Let Creativity Reign: Art Ed NOW, Teacher Hacks, and Artmaking with Joel Scholten (Ep. 477)

Before we start today, I want to tell about an exciting new offering from The Art of Education University. If you’ve been craving time to focus on your own art making, AOEU’s new graduate certificates in studio art might be exactly what you need. These programs are designed for art teachers who want to grow as artists, whether your diving deeper into 2D or 3D media, building your body of work, or just reconnecting with your creative voice. The 2D certificate lets you choose you own path, exploring media like drawing, painting, printmaking, and digital art. The 3D certificate is all about form and function, with courses in ceramics, sculpture, book arts, and fibers. It’s flexible, meaningful professional learning that centers you and your art making practice. You can learn more by visiting the AOEU website or clicking on the link in the show notes. Now, let’s get to an episode about some of those same topics, an episode about creativity, art making, and connection.

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

Today we are diving in to a conversation that will have a little bit of inspiration, a little bit of insight, and it’s going to be all about the joys and challenges of teaching art. My guest will be Joel Scholten. He is a familiar face from the Art Ed Now conference and a very popular educator on Instagram. Whether you know him from his classroom, his Reels, or his work with The Art of Ed, Joel brings a ton of experience and a lot of authenticity to everything he does. We have a bigger discussion about creativity and art making in mind, but we also want to give a sneak peek into Joel’s upcoming art making session at Art Ed Now. And maybe also talk about his best advice for starting the year strong, and some creative solutions to some other topics as well. I’m excited to have him here. He’s ready to go, so let’s jump in.

All right, Joel Scholten is joining me now. Joel, how are you?

I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me, Tim.

Well, thanks for coming back on the show. We appreciate it. A lot of awesome things going on with the Now conference coming up. To start with I guess, I know a lot of people know you from Art Ed Now, people know you from being on the podcast. But for people who don’t know you, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Give us an introduction to your teaching, your social media, your artwork, anything else that you want to share.

Yeah, absolutely. My name is Joel Scholten. I am a K-through-five art educator from Omaha, Nebraska. I’ve been teaching, this will be my 18th year, Tim.

Oh my gosh.

Which is wild.

Do you feel like you’re getting old?

You know, it’s funny because I feel like when I first started teaching, and it didn’t feel that long ago, Tim.

Yeah.

I remember seeing people who had been in the career of teaching for 20 years and just thinking, “Wow, that is so long.”

Right.

Fast-forward, it really does feel like fast-forwarding, here I am, 18 years in. I’m like now I’m that person that the new teachers look at and go, “Wow, that’s a long time.”

Well, I remember just thinking when I first started, anybody with kids was old and anybody with kids in high school was really old. Now, I have two kids in high school and it’s like, “Oh, man.” It’s such a different world, such a different perspective at this point.

It is. It’s funny because in my span of 18 years, I’ve taught everything from elementary through high school. I have been to students’ weddings.

Right.

Which sounds awful, but when you teach high school-

Yeah, yeah.

… you have students who go off and go to college, and then they get married. I’ve been to weddings, I’ve been to graduations, college graduations. It’s all starting to become very real. This is my life and career and I’ve been in it for a long time. Yeah.

Yeah, I like that though. It’s good to know that you’ve found something that you enjoy, that you can make a career of. I think that’s a good thing, even if we do feel really old at this point.

Right, exactly. Along with years of experience comes lots of learning, and growing, and developing. One of the other things that I do is I work for The Art of Ed. I work in flex curriculum, I work as a flex standards manager. I help align content to different states’ standards. That’s been really interesting, learning all different states’ fine arts standards, and being able to go through all the curriculum. Of course, I help write some of that curriculum as well, and I do a lot of video content for them as well. That’s all great.

I’ve also had the opportunity to work on Instagram and TikTok. My handle is scholtenart on both of those. It’s just fun sharing some of the things that I’ve learned over the years. I know that there’s a lot of first year teachers, I know there’s a lot of teachers who previously taught in the classroom who are now transitioning to the art room.

Yeah.

There’s a lot of families who are homeschooling, and parents who are saying, “Hey, my kids don’t get art anymore. What are some things that we can tangibly do around the kitchen table together?” It’s been really fun just sharing some of the things that we do in the classroom or some of the different project options I provide in the classroom to students. Just seeing how people receive some of those ideas, and techniques, and lessons, and make them their own in their classroom or at home. It’s been fun watching people post maybe some of the different pictures of things that they’ve done with their classroom that were lessons that I shared through video. That’s been really fun. I’ve really enjoyed that as well, just having the opportunity to share that way.

Having two kids that are … Yeah, I have a kid in high school, so again, I’m old. I’ve got a kid in high school and a kid in middle school. It’s a fun way to connect with them, too. I know I learned pretty much all my video editing skills from my daughter who is in high school.

Yeah.

She’s introduced me to different video editing apps and things like that. She’s really helped me along in the process as well.

That’s great.

Yeah.

For them, is it cool? Is it fun to have a dad whose Instagram famous or TikTok famous?

I think so, but it’s more fun for them to slip it into a random conversation with-

Okay.

… somebody who doesn’t know me well.

Yeah.

I wouldn’t consider it the thing that I would typically lead with when I’m introducing myself to new people.

Right.

Or talking to people I haven’t seen in a long time. They know that it’s maybe a little bit embarrassing for me for them to just drop it in the middle of a conversation. It’s always a race to see which one of them can drop it first into a conversation and then just let it sit awkwardly there for a second.

That’s really funny. I love it. I am actually though really glad that you brought up social media because I wanted to ask you about that. I know for this upcoming Art Ed Now conference, you created a couple Reels that I thought were just hilarious. You did the get ready with me one for the Art Room, which was spectacular. Also, more recently everybody saw the one where we let creativity reign and you were dressed up as a king, as royalty, which was also spectacular. Can you tell us about the making of those? Did your daughter help with those? Behind the scenes, what was the inspiration for them? How did those ideas come together?

Working with The Art of Ed, one of the things that I get to do is jump in and help in different areas. I’ve done a few social media posts and things like that for The Art of Ed and I get to work really closely with Abby Schukei, which is really awesome because you, and I, and Abby all worked together for a few years, which is really fun. It’s always fun to connect with her and to work with her.

I have to give her some credit on the get ready with me post because I knew that I was going to be doing a few posts for the Art Ed Now conference. Which I love and I think is just an awesome opportunity for teachers to grow, so I’m fully behind it. I love creating content to promote the conference. I was just a little stuck so I asked Abby for some phone on some ideas. She had thrown together some fun ideas that were maybe mimicking some of the things that were happening, some of the things that were trending on Instagram and TikToks-

Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah.

… and different trending things. After looking through her stuff I thought actually, one of my biggest pet peeves on Instagram is that these get ready with me videos always end up on my feed. I don’t know how they end up on my feed because I don’t like them, but they’re always there.

Yeah.

I thought, “Man, what if I did an art teacher spoof on this thing that I actually don’t even like?”

Right.

And just make it fun, and silly, and backwards. I had a lot of fun filming that, and just coming up with the most ridiculous ways for an art teacher to get ready in the morning. That was really fun, and I have to give Abby credit for that because I think if she wouldn’t have given me a couple of ideas, I don’t know if I would have came to that conclusion on my own.

Right, right.

Then the second one, like I said, my daughter, she’s incredibly creative. She does a lot with video editing, and has shown me a lot of different apps and things like that to edit my videos and things. We were actually on a walk this summer and I was sharing with her, “Oh, I have to do another video. I’m not exactly sure where to take it.” We’re both very creative types, so she came up with this idea that I should be a king and I should talk about how after being at this conference, I just feel like the king of the world.

Yeah.

I thought, “Oh, that’s such a great idea.” Then we started bouncing all these ideas off each other. I’m like, “Oh, I should be speaking in old English. We should be coming up with really fun ways to roast PD that really has nothing to do with art teachers.”

Yeah.

Because that’s just a common thing that specialists in general have to wade through as part of the profession. We just kept bouncing these ideas off of each other and all of a sudden it became this full-blown thing. She actually did come with me to school and she was basically directing every shot. Pretty much telling me … We had a little script written and she was like, “Okay, now you stand over here. I want you to say this line.”

We had gotten a king costume online. So when it came in, we ran up to school, we took all these shots and videos. I had edited it down a little bit, and then my daughter came in and edited it even further. There was even a lot of really fun shots that we had taken that we weren’t even able to add in as part of the video. There’s still more fun little shots and content that’s just [inaudible 00:13:13] right now.

We might need some outtakes from this. I feel like we may want to see what else is out there.

You know, it’s funny, I think actually in my first-ever Now conference presentation, I was just so nervous. It’s funny because I do this so often, I don’t think people-

I was going to say you’ve done so many of these now.

Yes. Even just with video content in general, between creating videos for flex and for Now, and for social media, I do so much of it. I think people think that it’s just something that I throw together, but sometimes it makes me really nervous. I think the more serious I get, the more nerve wracking it becomes.

Yeah.

Sometimes presenting at a conference like Now can actually just be really nerve wracking. The first time I ever presented, I remember trying to create that intro piece where it’s front-facing, and I’m introducing myself and what I’m going to teach. It took me a solid whole afternoon-

Oh, wow.

… to get 30 seconds of content.

Yeah.

Man, if you would go back on my social media, I don’t know how many years ago that was, six years ago, you would find the funniest Reel. I am just an actual nervous wreck, I couldn’t say a word. There was just so much video content that I went through. I was like, “Man, I have to throw together a blooper reel here because this is just a mess.”

Yeah, yeah.

Actually, I threw together a little blooper reel because there was some wild things. I had a painting fall down behind me. It was bad news.

Yeah. I don’t know. We always can look back and see how those things go. It’s fun to improve, but it’s also fun to look back and see how things have changed.

Now, speaking of you having done this for forever, I don’t know how many times you’ve presented at Art Ed Now at this point, but we always have you starting the conference, always doing some art making. Can you give us a little preview of what’s going to be happening with this presentation? What will be your art making presentation this time around? What can people expect to see? Is there anything, if they’re listening ahead of time here, anything they can do to get ready to create along with you?

Yeah, absolutely. Over the last several years, one of the things that I do when I’m presenting is I will look at some of the flex content that we have available through our curriculum and find a lesson that is process-based that can be worked on, jumped into and step away from so that teachers can be working on it throughout the conference. Picking it up and putting it down, and being able to work in small shifts. I also love pulling lessons that are just really fun and interesting, and can be personal.

With this specific lesson for Art Ed Now, we are going to be choosing a fun lesson. It’s fairly process-based, it’s going to require some sketching. What I specifically love about the flex curriculum is that these lessons, they can be made with pretty much any material.

Yeah.

It’s very adaptable. There’s just tons of resources so that if things do need to be changed, if materials need to be changed, or anything like that, there’s just tons of resources available to help you maneuver and work through some of those problems that you might be having in your classroom.

Materials-wise, you’ll probably need some paper. Then other than that, pretty much whatever you have on hand. I’ll be demonstrating with watercolors. The lesson calls for charcoal, but I actually didn’t have charcoal in the classroom.

Okay.

One of the things that I did … I’m an elementary art teacher, we don’t have a ton of charcoal. What I did was I worked with oil pastels. Which I think again, is just a really great example of how flex curriculum can be really flexible.

Yeah, absolutely.

I chose oil pastels to work in. But whatever you can scrounge up in your home studio probably will work with what we’re going to do. Then you’re also going to want a meaningful object on hand. We’re going to be doing some sketching and one of the things it calls for is for you to sketch a meaningful object. You’ll want to have that on hand so that we can move seamlessly into that and you won’t be missing any other content from the conference.

Yeah, that’s perfect. Can you tell us what your meaningful object was that you chose? Because I really enjoyed it.

Yeah. One of the things that the lesson is connecting is it’s connecting art and music. The example had headphones, or something music-related. Then I thought, “Oh, that’s really cool because it’s connecting music and art, and they chose a musical object.” It brought me way back to those early ’90s when I had my Sony Walkman Sport with AM/FM radio. I thought I was a big deal, having this amazing Walkman that also had an AM/FM radio. Everybody who is listening who is under the age of 40 right now is like, “That sounds so lame. Didn’t you have Wi-Fi?” I did not. I did not have Wi-Fi, so an AM/FM radio was really super sweet at the time. I just had a ton of fun messing around with my Walkman and sketching my Walkman.

Yeah, I love that. I’m really glad that we could bring up once again how old we are during this conversation. It’s good. I also want to ask you too, because teachers are always so appreciative of having time to make art, having time during PD to create something. I wanted to ask you, looking at the bigger picture, why would you say or why do you think it’s important for us as art teachers to continue to create, to continue to make art?

Yeah, I think actually there’s a ton of beneficial reasons to be creating art as an art teacher. I think I was reminded of this this summer. Our district is having a group art show and I haven’t created art for myself in a long time.

Yeah.

I’ve done a lot of project examples. I’ve done some commission work for people. I’m an encaustic painter. Getting materials out, it’s a process, it takes a long time.

Right. Yeah, yeah.

You got to wait for the wax to melt for about an hour. It takes a lot of time. It’s a commitment. It’s just been a really long time since I created personal art. This summer, because I wanted to be part of this group show, I had to put some work together. It was just such a great reminder of how important it is to be a creative when you’re teaching creative skills. I think the biggest takeaway I had from this summer and just being able to create some of my own art is that it’s creative play. It’s fun.

I had learned a few new techniques since the last time I was able to sit down and create with encaustics and hadn’t had the chance to put those to the test. I was able to do a few of those things, and just mess around and play. It was good for the soul to be able to create.

Yeah.

I think it’s rejuvenating. I know personally, I have a connection to art, I think we all have some sort of connection to art. It’s why we chose to be art teachers in the first place. It brings us back to the center of who we are and why we chose this profession. I know for me, there are days too where maybe I’m feeling a little off, maybe I’ve had a rough period with a student who I’m trying to regulate challenging behaviors, it does become tiresome. I think there are sometimes in the day where it’s okay to even sit down at a table with some students, and get some supplies out, and just work alongside the kids.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

I think it’s really cool for them to see you being a creative. In middle school, there were two PE teachers in middle school. Everybody wanted Mr. Moriarty and it’s because the other PE teacher sat in the corner and told you what to do.

Right.

Mr. Moriarty was in it. He wasn’t going to ask you to do pushups, he was going to do the pushups with you. He wasn’t going to ask you to play basketball, he was going to play basketball with you. It was just really fun to watch him practicing the thing that he loved.

Yes.

It translated as him being the teacher that everybody wanted because he was in it, and he was a part of it, and he modeled it for us. I think there’s also an advantage to modeling just creativity and artistic behaviors for students.

I love that idea of modeling, I love that idea of working along with kids and letting them see you create. No matter what it is, just letting them see you create, to dive into those artistic endeavors. It sets a great example for them.

Yeah. I think too, being able to see an art teacher work professionally or have an opportunity to show out in the community, and things like that, it takes art out of the classroom. When a student sees a teacher who is only creating to demonstrate or complete a classroom example, what they see is that art is for art class and not art is for the world. Having students be able to see how what they’re learning can be translated out into the world and it’s actually something that’s relevant outside of the walls of your classroom is important, too.

Yeah, I love that example. There’s nothing wrong with art for art’s sake, art for classroom’s sake. But the idea that we can show kids that there’s even more out there is a wonderful thing. I really love that perspective, I appreciate that.

Now, I also want to ask you. We’re getting to late July here and a lot of teachers are starting to worry about the beginning of the school year. It’s coming soon for a lot of us. What is your upcoming school year going to look like? Is there anything new, anything different that you’re going to be trying this year?

Yeah. Well, I’ll be traveling schools next year and that’s not new.

Yeah.

I’ve traveled before, and I traveled last year. But I’m always looking for ways to make traveling easier. I don’t really think people always understand or recognize the challenges of traveling, especially if you’re traveling to more than one building a day.

Yes.

Because your schedule can get really tight. It just poses some unique challenges. Last year, I didn’t have anything to carry my supplies in. I’m living here in Nebraska where it’s super windy all the time, and I’m constantly chasing down things as I’m trying to carry it from one classroom to another.

Yeah.

I thought, “I just need to be one of those stereotypical traveling art teachers with one of those rolly boxes, I’m just going to need that.”

You’re going to have to break down and buy one, yeah.

Right. It’s not a cutesy teacher buy, it’s actually functional.

Yeah.

It’s going to be important to use that as well.

I think another thing that I’m always trying to do is provide more student choice in my classroom. With district standards and district common assessments, it really can be difficult to provide a ton of choice, so I’ve just been slowly integrating more choice into my classroom. It started out really small, offering different size papers or different colors, or opportunities to finish your background how you want to, whatever. Now, I do have opportunities where students, I present whatever the skill or idea is, the learning goal, and then students move from ideation through completion all on their own.

Yeah.

In spaces where that’s available. But I’m always trying to find new ways to bring more choice into the classroom. I would say, when you think about those goals, the common thread is getting cleaned up and getting in and out of a building in time to be ready for the next class at your next building. Choice becomes a difficult task.

I was going to say there are lot of challenges involved.

Right. Speaking specifically of cleanup, and my students are great at cleanup. We have very consistent routines, so they know what to do to clean up, they know how to clean up, and they do a great job. When we’re working at the painting station and there’s several students working at a painting station, maybe the painting station overflows into other tables, that can be a lot of mess. One of the things my students love is just doing some creative play with unconventional painting tools, objects.

Yeah.

Potato mashers, or I like to keep the centers of the weed whacker because it has this really cool pattern in it.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

Kids like to stamp with it. Just weird things like that. But what’s crazy about how much the kids love playing with these different materials to paint with is that you end up with an entire tub of tools that-

You have a sink full of things that needs to be cleaned, yeah.

Need to be cleaned, and we’re talking … You guys are all art teachers, you know. This is 20, 30 minutes of cleanup, and it all ends up in just one big wash basin. I carry that whole wash basin over to my next classroom, over to my next building so I can clean it when the school day is over. But by the time the school day is over, I’ve got a whole second wash basin from my other school that also needs to be cleaned up. Now I’ve got these two huge wash basins of things. One of them is everything that’s poking out from the water is all dried out, so you’re scrubbing extra hard.

I was thinking, “What can I do to make that easier on me?” Because I remember at the end of this past year almost thinking I was ready to give up on these experiences because it just took too much time to clean up. But I love that my students are getting these experiences and I love that my students love to play with these materials and tools, so I didn’t want to give it up. This was an opportunity for some problem solving.

With some PTO money, I’m actually buying a small wash basin for each table.

Oh, okay.

I’m just going to put a little water and a little bit of dish soap in each one of those wash basins. Then at the end of class, students will just take the tools that they’ve used and wash them down at the table. That way, I don’t need 20 sinks to be able to get all those cleaned by students. Then they’ll set them to dry. Then in the next class while students are working independently, I can pour out the water, get some fresh water in there. Students will just be working through cleaning up their own tools. They’ve already modeled for me that they are great cleaners.

Yeah.

They do a great job in every other aspect. Just providing one more cleanup job for students so that they can be helpful, that’s going to save me so much time every day in areas where I can be completing other tasks. Or even going home on time and being with my family.

I was going to say going home is a big one.

I’m excited to see how this works. I know that with some of my younger students, this is going to take a lot of modeling and practice, but I think with my younger students, they’re even more excited to help cleaning than my older students are.

I was going to say I’ll be curious to see how many kids are just excited to play with the soapy water. That’s going to be fun, too.

Right. And as we all know from paint water, they’re going to love to know what color their water turns out to be.

Yeah.

They’re going to want to share that.

Yeah.

I think there’s going to be at least a really great honeymoon period in this. I’m excited to see where this goes. I think this is going to be a good solution to multiple problems for both me and the students.

Yeah, I think it’s going to be good for everybody. I like that.

Then to wrap up, just one last question for you. Advice for people, just whatever you want to share. Do you have advice on how to make most of the Art Ed Now conference, being the veteran that you are? Or do you have advice on the upcoming school year for people? Anything that you want to share that might make things run more smoothly for people?

Yeah, absolutely. The conference is such a great opportunity to connect with other art teachers.

Yeah.

I would say utilize that to your full advantage. You’re going to be in a chatroom with 3000 other art teachers. I don’t know if that’s the correct number, but you can correct me if that’s wrong.

We have almost 3000 people registered right now. Yeah.

That was such an excellent guess! That was exciting. Okay. That’s almost 3000 people worth of experiences, and ideas, and art room hacks. I would say find positive ways to engage in the community through the chat. It’s easy to get frustrated sometimes when you’re watching somebody do something that’s really cool and you almost feel like, “I can’t do that with my constraints.” Or, “My classroom is not set up like that.” It’s easy to get frustrated at first because it’s like, “Oh, I want that, but I can’t have it.” Instead of being frustrated, jump into the chat and say, “Hey, I have this constraint. Does anybody have any ideas on how this can be manageable in my classroom?” Or, “How many of you have this same constraint as me, but have made this happen successfully in your classroom? How can I make this successful in my classroom, too?” Just bounce ideas off the other people who are listening and watching with you.

And also, you are filled with expertise and experiences. What can you share and offer in the chat that will help other people through the process as well?

Yeah, don’t be afraid to share. We need ideas from everyone. Don’t hold back. There are a lot of great conversations happening and I would definitely encourage people to be part of them.

Yeah. Also, connecting over social media. We have the Art Ed NOW hashtag. You can use the Art Ed NOW hashtag to share notes that you’ve taken, or ideas that you have gleaned or taken away from the conference. You can share the art you’ve created with me and use that hashtag to share with me and the rest of the community what you’ve created. There’s just a lot of fun ways to, even of social media, that you can be connecting with other artists throughout the conference. It’s just a huge wealth of knowledge, so use that wealth of knowledge.

When you do the Art Ed Now conference, you also get the after pass.

Right.

Which is awesome because you are also able to go back and re-watch things. You can rewind, you can pause. You can visit other sessions, there’s other tidbits and fun sessions there through the after pass that you can get. One of the benefits of being part of a virtual conference is that you have the flexibility to learn at your own pace and you don’t have to feel like, “Oh, there was that one thing and I missed it.” You didn’t miss it, you can go back and find it, and write it down. Maybe you were writing notes and you missed something important, again, you can go back and listen, and get all that important information through the after pass. If you are registered, make sure you’re utilizing the after pass as well. You can really extend that learning for yourself.

Yeah, there’s so much more there. That’s good advice. Anything else you want to share?

Yeah. I think for me, one of the biggest things I’ve learned in all of the years, Tim, that we’ve been teaching.

Excellent callback, thank you.

One of the tips for the upcoming school year is take the first few weeks to set tone. I think a lot of people want perfection in their classroom. They want things to go well in their classroom. They want things to go seamlessly. But kids don’t necessarily remember a seamless lesson plan. What they remember is your energy.

Yeah.

And your connection. Taking the first few weeks just to set tone is super important. It’s going to take you a long way just in terms of routines, in terms of behaviors. I think the [inaudible 00:37:40] maintain positive, safe, and creative environment is to being the year by prepping routines.

Yeah.

This sounds like it’s not connection, but it really is connection. I think one of the things I’ve learned with being a parent and a teacher is that kids really love understanding the expectation. I think they love to be able to be independent in a way where they understand how to navigate a situation or how to navigate a space. By prepping routines, you’re really setting the kids up for success. But it also is not just for the students, it’s for the teachers as well. Things do get chaotic.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

My desk is going to end up with just mounds of papers, and found materials, and random objects.

I was going to say wash basins full of paint experiment tools.

Right, wash basins full of paints. It’s so easy for your mind, by the end of the day, to become mush, so routines are good for you, too. Having a routine, like what happens when I walk into the door in the morning, what needs to be done before my first class, that’s important for you as well because if you’re frazzled by the time your first class comes in for the day, it’s going to build connection with the students as well. Consistent routines help us to function in the chaos, it helps the students to function in the chaos. The consistent structure, like entry tasks, cleanup procedures, and having clear expectations will help make their class period more predictable for them-

Yes.

… and it will help it run smoothly. They know what’s expected of them and they know how to work, again, within that space. That provides you with more time to build those positive connections and to have positive experiences with the students. I think this is even more important for those of us who don’t see students every day.

Right.

If you think about it, a lot of kids have very consistent routines in other areas of their life. Especially for elementary students, they have one classroom teacher, and things are done a very specific way in that classroom. When they come into your art room once a week, they might only hear that expectation once a week.

Yeah.

Or 34 times in that school year, they might hear that instruction. I think it’s also important too, to just verbalize and repeat those expectations each time they’re in the classroom. It seems so redundant from your perspective as the art teacher because you end up saying it-

Right, because you’re doing that with every class, yeah.

Right, seven times a day, five days a week for the entire school year. But just remembering that they might only be hearing this a few times. Within the first quarter, they’ve only heard you ask them to clean up a specific way nine times.

Right.

They’ve probably heard that within the first week of their classroom.

Yeah, yeah.

Just repeating those expectations helps them to remember what the expectations are in your classroom, sometimes they just forget. Again, it prevents frustration on your end, it prevents frustration on their end. Again, provides opportunities for them to have positive memories of your classroom and to build positive memories with you. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. I want to emphasize one point that you made there because I think it is super important. Just talking about how routines can lead to connections, and I think that’s something important for everybody to keep in mind because when you have routines, kids know what to expect. They’re then able to be comfortable in your room. They’re able to relax when they come into your room. When they’re comfortable, when they’re relaxed in a classroom, then they’re open to making those connections with you, with their work, with the other students around them. I think when you connect those dots between successful routines, a particular classroom environment, and how that leads to connections, I think that’s an important point that we need to emphasize and I think more teachers need to think about and consider. I’m really glad you brought that up and I think all that advice you offered was spectacular.

Anyway, Joel, thank you for all of that. It’s been great talking to you today. Looking forward to seeing you at the Now conference very soon. We appreciate all of it, so thank you.

Yes, thank you so much. We love the Now conference, we appreciate all of the hard work you and Amanda put into it. Thank you as well.

Thank you so much to Joel for joining me today. I always appreciate his honesty, his creativity, and his ability to make teaching fun and meaningful. Whether he’s sharing project ideas on social or presenting at Art Ed Now, or just reflecting and offering advice here on the podcast, Joel has so much to offer and I’m so glad he’s willing to share.

If you’re heading to Art Ed Now next week, you’ll definitely want to catch his art making session that kicks off the event. It will give you a start to an artwork that you can continue working on throughout the day, just like Joel talked about. Even if you can’t join live, don’t forget that the after pass gives you access to everything afterward. You can create at your own pace, you can revisit sessions any time. Make sure to check the links in the show notes for all the resources we mentioned today, including Joel’s Instagram, past episodes, and more details about the conference, and even the certificates from The Art of Education University that I mentioned at the top of the show.

Art Ed Radio is produced by The Art of Education. A thank you to Michael Crocker for the engineering. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or share it with another art teacher who could use a little inspiration as they gear up for the school year. We will back with another episode next Tuesday. I hope to see you at Art Ed Now next weekend.