how it goes, and then you can build from there.

Yeah, I think that’s perfect. I think the easiest way to put your mind at ease is to just come up with a big picture thing, whether it is quarter one or whether that’s month by month, and then just get some general ideas of what you want to teach. Then as you go along, you can just dive into the specifics and maybe you’re only a week ahead of the kids. That’s how it was for my entire first year. That’s okay. You’ll get through it, you’ll figure out what works, and you’ll slowly come into your own as a teacher and figure out what you want to teach. One thing that Janet and I talked about in that podcast I recommended is curriculum is not a one and done thing. It’s something that’s built over years. So, don’t feel like you have to have it all put together right away. As long as you have enough to keep the kids entertained and keep them learning, then you’ll be just fine.

All right. Can I read our next question?

You do.

This comes from Courtney in California, which is great alliteration. So, this is about high school ceramics and sculpture. So, it says, “For finishing their work, I have my students glaze two of their projects and then use acrylic paint for the last ceramic project of the school year. However, sometimes I have three to four students who do not like how their glazed projects turn out or they don’t want to take their projects home. I get all sorts of excuses. I feel like this is wasting supplies, the clay, the glaze, my time, getting their work fired. Unfortunately, I don’t have the budget or time to allow students to experiment with glaze.

My question is, if students had the option of not glazing, how would I hold them accountable in other ways? If they don’t glaze their artwork, they would be exempt from the grade for glazing. But I feel like some students would take advantage of that option because they don’t want to put in the extra work of completing the glazing process, but at the same time, I don’t want to waste art supplies, especially since glaze is so expensive. Love the podcast and the effort you put in for us, art teachers. Thanks.” So as the one person here, Tim, who has taught high school ceramics, I’m going to throw this to you first.

Okay, sounds good. Let me just say, Courtney, I feel where you’re coming from. I feel like every ceramics teacher has run into this issue. I don’t know. This might be a controversial opinion, but my take would be don’t make them glaze it. Don’t make them glaze everything. I understand all of the issues and the consequences that come along with that, but I don’t think it’s necessary for them, especially if they don’t want to do it or don’t feel like they need to do it. If you know it’s going to be a waste, don’t make them do it. So, I always have kids glaze one piece and to show that they know how, to give them the experience of glazing.

Yeah, like I said, just when it comes to assessment, you can say, “Yes, they know how to glaze a piece,” but if they don’t want to finish it or don’t want to glaze a piece, they know they’re not going to take it home. Why are they making them do that? Why would you make them if you know it’s going to be a waste? So I think it’s probably good for teachers to ask themselves that. To speak to the idea of how do you hold them accountable in other ways, I think it’s good to just talk to the kids. We have a great podcast coming next week about assessment and how conversations are assessment and how all of these conversations can foster more creativity.

But short answer, just like a one-to-one conference is really worthwhile if you can just sit down and talk to kids about what they’re creating, what they’re thinking, what their plans are or whatever other assessment you have, but just talk about the piece with them. At that point, kids can tell you what they would’ve done if they were to see it through the end. Then they can do that or they cannot do that. It’s really up to them. But as long as they’re thinking through the process, I don’t know if they necessarily need to waste the materials if you know it’s not going to be a finished piece.

So, I would usually just grade it as if the green wear were the finished product and then they can toss the piece in the recycle bucket and we move on. It saves materials, it saves time and effort, and it saves a lot of money, which are all of the issues that Courtney is talking about there. So, anyway, I would love to hear from other ceramics teachers on how to answer this. I don’t know if I’m in the minority with this opinion, but I think it’s okay. As long as kids have shown you some at some point along the way that they know how and they have the experience with this, they don’t have to do every piece.

I would just expand on that just a little bit and say, think about your assessment, right? Could they show you that they understand glazing in other ways besides glazing an entire finished piece? So could they help create test tiles that you have to create anyway and reflect on that experience? Could they create some other project about the glazing process, like a paper or a podcast or an infographic, or could you broaden your assessment to include surface finishes and then have them experiment with other techniques that interest them?

We have a really good article in the archives called Forget Glazing: 15 Other Innovative Ways to Add Color to Clay, which obviously has over a dozen other ways that they might finish a piece. Then just what Tim was talking about, have them do one and maybe that one isn’t even big, right? You could also play with scale if cost is a factor. Can they create a small sculpture that they glaze or an elaborate pinch pot or something? So they’re not using a ton of materials, but they’re still getting the experience. So, I think you have some options there.

Yeah, very true. All right. We have a few different questions that have come in over Instagram, and this first one is from Life Imitating Arts. The question is, what can I do over the summer to set myself up for success with classroom management?

Now, we just talked about the Sunday scaries. So, hey, you’re in charge. If you want to fast forward through this question. If you’re not, put your fingers in your ears and la, la, la. But for those of you who, like Tim’s wife or me, were in your classroom a lot over the summer because that made you feel calmer, I do have some ideas for you. So, I think the first thing is to reflect on your classroom rules, processes, and procedures from last year, and just think about what went well and what do you wish you did differently? I always really like to think about proactive classroom management. So, what can you do at the beginning of the year to mitigate issues? What can you do to stop misbehaviors before they start?

So for me, that always started with my routines and procedures. For me, that was number one. They have to be explicitly clear. They have to be practiced. You can think about how you might teach those to the kids in the fall, how and where they’ll be posted to your room, if non-readers or non-English speakers can understand them. So, maybe one thing you could do this summer is add visuals to anything that you have posted to help increase understanding. You have to figure out what you’re going to do if they are not followed. So, my best advice is to make a really funny, engaging video that would be a great thing to do over this summer that you can just play for every class, because that way, everybody gets the exact same information and the exact same expectations.

You don’t have to worry about like, “Oh, did I say that in this class, or did I miss that part, or did I run out of time?” You don’t have to go insane, repeating yourself over and over and over. The first week of school or the first couple weeks of school can be really taxing as a teacher because you are working to set those expectations. But if you put some of that in a prerecorded form, then that saves you a lot of energy for other things during that first week. You could also look into some professional development to complete over the summer. So, I have two suggestions for topics, broad topics on that.

One is to learn more about behavior as communication. This was a real light bulb moment for me to figure out why kids are acting the way they are. So, we have a great pro pack called Behavior Management At The Elementary Level where Shannon Lauffer walks you through that and then also deescalation strategies. It’s no secret that the last couple of years, kids have been more dysregulated, teachers have been more dysregulated, right?

True.

We don’t show that the same way as kids do, but we have another great pro pack called Deescalation Strategies for Challenging Behaviors if you’re a pro member. But even if you’re not, I would just simply Google those two ideas and see what you can learn about them. We also have, if you’re interested, a course managing the art room, where you actually develop a complete classroom management action plan for immediate implementation in the art room. Now, that is not available this summer. I believe the next time that is running is in September. But if you’re really passionate about classroom management, that would be a great place for you to look as well.

Yeah, I’ll just echo with those resources. If you look up Christine Cusack or Chris Cusack on The Art of Ed, I’ve learned so much from her over the past few years. She’s been on the podcast. I believe she’s done pro pack. She’s been at the NOW Conference. So, if you can find her, just learning everything that she has to say, I think it’s really good both for preventative measures, but also how to react to misbehaviors.

But yeah, I don’t know. I agree with you, Amanda, on the idea of just routines and procedures. I think that’s vitally important. If you have those down, it’s going to prevent so many issues. So, thinking through those during the summer, figure out what’s going to be important for you. I don’t know. For me, what always worked is just to be stubborn about routines and procedures, be hardheaded and teach and reteach it until-

Actually wait. If you say, “I’m going to wait until it’s quiet,” you have to wait until every kid is quiet. It doesn’t work if three kids are still talking and you continue.

And you go on. Yeah, just follow through with what you say. Yeah, and that’s going to be a big help. Amanda, I know you said don’t go insane repeating yourself over and over, but that is exactly what works for me.

Well, I meant the initial time.

I know.

Yes, you do have to repeat yourself a thousand times.

As an example, if my kids are not cleaning brushes correctly, we will go through the entire speech on how to clean brushes correctly the next day. I think I got to 11 days in a row once. It’s just like, “Do you think I want to be doing this over? No, no. I want to give you all time to paint, but you can’t figure out how to clean brushes. So, we got to do this again.” It’s not super fun, but it’s something that I think is important to me to just make sure that those routines are in place and that those procedures are being followed. I guess I would just say as you’re thinking through these things, figure out what works for you.

What is going to be important to you? As you process all of that and as you decide what’s going to be most important to you, then you figure out how. How are you going to teach those routines? How are you going to teach those procedures? How are you going to make sure that those things are followed? Like you said, focus on preventative measures, because I think that’s incredibly helpful. I would say the advice right now for the summer is just to think through all of that, make a plan and figure out how you’re going to be able to implement that once school rolls around.

Yeah, definitely. All right. Next, we have from Instagram, @dbjara maybe. How do you motivate students who are dumped into your art classes?

Okay, so my shorter answer is I don’t know, because every kid-

Don’t you have a whole pro pack about this?

I do. Short answer is I don’t know. The longer answer is every kid is different. That’s why we don’t know, because you’re not sure what your kids are interested in. So, my suggestion is just to try everything. Hopefully, that’s something you’re doing in your room anyway, but try drawing, try painting, try print making, try working with ceramics, try creating a sculpture, try some digital art, whatever the case may be. Just give them experience in everything. Then if you find something that those kids are interested in, let them do more of it. If you’re having trouble getting them engaged or getting them involved, just try and figure out what they’re interested in, what they enjoy doing, and put those things together.

If you can tap into their interests and tap into a method of creating art that they really enjoy, that’s going to work well. There’s a lot of trial and error involved that might take you a long time to figure out what’s going to motivate those kids, what’s going to get them engaged with what you’re doing in class, but just keep trying until you find something that works.

Yeah, that’s good advice. I would also say get to know them. Show interest in what they’re interested in. Let them do the Minecraft project. Let them do anime. Let them do things that you might not want to let them do, but find where they’re excited and then really follow that. I’ll also add, sometimes something works once and never again. Sometimes you’re like, “I found it.” Then the next day, nope, that’s a non-starter, so you have to go back to the drawing board. Sometimes you do hit on that gem that works for a bit, but then you need to tweak it. I taught elementary, and essentially, all the kids were dumped into my art classes. So, I really found finding supportive partners at school was really important.

So, think about your team. Who else can you call on for support and strategizing? Maybe that’s a school counselor, or maybe that’s a former teacher that the student had good rapport with. Maybe that’s a sports coach. I feel like often kids who are unmotivated at least have one person at school who they feel like really gets them. It’s like their safe space. They’re always in their room in the morning or whatever. If you partner, find that person and have them be your ally, that may give you some ideas too. Then make sure you’re allowing for student voice and choice, like we just talked about. Sometimes it can be overwhelming for those kids to come up with ideas though. If they’re unmotivated to do art, they may be unmotivated to think of ideas.

So, maybe providing them with two choices, two things you think they might be interested that are both acceptable to you, a la the love and logic method, and let them choose between that. Maybe you provide them with a menu. There’s lots of different strategies, but I think the overall idea of experimentation is a good one for those kiddos.

Yeah, I’d say that’s great advice. Talking to other teachers, talking to coaches, a lot of times that is the avenue to get through. So, yeah, I’m glad that you brought that up. All right. I think this is our last mailbag question. This is from Daniel A-P-E-J-I-C on Instagram question, or maybe it’s Daniela.

Oh, Daniela. It could be.

I’m a little slow. Sorry, Daniela. The question is, what’s the best way to give out paint to elementary students when they’re all using different colors? All right. I will just say that I don’t think I ever figured out a good system for this in my two years as a traveling elementary art teacher. So, Amanda, I’m hoping you have a good-

Oh, I have ideas. I hack this. Yes. So, I’m going to assume this question is referring to temper paint. So, I’m going to run through it, and then I’m going to give some alternatives for different kinds of paint at the end.

Okay, cool.

So my first biggest rule is do not let them get out of their seats to get paint. Having kids out of their seats to come get their colors, I’m doing air quotes here, at the elementary level is a nightmare full stop. So, instead, you are going to bring the colors to them. So, I loved egg cartons for this. So, you want to ask for donations of Styrofoam or plastic egg cartons. Then you are going to fill the cartons up with the colors you want the kids to have access to. You’re going to close the lids, you’re going to stack them up, and you are going to put them in a giant airtight Tupperware container, giant plastic garbage bag in a low tray, whatever you have. You’re going to cover them. Then as the paint runs out over the course of the project, you can just fill it back up.

I have kept egg cartons full of paint for weeks without issues with this method. Does one of them get too messy to use occasionally? Sure. Then you just wash it out. But in my room, how I ran it is I had two kids share one egg carton of paint and then a separate paper plate or plastic palette for mixing. So, the kids had access to all the colors. The carton was like the repository of paint, but then any mixing happened on this additional palette that they had. This is really great, because you can give out 12 colors if you want to, or you can cut the egg cartons into smaller sections and give out six colors or four colors.

Just ask about that. Yes.

Yes, if you need a limited palette. Obviously, this method takes scaffolding, right? The kids have to know how to mix colors. They have to know how to properly wash their brushes between dipping into the different wells of the egg carton. But once the kids are trained with this method, it is great. So, I would start with kindergarten, no egg cartons, just paper plate, paper plate limited palette until we understood how to wash brushes. Then I would scaffold it from there. Then really briefly, this also carries over to other types of paint. So, I still give the kids all the colors they need right at their tables. With watercolor and temper paints, I gave them the entire pan once I was confident they could wash their brushes, right?

With liquid tempera, I would use condiment containers set into muffin tins and then put the little plastic caps on top of the condiment containers in between classes. But that method, at least for me and my kiddos, worked really, really well. So, that is something you could try.

Oh, awesome advice. I appreciate hearing all of that. So, it makes it sound like you had things in order and I don’t know. I’m envisioning six-year-olds walking across the room with a tray of paint and just what a nightmare that is.

What a nightmare, right? Yes. To be clear, you pass the egg cartons out. That is a teacher job, at least until they get to second grade.

Yeah, no, I think just stay in your seats in all caps is the way to approach that.

100%.

All right. Anyway, Amanda, let’s go ahead and wrap it up there. Thank you for joining me and answering all of these. It’s been awesome conversation and we should do it again next month.

Let’s do it again next month. Send us your questions.

So many notes. Okay, so many things to link in the show notes. I will link in the podcast I recommended on curriculum. We’ll link the myriad of resources that Amanda recommended and anything else that I think might be helpful. Hey, but thank you to everyone again for the awesome questions. Keep them coming and we’ll plan on a back to school mailbag episode in August. So, we obviously can’t answer everything that we get in, but we’re doing our best.

So, send in your questions, topics, ideas, or anything else to me at timothybogatz@theartofeducation.edu. Or if you want to be cool and leave a voicemail like Chelsea did, you can call us at (515) 209-2595. Okay. That will be it for us. Like I said, thank you from both Amanda and me for being a part of these episodes with us.

Art Ed Radio is produced by The Art of Education University with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Thank you for listening. I will be back next week with Katie White talking about assessment and creativity, and Amanda will be back next month as we open up the August mailbag. We’ll talk to you then.