The February Mailbag: Teaching Struggles, Student Growth, and Creative Wins (Ep. 503)

In this February mailbag episode of Art Ed Radio, Tim Bogatz is joined by Amanda Heyn to answer listener questions and reflect on what’s happening in art classrooms right now. From creative routines and community connections to heavier conversations about burnout and career uncertainty, this episode offers some real talk about the issues that so many art teachers are facing.

Tim and Amanda discuss what to teach during observations, how to navigate a challenging student teaching placement, and what to do when teaching feels harder than expected. They also talk honestly about shifting student motivation, the importance of struggle and experimentation in art class, and why art rooms are uniquely positioned to teach perseverance, curiosity, and creative risk-taking.

The episode wraps up with a positive look at what students are doing well today and highlights weekly wins from the Art of Ed Community—celebrating student artwork, creative lessons, and small moments of success that make the work worthwhile.

Full episode transcript below.

Resources and Links

• • Join the Art of Ed Community
  • Learn more about the Art Ed NOW Conference!
  • How to make a croquemboche
  • Amanda’s book recommendation: The Art Thief
  • See Amanda’s PRO Pack on Preparing for Evaluations and Observations

Transcript

Tim:

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.

Welcome everyone to the month of February. It is time for our February mailbag and welcome to my always wonderful partner in crime Amanda Heyn. How are you?

Amanda:

I am hanging in there, Tim. How are you?

Tim:

That’s fair. That’s a good description. January was a lot. And so I’m happy to be in February. Is that fair?

Amanda:

Yeah, yeah, that’s fair.

Tim:

Sounds good. We have some good questions though. We have a lot of good stuff to get to today. Before we do that, we always like to do introductions for those of you that might be new listeners. My name is Tim Bogatz. I obviously host this podcast. I also put together the Art Ed Now conference here for the Art of Ed, which we just got done with. Well, we’re recording this right before the conference, but when you listen, we just finished the conference.

And hopefully it was fun. Hopefully it went well. We’ll assume it did. But I do that. And before I worked at the Art of Ed, I was a high school art teacher for 12 years and an elementary art teacher for two years. So Amanda, can you introduce yourself, please?

Amanda:

Yes, I’m Amanda Heyn. I’m the Director of Community Engagement at AOE and oversee the wonderful team that makes all of the media stuff that you see and also the conference and also the Art of Ed community.

Tim:

Yeah, a lot of cool stuff going on in the community right now, which I actually want to talk about. So thank you for the segue. okay. Can you tell us what, what you’re excited about coming up in the community? And I have something too, but please go ahead.

Amanda:

I also forgot to mention my street cred. I was also an elementary art teacher. so in the community, which if you have not joined yet, it’s community.theartofeducation.edu. Very easy to join, free to join. We have events, monthly events, and our next one is coming up pretty quick here on Thursday, February 5th at 6 p.m. Central time. This is our art club where we get to learn from somebody and make a little bit of art. And we are so excited to welcome Caitlin Edington from Quell. You might know her as artwithmrs.e on Instagram and her company Quell is coming. And so we’re doing a little collab with them. We’re going to be talking about sketchbooking and keeping up a creative practice. So if you were re-inspired by the NOW Conference, especially our featured presenter, Austin Kleon, maybe this is an excellent continuation of that spark we ignited in you and you’d like to come join us. So again, it’s free to join the community and it is free to come to Art Club. All of our events are free. So Thursday, 6 p.m. Central time, we would love to see you.

Tim:

Yeah, that’s perfect. I was just going to say that is the perfect follow up for Austin Kleon just talking about his work on creativity, his ideas on how to always make art in good times and in bad themes like that that he talked about throughout his presentation. That is the perfect follow up for that.

Amanda:

It’s almost like we planned it.

Tim:

I was going to say I’m excited about the new event. Jen Liebman and I teased this on last week’s podcast actually, Friday, February 13th, Friday the 13th at 1130 Central, 1230 Eastern, new event, is lunch bunch. And just kind of hang out, eat lunch together, sit, chat, make art, talk about what’s going on. Really, really laid back way for everybody kind of get together and participate.

And Jen invited me and I’m super excited to go. So Friday the 13th, the very first lunch bunch is a good one. And hopefully people can join us for that too. And if not, it’s going to be recorded and you can watch it later. But I don’t know what I’m in for, for sure, but it sounds fantastic.

Amanda:

Well, I was gonna ask, are there gonna be ghosts because of Friday the 13th?

Tim:

You know, I think if we brought it up to Jen and said weaning ghosts should be on it.

Amanda:

Well, Jen, Friday the 13th is like her favorite holiday. She loves spooky stuff. TBD, I’m excited. I’m gonna try to come if I can, I might be there, but I’m excited for people to eat lunch with you and Jen.

Tim:

Can I tell you a random aside, just a random story? My dad turned 13 on Friday the 13th. And when this happened, this was back in the late 60s. When this happened, he was featured in the newspaper, the Omaha World-Herald, and they had a picture of him holding a broken mirror.

Walking under a ladder with a black cat and just all of your superstition things that you can think of they put into a single photo featuring him which was fantastic and so he always told us this story and then a few years ago for his birthday my wife had the wonderful idea to Find this photo because he didn’t have any copies of it Yeah, and so we went to the museum like this historical museum downtown and we told them what we were looking for

Guy couldn’t find it. then like a week and a half later, he called me and he’s like, I found it. And so we have this amazing print. So yeah, that’ll be perfect for, you know, just Friday the 13th. Like it’s an amazing photo. does it have to do with anything we were talking about? No, but is it kind of cool? Yes, it absolutely.

Amanda:

I have a random aside really quick. Okay, in college we had a sculpture class. We had to do an installation. Maybe I’ve told you about this. My friend and I teamed up and we made a superstition installation. And so we got a little room in the art building that they let us have and you had to enter it. You had to walk under a ladder. There were all these open umbrellas covering the ceiling. was glass all over the floor.

There’s a video we took of our friend in the cafeteria shaking salt over his shoulder, directly into the camera, and then there was a pile of salt on the floor out of the video. love it. Here’s the thing, we really wanted a real cat, and we didn’t have any leads, so we put up posters around campus like, could we borrow your cat?

We called the humane society, deranged behavior. Hey, we’re going to break a bunch of mirrors and there’s going to be a bunch of salt all over the floor and it’s not enclosed space. It doesn’t have a door. we have…

We just need a cat for two hours on this one day. Anyway, find a cat. found a stuffed cat that we spray painted.

Oh my God, we spray painted it black and I feel like we hung it from the ceiling. I don’t know. It was great. I stand behind that artwork. It was fun.

Okay. one more, one more announcement. One more housekeeping announcement also about the community. Another event. We have three events. We have three times for you to come and hang out with us in February. And this next one is pop-up studio. It’s Wednesday, February 18th at 6 PM central. And this is where you come and just bring whatever you’re working on and you just make art. there’s

great conversation usually and chill vibes and it’s great. It’s a great way to set aside an hour for yourself. We are going to be discussing learning to love media you hate. So I’m excited about that. I have some pan pastels I think I’m going to bring because the texture makes me very, I don’t know, it gives me a feeling I can’t describe. That’s bad. And maybe I’ll love it by the end. I don’t know.

So you should come and hang out with us for that as well.

Tim:

I love that theme. That’s fantastic. I don’t know if I’ll make it, but if I do, watercolor is coming with me for sure. I’ve tried, I’ve been trying for years, for decades to love watercolor and, I can’t do it. even if you can’t make it to any of the community events, still come hang out in the community. You know, new posts every day, new discussions every day. Love to have you there. It would be fantastic.

Amanda:

Yeah, that’s fair.

Tim:

Okay, we spent a lot of time with random Friday the 13th stories, but any other stories before we dive in?

Amanda:

Well, I do feel like I need to give a shout out to teachers in Utah. So I went to Utah for work. We had some leadership meetings out there a couple of weeks ago now. I had never been to Utah and I would like to tell you about Dirty Soda because this is the only thing that I wanted to do in Utah and my dream came true and it was fine. It was medium, five out of 10.

Tim:

Explain what dirty soda is.

Amanda:

Yeah, maybe a lot of you are very confused. Dirty soda from what I… Now, I’m not an expert, like I just said, but from what I understand, it is soda with mix-ins. So think about going to a coffee bar and there’s all the syrups and the creamers and whatever. Just replace the coffee with soda. Okay? Yep. There are different combinations. So you go in and there’s a giant menu of 20 kinds of dirty soda and it’s lemon lime soda with coconut cream or Dr. Pepper with raspberry and or you can make your own from what I understand. we, felt a little bit when you were a kid, did you ever get us like a fountain soda and then you just put all the flavors except high C cause that’s gross and that’s not a soda and also not orange soda or grape soda. But I don’t know if you had the same.

Tim:

Just everything in there? Seems like a lot of requirements to be honest.

Amanda:

Anyway, so we got Dr. Pepper with coconut cream and vanilla cream. And it was like mid. one of the people on the team who I really like, we get along really well. He looked at me and he goes, you have like a critic face on like a food critic. I was like, that’s always my face. I’m always assessing and this is five out of 10, but it was very fun and I’m glad, I’m glad we, we did that. So what’s going on in your life that you can tell the people?

Tim:

That’s you. You wanted to shout out teachers in Utah. I would like to shout out any art teachers who have written a letter of recommendation for one of their students. I remember doing so many of these when I was teaching high school. Now I am living it. My daughter is applying to all of the colleges. She’s got so many applications out and between all of those applications and all of these scholarships and all of the things she’s trying to do, it’s really, really.

becoming kind of overwhelming for her. we’re luckily at the tail end and we’re waiting for admissions decisions, but I’ve just been spending so much time with, you know, checking over essays and like, hey, can you critique this for me and whatever else. And it’s fantastic. I hope she ends up somewhere great, but man, it is an effort to get there. So.

If any of you are out there with your own kids going through this or or helping any of your students get through their college applications or their scholarship applications Thank you. We appreciate it

Amanda:

Yes, absolutely.

Tim:

All right, that being said, we should probably get started with our questions. Amanda, please do the honors.

Amanda:

Let’s go ahead and open up the mailbag.

Tim:

All right. Our first question is from Terry in Oregon and Terry says, did you do any new year’s resolutions and one month in, how are they going?

I like this. I don’t do new year’s resolutions. I’ve always found them to be arbitrary and not that like if you want to do something, don’t like them. Why do you have to pick a certain date to do it? Just, just start doing whatever you want to start doing. Like, you know, I hate the idea of brainstorming something and then in three and a half weeks, that’s what I’m gonna start. I don’t like it. So whenever I need to start doing something, just start doing it. So my goals recently have been to read more, to make more art, to exercise, run basically, and to try and cook some new foods.

I’ve been doing pretty well recently. The last couple of weeks before the conference get a little hectic with everything that needs to be done, but I’m still like reading one chapter before bed every night or, you know, just five minutes in my sketchbook or whatever. So I’m getting there, but I think I’ll be doing better. Now that the conference is over, I have a little bit more time to kind of pay attention to those things. And then the other thing is, you know, between interviewing Austin Kleon for that keynote and another podcast that I was on and just the, idea of focusing more on creativity. That’s been a goal of mine is just appreciating creativity in all of its forms, just slowing down, putting the phone down, thinking about things creatively, noticing things that are aesthetically pleasing, doing small tasks and recognize them as creative tasks.

That’s been a big goal for me and I’ve been doing really well at that one too and I feel like it’s it has a very very calming effect on me and really helps me kind of slow down and appreciate things more. So that one I would say is going really well. So what about you?

Amanda:

Good, I love that for you. I don’t do resolutions per se, but I do appreciate a date at which I sit down and spend time thinking about my life and what I might like to do differently. in that sense, I actually really love that time of year. For us, we do it the week between Christmas and New Year in my family. And we do a family vision board. So it’s like the third year we’ve done a family vision board. And what I do is I draw a little picture for each thing we want to do during the year. And then we color them in as we complete them. And so it’s a fun little coloring book as well. So sometimes people will put their own things on there. Sometimes it’s more of a family thing. And so two things that are specifically on my list are to read 25 books and also to conquer gluten free donuts and not the gross cake kind.

Tim:

Do you have your critic face on? Yeah, when you say conquer donuts, when you say conquer them, are you talking about making them or just eating all that you find?

Amanda:

Okay, great question. Making them. feel like gluten-free baking is a science, but gluten-free baking is even a more exact science. And I have eaten exactly one yeasted gluten-free donut in my life. And that was in New York City, which is obviously not near Madison, Wisconsin. And so I’m going to make them myself. But I just feel like it’s a quest because I’ve got to get the dough right. And then frying stuff in a big batch of oil is it’s just a production, you know? Yeah. So anyway, I’m excited about that. Yeah. and then I asked my kids, I said to each of them, is there something specific you want to do? And my 12 year old without missing a beat was like metal casting. Okay.

Well, I didn’t expect that. But there is somewhere, I have a couple leads already of places we might go do some metal casting in town. So that is exciting. And then my nine-year-old wants to make a croquembouche.

Tim:

I don’t even know what that is. Like, what is a croquembouche?

Amanda:

A croquembouche is a very fancy dessert in which you make tiny cream puffs and then you stick them together with caramel, spun sugar caramel. Then you make sugar strands and you wrap it around the outside and you put them together in a cone shape. Spectacular. It sounds spectacular, but I was like, okay, metal casting and a croquembouche. We’re going to have a great year.

Yeah. We’d also like to make some progress on a basement project and take a spring break trip. So anyway, I am doing great. I have read five books. So far.

Tim:

Any recommendations?

Amanda:

Yes. There’s one called The Art Thief. So I don’t usually read a ton of nonfiction and I’ve read three nonfiction books already this year. So anyway, The Art Thief is great. It’s about this art thief, obviously, did hundreds of heists, hundreds of art heists, and it chronicles how he did it and where he kept the stuff. it has a thrilling conclusion that I won’t spoil, but I highly recommend. All right. I love it. And then there’s one called A Marriage at Sea about a couple that I’m in the middle of right now who get shipwrecked and survive for months in a raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. is wild. It’s extremely well written, very compelling. So highly recommend those two.

Tim:

Both sound fantastic. All right. Thank you for the recommendations.

Amanda:

Yes.

Tim:

All right. Next question. And we’re going to get heavy pretty quickly with this one. This is from someone who wants to remain anonymous. And they say, I’m low key thinking about quitting. This job isn’t what I wanted or what I expected it to be. I haven’t crashed out in front of kids or anything bad, but I’ve spent a lot of nights crying at home. But I don’t know what else I would do if I’m not teaching, not even sure if I want advice.

Or if I just need to vent, what do other teachers do in this situation? All right. That is a lot. I will start by saying, thank you for writing in, appreciate the vulnerability. And I, I think that you’re saying out loud the things that a lot of teachers are thinking to different extents.

And so we probably should talk about it. And I would say you’re probably tired and you’re burnt out obviously and maybe disappointed that you didn’t get what you signed up for when it comes to teaching or when it comes to teaching art. And that doesn’t mean though that you’re a failure. It doesn’t mean that you’re failing at this job. It just means that right now the job is taking more from you than it’s giving back to you.

You know, that’s going to be up to you to decide whether that is a short-term thing or a long-term thing. it’s, I’m guessing that’s where you are right now.

Amanda:

Yeah. Yeah. I would echo that. I think it’s really brave to reach out and say that out loud. think that’s a scary thing to do sometimes to admit like, Whoa, this is too much. Right. Right. And so I think reaching out to someone you trust would be my first piece of advice. I mean, I’d personally recommend like an actual therapist. but I would also talk to other trusted people in your life.

Tim:

Yeah, this is not working right now.

Amanda:

I would probably avoid talking directly to colleagues in case that gets around. You probably want to keep it out of your immediate school, but if you have some other trusted teachers in your life or, you know, a mentor or something, those would be good people to go to as well. And I’d also like to give you permission to vent. I know some people might disagree, but I think venting can be cathartic and important.

Tim:

100 % agree with that. I think it’s okay to vent. It can be healthy to vent and you can do that without immediately needing to solve these problems. You know, you can sit with these feelings for a while, but I think eventually we need to start making some kind of progress. It’s not healthy to just sit and vent without any action.

Amanda:

Right. Yeah. Venting in it of itself can make you feel better and that’s important, but then you need to switch your brain into action mode. because while feeling frustrated and burnt out once in a while is absolutely normal, especially in a profession like teaching, if you’re crying at home most nights, you definitely need more support. So, my advice, like that’s not normal. And I want to recognize that like nobody should

in that situation without trying to change it. So my advice for next step is to sit down and really untangle your feelings. So what exactly is leading you to feel burned out? What exactly are the things that you’re experiencing that you’re bringing home with you at night, right? That are causing you to feel distressed in the evening when you’re away from school. What exactly are the things that are different?

from what you expected because once you can identify those things, then you can figure out if you can do anything different to change them or support yourself better. for example, do you need to develop specific skills or strategies to help with specific behaviors, right? Like for example, are you so stressed out because the kids don’t listen and maybe you could change some things you’re doing in the classroom and that would get better.

speaker-1 (22:50.766)
Could something significantly shift if you change schools or had a different principle, right? Is this disrespect or otherwise being put down upon, you know, that’s out of your control completely, but might be different in another place, right? Is there something you could advocate for additional funds, additional help, parent volunteers, right? That would change something about your situation. All those things said though, I also want to say,

you have the capacity to do any of those things? Because those things also take effort, right? And so there is a level of effort that you have to put into doing some of those things and you might not have it right now. And that’s also valid.

Tim:

Yeah, absolutely. It takes a lot to to kind of get through this and we don’t know where you’re going to end up, but I would say give it time just to kind of think through process these things. You know, do do you want to make it better? Like what effort will that take to to try and make it better? And if you decide that it’s not for you, that’s that’s OK too. And you just need to, I think, sit down and kind of.

plan a course of action here. Like how can we start to see if this gets better? And you know, just ask yourself what are the parts of teaching I enjoy? What are the things that don’t drain me? But on the flip side, what are the things that absolutely do drain me? What takes it out of me? And when you figure those things out, then you can start to think about how things might shift for you. And if you decide that it’s not for you,

start thinking, you know, if I weren’t teaching, like, what skills do I already have? What transfers? Where else can I go? Because I think you don’t want to just up and quit up and up and leave without a plan. I think you need to think that through. And while you’re thinking that through, things may get better. You may begin to, you know, enjoy teaching a little bit more.

You may find out that when x, and z happened, this is what you signed up for. But I would just say to give it time.

Amanda:

Yeah. Yeah. Especially if you’re in your first couple of years teaching, I mean, it, doesn’t necessarily get easier, but it gets different hard. If that makes sense. You don’t feel so much in survival mode after the first couple of years. Um, so it’s, it is a different feeling a few years in. And I would also like to say to wrap up here, if you really know deep down that, that, teaching isn’t for you, it’s okay. It’s okay. Um,

Like Tim said, I think you should make a plan instead of just abandoning post, right? there, I actually just got my degree in or my master’s degree, excuse me, in instructional design and learning technology. There were so many former teachers or current teachers in my program, right? Designing online learning, ed tech, instructional design, community arts, museum education. There are a lot of related fields that would use similar skills. I also think teachers are highly marketable in other.

fields as well though, especially an art teacher, you have creative thinking and creative problem solving, which a lot of industries are looking for. So ultimately I would say untangle your feelings and then trust your gut. Or like I always like to say, listen to your heart. What is it saying?

Tim:

Okay, our next question, questions, we’ve had multiple people write in asking about what lesson do I teach for my observation or some version of that? What suggestions do you have for my observation lesson? And I will say if we want to go back just a little bit, we answer this question at length in the October mailbag. So we’ll link to that in the show notes. If you want to listen to our in-depth discussion about it, you can go back to October and hear that.

The short answer is from me at least just teach what you normally teach. Like the lesson itself is not what you need to worry about. Just your principal or your admin, whoever’s observing you just wants to see what is happening in your classroom. You don’t need to wow them with something perfect. They have their own things that they need to see. They just want to see how your classroom runs. And I don’t want to say the lesson is immaterial. It’s not.

But it’s not something you need to stress over. Just teach what you would normally be teaching anyway, explain to them what you’re doing and why, and you’ll be fine.

Amanda:

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, maybe this is controversial. I don’t know, because we keep getting this question, but I do not plan something special for my observation lesson, because I just would just tell them, here’s what you’re going to see. don’t know. Like, I just imagine the shrug emoji like, I don’t know.

So I think like you were kind of saying, Tim, I think more important than what you teach is how you explain what you’re doing to your observer. So often you’re going to have like a pre and or post observation meeting where you can provide documentation and information about what is happening in your classroom. And your admin wants to see that you know what good teaching encompasses. And that is not actually about what lesson you’re teaching, but your approach to teaching.

Like they are there to see your approach to teaching. You do not have to be like pulling in 59 references and having your third graders paint the Sistine Chapel. Like it’s not, it doesn’t need to be something extra and above. It just needs to be good, solid teaching. So, if you’re a pro member, I would suggest the preparing for evaluations and observations pro pack. not just because I made it, but it has some really excellent resources in there that you can work through to make sure that you are communicating about how you’re teaching in the best way. So there’s a really helpful annotated lesson plan to make sure that you are exhibiting good teaching throughout the class period. There is something called Common Teacher Behavior Evaluators Look For, so you can see what are they going to be looking for when they come in. That sheet has things like

Are you aware of your students’ background knowledge? Are you incorporating that into your lesson planning? And are you aligning your curriculum with standards, right? Things that all observers would want to see. So I would definitely recommend checking that out and thinking about it more holistically as more, how am I teaching versus what am I teaching?

Tim:

Yeah, that’s perfect. Not what is my lesson, but how is your classroom being run? Yes. I think that’s a great way to think about it.

Our next question is from Ross and Ross says, I’ve started my student teaching and I think it’s going pretty well. I haven’t done much past observing, but all of my interactions with the kids so far have seemed to chill. They’re excited about art and I’m excited to be there. So it has been fun, but my cooperating teacher seems kind of distant and kind of cold. He answers my questions and explains what he’s doing, but isn’t that friendly? What can I do to get him to warm up to me?

Amanda:

Okay, I have two immediate thoughts. One, it stinks that you’re not exactly vibing with your cooperating teacher. And two, welcome to life where you will not enjoy all of your coworkers equally.

Tim:

You’re not going to love everybody that you work with. That’s an excellent point.

Amanda:

I mean, and I also get it because when you’re in school, you have this idealistic version of what you think student teaching is going to be like and what you’re going to get out of it and this warm mentor relationship. And so I do get that it is disappointing and I’m not trying to discount that. And also it might be a really good time to practice the skill of how do I work with somebody that is not maybe my favorite person or is not responding how I want them to be or is not as engaged as I want them to be, right?

It sounds to me like he is fulfilling his cooperating teacher duties, you know by being available to answer your questions and give explanations But but I hear you wanting a little bit more from him if it were me I think I’d probably go right to bribery. I Okay, here’s what I mean I would try maybe picking up a coffee and a pastry right on your way

into school or maybe a treat to share at lunch and maybe just frame it as a thank you and acknowledgement of the extra time and effort it takes to take on a student teacher. I don’t know if a lot of people realize this. Sometimes cooperating teachers, all they receive is a stipend of it’s like something, it’s like $35. It’s like,

Tim:

I got 50. Just not to brag.

Amanda:

But I mean, it would almost be better if they gave you no dollars and said it’s out of the goodness of your heart. It’s an insultingly low sum generally to take on a student teacher. So, you know, that might be nice anyway, and maybe that opens a door to having more conversation. I think you could also casually just try to get to know him better by asking some softball questions. What did he do over the weekend? How does he like to spend his free time?

but I would say if you’re still not getting friendly vibes after that, I would let it go. I would not try to force the issue. I would not try to spend a ton of time quote unquote, winning him over. another way you can win him over potentially is just be really good at your job at being a student teacher, pitch in, ask what you can do to help take initiative, jump in, you know, where you can, that’s going to go a long way. think.

And then I would learn what you can from the situation. I could also see you trying to form relationships with other teachers in the building, not that they’re gonna take you on as a mentor, but it’s okay to introduce yourself in the teacher’s lounge and be friendly with them. Or maybe you’re out at recess duty or something, but that’s how I would kind of approach that situation. What about you, Tim?

Tim:

Yeah, I think that’s all great advice. I would just echo a couple things. First, bribery is a great strategy. would also say to ask advice. It sounds like you’re probably doing that already. But a lot of times people…

They like to feel like an expert. They like to feel appreciated, like to be known for the knowledge they have. And, you know, in this case, your cooperating teacher is the expert and there are a million things that you can ask about, you know, why do you do it this way? What has helped you do this so well? Something like that. And just letting them share their knowledge, I think, can go a long way. They want to…feel appreciated, they wanna feel like they’re making a difference as a cooperating teacher and something like that can really help that feeling a lot. And like you said Amanda, just conversation, it may be slow going, but find some kind of connection you have, maybe it’s teaching, maybe it’s outside of teaching, but something that, a commonality that you have between you two and kind of build from there. And like you said, you’re probably not gonna be besties ever with this person, but I think if you just build that relationship, you can both get a lot.

Amanda:

Yeah, for sure.

Tim:

Okay. I also wanted to highlight a conversation in the community. We talked at the beginning of the episode about the community. One conversation that was really good was from a post that asked what’s one thing that feels different than it used to. So I’ll let you think about that for a second, Amanda. The common themes we saw in the comments in the community, we’re talking about student drive and motivation and talking about the lack or the slippage when it comes to fine motor skills and things like handwriting, which, yeah, I see and hear that a lot. I don’t know, Amanda, what about you? What’s one thing with teaching that feels different than it used to?

Amanda:

Yeah, I mean, I think I would echo, echo the teachers in the community with like kids just don’t know how to not have instant gratification. You know, they just want everything done right now. And, so I don’t know. I think it’s so tricky. And I, what about you? I don’t know. There’s a lot of things.

But I think that one kind of covers multiple things that I’m thinking about, just like this, like they said, like, I don’t know if it’s necessarily motivation or if it’s like learned helplessness or just a different pace of the world. Like they’re living in a world that’s a different pace than we grew up in. Like, I’m not sure where the disconnect is, but sort of this like want for everything to sort of be done. don’t want to necessarily struggle through.

Tim:

I was just going to say they don’t want to struggle. They don’t want to work for it. And I think it’s difficult to put into words, but at the same time, everyone listening knows exactly what you’re talking about. So yeah, I think that is the biggest one for me is just the lack of want to. I want kids to

try something new and fail at it and then keep trying until they get it right. And they’re not interested in doing that for the most part. Like some kids are and sometimes you find a connection with a kid, something that really, you know, captures their interest and they’ll, they’ll work hard at it. know, metalsmithing, for example, croquemboche. Did I say that right?

Amanda:

I don’t really know some French speaks French. Please let us know.

Tim:

But it’s tough to find those particular things for every kid. so personally, I love a daily sketchbook that allows kids to be curious, to explore things, to maybe fail at something, but keep figuring it out until they get it right. But it’s tough to get them motivated. It takes a little bit of drive. It takes a little bit of motivation to do that. So I definitely think that that feels different.

100 % agree with you with that. But it was interesting to me to read through all of that discussion and see the different perspectives there.

Amanda:

But I also hold on. Can I say one more thing? Yes, I also feel like though this is why art class is so important because I think it’s very clear that kids are not learning these skills elsewhere. And so they need desperately to be in environments where they are explicitly told. I hope you fail at this. I designed this so you would fail.

This is a day for experimentation. I want you to push this material in every possible way you can. You know what I mean? I so yes, it’s discouraging and it’s disappointing and like kids these days like it feels so old, but also it you could look at it in a positive way of like I get to be the kids to teach. I’m sorry. I get to be the person to teach the kids the magic of this right?

it could provide some direction for your curriculum and be a very positive opportunity to impact these kids for a very long time to come. yeah, if they’re not learning it elsewhere and you’re frustrated about that, let your classroom be the place they learn.

Tim:

Perfect, perfect. Okay, I want to personally flip that question on its head. So I wanna ask you, what are kids doing well right now? Either students that you’re seeing, students that you’re hearing, friends and other teachers talk about, your own kids, what are kids doing well right now?

Amanda:

So I think the thing that I would point to that my husband and I have talked a lot about is just how engaged the kids are with the world, the world around them, but also the larger world. I mean, when I was 10, 11, 12, I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t even know what news was going on in the city I lived in. I was very consumed with myself and my friends, you know, and my sports team and my art class.

kids these days in a positive tone of voice, like at least, at least my kids and their friends and schools and, my friends’ kids, they’re really aware in an age appropriate way, but aware that the world is bigger than them and their family and their city and their town and aware of people with different backgrounds and people with different thought beliefs. And that like really gives me a lot of hope.

so that’s the thing that I would point to. I don’t know. What about you?

Tim:

No, I think awareness is a great answer there. see that. And I’m coming to this from the perspective of a couple of Gen Z kids that I’m raising and their friends that are always at our house. but I think, like you said, they, do a good job of being aware of the world and also understanding the people around them. And they’re very good at speaking up for what they believe in. they’re very good at advocating for themselves, very good at advocating for other people, which I think is great.

They are emotionally really honest, you know, they can, they can name their feelings, they can name their emotions, and they can talk about them openly, way better than I can probably do right now if we’re being honest, like they’re very good at that. And I think one thing that has really sort of taken hold with them in the past couple of years is they’re really skeptical of online information, of misinformation of.

being aware that this algorithm is promoting these things, here’s why, and they’re really aware of kind of the media bias and their effects. So again, that goes back to the awareness thing, but their eyes are definitely open to what they’re seeing and why they’re seeing. And I think that’s another good skill that will last for a while. Yeah. Okay. Last thing, we need to wrap things up, but I wanted to end on a high note. I wanted to end with some positivity.

Amanda:

Mm-hmm.

Tim:

So another thing in the community, every Friday is the weekly winds post and everybody posts their winds. And over the last little bit, people have been very appreciative of their snow days. So the storm may be not that great, but a lot of people really enjoyed having some time off, which I appreciate. So, a couple of shout outs, Amanda, who, who are a couple that you saw in there and what did you like?

Amanda:

Yes. Okay. so Brandy had her art show postponed, but showed pictures of some very beautiful student work. So shout out there. also do you me to go, do you want me to do all my shadow? Okay. Natalie is working on animation slides and getting ready for the great kindness challenge, which we love. That was really fun to hear about those.

Tim:

Give me another one.

Amanda:

Stephanie had her first graders draw monsters and then her sixth graders created sculptures based on those drawings. if you just like, please go look at them. It’s so fantastic. It’s so heartwarming. What about you, Tim?

Tim:

Okay, so on that cuteness scale along with those monsters, Denise had some fourth-grader drawings and they are of woodland creatures wearing sweaters.

Amanda:

My gosh, anything in a sweater?

Tim:

I know it was, it was very creative and very cute. Like I thought that was great. And then, Ashley had some pictures of graffiti names, which is always a cool lesson. Always gets kids engaged. something unique or at least unique to me, I had not seen this before is she used messy mats for the background. they use the messy mat bricks on there to look like, you know, kind of beat up wall. And then they have that as the background or the backdrop for their graffiti, which I thought was really, really cool way to do it. So that looked great.

Amanda:

Yeah, and that’s a post we do every week in the community on Friday. So you can always look for that. And it’s a great way to see what other teachers are doing right now and get some excellent ideas for your own classroom and share what you’re doing.

Tim:

Exactly, a great way to wrap up the week on a positive note. So I very much appreciate that. And on that note, it’s time for us to wrap it up as well. So Amanda, thank you so much for diving into the mailbag, answering all these questions, giving so much great advice. It’s been great talking to you.

Amanda:

Yeah, thanks for having me and we’ll see you all in the community and we hope you show up at an event. We’d love to see your face.