The Hottest Takes in Art Education (Ep. 476)

Welcome to Art Ed Radio, the podcast for art teachers. The show is produced by The Art of Education, and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the long-awaited, highly anticipated Hot Takes episode. Joining me today is Amanda Heyn. Amanda, how are you?

I am feeling spicy. I’m ready to rant. How are you?

Same. I am fired up. I am ready to fire off some hot takes. Before we get to the hot takes though, we should probably tell everybody that it is just a month of what’s hot at AOE. We figured for July, let’s do all the things that are hot, and so there’s a lot of great stuff going on. Last week on the podcast, I heard my interview with Momo Schafer, all about the series Blown Away on Netflix and some glassblowing stuff. We have a Dear Sketchbook series on YouTube, all sorts of great hot topics on the magazine, on social media. We also have mini masterpiece going on Instagram, and of course a lot of really, really good discussions in the Art of Ed community, which we’re going to bring into this episode a little bit later.

Yeah we are.

Just a lot of great stuff going on. Did I miss anything, Amanda? Is that everything that we have going on? It’s a lot.

I think that’s everything. Hot takes, hot materials, hot processes, hot trends. It’s just all here for you. It’s a fun month.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so I guess before we start firing off our takes, we should probably explain what hot takes are, and I guess I would say just any kind of controversial opinion that you want to share, things that have been bothering you for a while, that you just can’t hold back on anymore, that you really want to rant about, that you really want to yell about. But these are opinions, ideas that are going to maybe make some people mad.

Why?

They’re going to be kind of controversial. I examples, I guess. Amanda, do you have any non-art related hot takes before we get into the episode? What would be just a life in general hot take.

Okay, so I think a hot take is also kind of like a pet peeve on steroids. Also-

Good description.

… Okay. I live in Wisconsin and every spring when it hits 38 degrees, people are wearing flip-flops. And I just think this is fundamentally wrong. No one needs to be wearing flip-flops when it’s under 50 degrees. Don’t tell me that your feet are fine. They’re not. They’re cold. There is still snow on the ground and people are wearing Birkenstocks without socks and flip-flops, specifically the flip-flops get me because they’re so unsteady. I just… And every time we drive by somebody doing this, and I get so worked up and my husband is like, “This…”

Irrationally angry.

… No, not irrationally angry, rationally angry. My husband is like, “This has nothing to do with your life.” And I was like, “But it does. What are they doing? What are they doing?” That’s my hot take. No, don’t wear flip-flops if it’s not warm. Those are warm weather shoes. I don’t even know why that should be a hot take. It’s a sandal.

How do you feel about shorts in that kind of weather? Are shorts okay?

Also bad. Also bad because you also see a ton of shorts at the bus stop, especially from the middle school age crowd when it is that temperature. But if you’re wearing sensible footwear, I will just let it slide.

Okay, but flip-flops, that’s a no-go.

Flip-flops are a hard pass.

Got to draw the line.

Got to draw the line.

Okay, I like that. Okay, so my non-art-related hot take is about condiments, believe it or not, if you’re a long-time listener to the podcast, you know how much I hate condiments. Amanda, you can back me up on this.

I also hate condiments. This is why we’re friends.

Condiments are disgusting. My hot take is people who are just smothering their french fries in all sorts of ketchup, that is the most disgusting thing you can do. To me, just dipping things in ketchup is just nasty. And so my hot take is if you need ketchup with your french fries, you need better french fries. You are not eating good enough french fries. If you have to smother them in disgusting condiments, just eat them. No, thank you. Just get some better french fries.

100% agree. Also, who wants a sloppy potato? Not me. Don’t want it.

I love it. I love it. Yeah. Honestly, I won’t talk about potatoes all day, but I definitely could.

Me too.

I love cooking potatoes in all forms, and maybe we need a potato episode in the future, but for right now, we have better things to do.

Just like why would you make your crispy potato wet on purpose? It’s a mystery. It’s one of life’s greatest mysteries. Also, I think we should say that we are qualified to talk about, well, these topics, obviously, but also our teaching topics, because if people don’t know us, we both were art teachers.

Yes, absolutely.

Do we want to take just a hot second to give ourselves some street cred?

We usually do this for the mailbag episode for the first episode of every month, but I think a lot of people are going to be listening to this one too. If you’ve gotten this far and you don’t know us, my name is Tim Bogatz and I’m the events director here at the Art of Ed. I taught elementary art for a few years. I taught secondary art for a lot of years, and then for the last nine years, I’ve been full-time at the Art of Ed, working on this podcast, working on the Art of Ed Now Conference that comes about twice a year and a lot of other fun things here and there, including offering some of my spiciest opinions here on that. Amanda?

Yeah, I’m Amanda Heyn. I’m the director of community engagement, so I have the best team in the world because we make the podcast and the magazine and the YouTube channel and the conference and the Art of Ed community, which if you’re not there, we would love to continue this conversation with you if you agree with us or if you don’t agree with us-

If you just want to yell back at us.

… Yeah, please come in there and hang out. I also am a former elementary art teacher, so very happy to be here talking about art teacher hot takes today.

Okay, excellent. Now I wanted to start off, we have a huge mix of hot takes coming in today. We have some from podcast listeners both via voicemail and via posts in the community. We have some hot takes from our team, but I thought it would be great if you and I both have a couple of hot takes, one for the beginning, one for the end of the show. Are you bringing your hottest take right at the beginning or are you saving your hottest one for the end?

I’m saving my hottest take for the end.

Okay. Okay.

But I do have a take that I think is controversial for the beginning.

Tim:

Okay. My hottest take when it comes to teaching art is that teaching perspective drawing is a complete waste of your time. Before you get too mad, I want you to think about a couple questions. If you are a person who’s saying-

I love how this is turning into a full five-paragraph persuasive essay, and I’m here for it, and I’m excited.

Tim:

Well, you use it if you’re an architect.

How many of your students are architects? How many of your students have become architects?

Only time tell.

I taught for 15 years. I one student who is an architect. One.

I bet he’s really happy, or she’s really happy that you taught them perspective.

I think she could have figured it out without me let’s be honest. She’s doing all right. Maybe I’ll just message her and be like, “Hey, hey Ann. Was perspective drawing worthwhile when you were in my intro to art class?”

The one 60-minute class you had.

And honestly like it is perspective drawing is too complex for a lot of your students. You know the frustration that comes with it, teaching kids to use rulers, who enjoys that, we have the vanishing point, we have diminishing sizes, we have all of these rules and how many kids get all that? They can’t, there’s so many ways to get it wrong, but there’s only one way to do it right and it’s an entire system, and so most kids can get it right. I’m just like where is the value in that? And then even if that all came together, even if they get the whole system, what are you doing with it? You’re teaching them to draw a city scene.

You’re writing your name in perspective.

You have some floating boxes. You write your name, you do a city scene. If you want to get real dramatic, let’s go out in the hallway and draw the hallway outside the art room. What else do you do with, nobody does anything else with it. It’s not worth it. There’s no creativity that comes with it. And then like I said, they’re never using it again. They’ll do it for whatever project that you have them do, which is a project that they don’t care about, that you don’t care about. And we’re just doing it because we had to teach perspective for what reason? We don’t know, but we had to. And so you just think about all of that time spent, huge amount of time, sometimes weeks with a super high level of frustration and a high level of failure, and also what a handful of kids can figure out those floating cubes and a weird cityscape that takes entirely too long, totally not worth it. Like I said, teaching perspective drawing is a waste of your time.

I love it. I don’t disagree to be clear. I think there’s a time and a place, but I don’t know. Okay. Do you want to hear my hot take?

I’m ready. I need a little break after that.

Yeah, take a deep breath. Okay, so first of all, a short rant is that art teachers should be able to wear whatever they want. Sorry, am I throwing a pot in a pair of creased khaki pants? And if so, for what reason? Absolutely not. Do you expect the gym teacher, the PE teacher to wear dress pants to do their job? No. We all know that time when the PE teacher comes for conferences and we don’t even know who they are, they’re in real clothes and you miss them because all we’ve seen them wear is athletic pants and athletic shorts for the whole school year. I think teachers should be able to wear overalls, jeans, coveralls, please let us wear something that matches with our job description and duties, which is making a creative mess. But that’s not my real hottest take.

My hottest take is I think glitter and googly eyes and plastic gems are valid art materials and you should use them in your class. People are always like, “Oh, the glitter, it gets everywhere.” That is the beauty of glitter. What do you mean you don’t want your entire environment to be sparkling and shiny? No, it gets all over the kid’s backpacks. I’d be so happy if my kid came home with a glitter project that I could hang up. I don’t understand the hate. It’s the herpes of the art room. I say let it spread. I want the glitter and I want the gems. And as a child, those things were extremely motivating to me. If I knew that at the end when I painted this beautiful sun, I could put two gems on its cheeks. You better believe I’m doing my best job. These things are fun and maybe they’re not high art, but they are high engagement. And I say, go for it. I just feel like the glitter lovers get a lot of hate and I’m here to stand with you and say, “We believe in glitter.”

Okay, 100% disagree, but very much appreciate you saying that. Very much appreciate your argument, so thank you for that.

You’re welcome.

It’s good stuff. All right, so next up, like I said, we have a good mix today of podcast listeners and team members who are offering their hot takes. And so we are going to play a voicemail hot take from Brittany.

Okay. Amanda, thoughts on Brittany’s short, but sweet hot take?

I mean, here’s the thing. Okay. Do I want a grade elementary art? No. No.

Nobody wants to grade elementary-

No. No, thanks. Okay. Do I think… Well, here’s interesting about Brittany’s hot take, they shouldn’t get a grade, but she does say they should be assessed because really asking kids about their art and their process is assessing their work it’s just not giving a letter grade to their work. But I would ask if you’re asking them about their process and they can’t tell you, then what? Do you know what I mean? Then how do you describe that? I mean I guess you could just describe it, but that seems like it would take a lot of time if you have hundreds of students at the elementary level. Here’s what I am going to say. I agree with the core of the hot take, and I think it’s a little bit more complicated than that. What do you think?

I think that’s fair. I agree with Brittany. I do not think elementary kids should get a grade in art. If you want to be like Janet Taylor and not grade secondary kids, you can go down that path too. That is a tough hill to climb. But I would say if we can assess them on other things such as just how they’re trying out new ideas, how they are listening, how they’re writing, how they’re discussing with other kids, and like you said, all of those process things and telling us more about that art, I’m 100% into that and I am on Brittany’s side. If we can find good alternatives, I don’t think we need to be grading kids in elementary art.

In fact, my kids don’t get a grade in art. They get a comment and it’s really lovely and beautiful and it takes that teacher so much time. As a parent, that paragraph is way more indicative of how they’re doing in class than a number three or a letter B.

Absolutely. And I think that’s going to do more for your program as well. If you’re giving kids and parents that opportunity to talk about that class rather than just seeing the B+ or the meets expectations or the S, whatever it may be, people look at that and then forget about it immediately. But if there are comments, if there are things to talk about that is doing great things for those kids and great things for your program. I like that alternative if that’s out there.

All right. We like it.

All right. Our next hot take is from a friend of the pod and community manager, Jen Leban.

Hey, Tim and Amanda, this is Jen, your online community manager from the Art of Ed community, and I am calling in with my hot take about teaching art. I believe that it is more important to use time during middle school, during the middle grades. You’re teaching middle school art, it’s more important to get students invested in art than it is to gatekeep the arts by stressing technique and going heavy on critique. I think that that’s why we lose a lot of students during the middle school grades during that age. Middle school art should be a hook and not a hurdle because when identity and confidence, they’re in flux, art class should feel like a safe place to land and not like a stressful test. There you go. Enjoy. Bye.

Okay. Okay. I have some thoughts on this. Amanda, I would love for you to tell me what you think about Jen.

Okay. I agree.

Are you sure? You’re not saying that with a lot of conviction.

Okay. I agree it’s more important to get students invested in art than gatekeep the arts 100%, full stop. If that’s the hot take, then yes. And also I think this is going to be a theme, and also I don’t think you should baby kids, middle schoolers are capable, and if you hold them to high standards, I think a lot of them will meet you where you’re at. You have to show them respect. You have to respect them. Okay. For example, just this morning I texted my middle schooler and I was like, “Hey, can you check if my straightener is unplugged?” This is just, this is the work from home version of did I leave the glue gun plugged in? You know what I mean? And then I was like, “I love you so much, little baby.”

Yeah. How did he feel about that one?

Not good. Then I was like, “Oh my God, sorry I called you little, but I love you so much.” They don’t like to be… They can tell, well, they can tell when you are not being genuine, when you’re babying them, or when you’re not expecting a lot of them. I think as long as you have high expectations for them to try and get engaged, I think this works. I think this works.

Yeah. Yeah. I’m kind of on that same page. I don’t know that I agree with Jen. I have not talked about this with her, so I’m sure this will be a discussion, but honestly, I’m not running a vibes based classroom like, “Hey, we’re all going to feel good in here. This is fun.” That gets out of control real quick with middle schoolers. And I think I’m on your page, Amanda, when you say that kids are capable, that was the first thing I thought when I listened to Jen, like, “Hey, these kids are capable and they’re wanting to be independent. They’re wanting to find success. And so if we can help them find that success in art, if we can help them build that confidence, that’s what’s going to get them invested in art?” And so we don’t want to gatekeep, we want kids to be comfortable. We want them to have fun in class, but I think the more success they’re going to find, the more they’re going to get into art and hopefully take more art in the future. I think that’s the direction we want to go.

Yeah. Also, can I do a quick aside?

Yes, please do.

Okay. I was going to say, I think where Jen is coming from is we’ve all had that teacher who we’ve been personally victimized by, right?

Yes.

The horrible art teacher who just kills kids’ spirits. And this happened to my husband. He had a horrible elementary school teacher, just horrific. He thought he was bad at art. He never took art. In high school he had to take a fine arts credit to graduate. And so senior year, he took survey or whatever for all of the kids who haven’t taken art since they were 10. I was kind of mad about it because he actually was so good. And I was like… Nobody knows my husband here, but my husband is so smart, he’s just brilliant. And art was my thing. And I was like, “Wait, you’re good at art. This is-”

How are you good at this too?

… This is my thing. He made this perfectly hand-built spherical pot with an armadillo with the most beautiful texture wrapped around it. And I was like, sorry, where did this come from? But just think if he would’ve been able to build his skills the whole time, he didn’t get so demoralized by his teacher. It is important to hook kids. It is important. And if you’re going to skew on being overly critical or vibes-based, you have to go with vibes actually.

Yeah, yeah. Nope, I am with you there. I think that’s good. And I feel like I’ve told this on the podcast before, but I’m not sure, but the whole reason I became an art teacher was because I really hated my art teacher in high school. She just sucked the life out of everything, and I wanted to love art so much, but I could not do it in her class. And so by the time I was in my third semester with her, just the light bulb went on and I said, “I could do so much better than this. I should become an art teacher.” I’m like, that’s what set me on that path.

Well, we thank her because that’s why we’re here and you’re listening to this podcast right now.

Yeah. There we go. Sliding doors moment right there. Okay, one final voicemail before we get to all of our community discussions. This one is from Martha Anne Kuntz.

Hi, Tim and Amanda. It’s Martha Anne Kuntz from California. I actually was calling to rant. This may be the wrong place for it, but I just got inspired. I teach high school art, and I think my biggest complaint right now is that STEM should be STEAM at my school. I get asked my views all the time about creativity when parents come through. We’re a private school, so we do a lot of shadowing. And they love it, they leave happy, but I notice that STEM is always STEM and there’s no A in it. I walk around and put an A. That’s my rant. Talk to you later.

All right, Amanda, where do you want to go with this STEM versus STEAM versus vandalizing signs as you walk around, make sure that there’s an A in everything. What are you thinking?

Well, okay, first of all, I really love that she says, “I actually was calling to rant.” Thank you. If anyone just wants to call to rant, literally anytime the phone is open. The line is free-

We would love to hear all of your rants.

I think that I agree with this 100%. It’s so annoying that we have to do all of the advocacy here. It’s really weird to me that it’s started as STEM in the first place. How do you expect people working in science, technology, engineering, math to literally make anything without an A? If you would like to design the thing that you’re doing or create something, you have to have the A. What am I trying to say? I’m in favor of her going around and vandalizing things.

And she didn’t say she was vandalizing. I don’t know if this was metaphorical or literal. As far as-

She said I walk around and put an A so I can only assume she is, which I feel this feels like good trouble to me.

That’s a good way to put it. Yeah, I love it. I think that’s a great option. Like you said, it’s tough when we have to be doing all of that on our own. We would love to have more support from administrators, and that’s maybe a rant right there. That could be another hot take, just feelings on admins and their support for the arts. But I think Martha Anne is handling it pretty well, so we appreciate that. Okay. Now we also wanted to bring in some hot takes from the Art of Ed community. Lots of very cool discussions that we have going on. We’re also going to sneak another voicemail in there too because I think this is good. The first one is in a discussion about the art related hill that you will die on. There are a lot of good ones in there, but Angela said, “I taught photo, so my “hill” was trash cans. I would not accept a picture with a trash can in it, even in the background, unless it was an integral part of the artwork and held significant symbolic meaning.” Thoughts on trash cans. Amanda?

I just love this so much. When I read this, I just laughed so hard. It’s so funny to me. I mean, I guess I’m not 100% clear on why. Is it just because it’s always in the background and the kids aren’t looking for it, and that’s annoying and it’s like popping up like is ruining photos.

Yeah, I think that might be part of it. Or just knowing kids, they’re lazy and so they’re not thinking about good composition or actually interesting subjects, but when they walk around the school grounds, they’re like, “There’s a trash can. Let me take a picture.” Which they absolutely will do. And so I don’t know because when I taught photo, I had to ban kids from taking photos of their friends. We’d talk about different subjects and how to get dynamic poses and candid shots versus portraits, and all you get back is just kids taking pictures of their friends back when duck lips were a thing. Do you remember that?

Yeah.

Oh my God. So many of those. And so I really had to put the hammer down on what we would and wouldn’t allow with photos of their friends. But I don’t know. I feel like kids devolve so quickly into cliches and I think that can be an issue. And so I think that might be where Angela’s going with this.

Yes, fair, fair.

Yeah. No, I am 100% on her side. Whether it’s trash cans or other things that just pop up everywhere and kids default to that without giving it any thought. Yeah, let’s get rid of those. But friend of the pod, Janet Taylor, who’s on all the time had some thoughts about cliche art. I want to listen to her voicemail as well here.

Hi, Tim. This is Janet from the western suburbs of Chicago and Art of Ed, but have to share my hot take. My hot take is for goodness sake, let students create using cliche images. I mean, is there really no place in the art room for hearts and stars and those suns in the corner? Isn’t there something safe and universal about this imagery? I mean, as a kid who didn’t spend hours perfecting that weird geometric S during math class and our students are still doing that to this day. I would never admit this to my students because I’m all about the meaning, but let kids be kids. There is definitely a place for cliches in the art room. Prove me wrong.

Okay, so I will say I love the weird geometric S that we all used to draw during… That has been around for God knows how long.

How does it endure? Because my child came home last year and was like, “I learned this cool thing. Can I show you?” And I was like-

I remember talking.

… What is happening? How do you know that?

How does that get passed down from generation to generation?

I don’t know.

How long has it been going on and how long will it continue to go?

I don’t know.

It’s amazing. But Janet said in her last little bit, she said, “There’s definitely a place for cliches in the art room.” And I was just going to say, there is a place for cliches in the art room, and that place is tucked deep away in the recesses of your sketchbook where I don’t need to see them. I don’t know. Where do you stand on cliche subjects?

I mean, I think I agree with Janet. In a final finished artwork, no. As like does a kid need to get out a couple? Cool before they get to the meat of their project? I’m okay with that. Maybe you could put do a cool S in glitter glue or something. That would be really fun.

Really just lean into it.

Really lean in, cover it in gems.

Yeah. Why not? Just as a high school teacher, I’d be okay never seeing a drawing of an eyeball again. It would be fine. But like I said, it’s not great for me. But honestly, there is a place for it for kids. I think it’s part of the learning process for them. They have to get these ideas out before they’re ready to move on to some bigger and better things. I think there’s a spot for it.

It’s just fun. And going back to the vibes, it has to be fun. There are some teachers who are so hardcore you can never draw a corner sun, and it’s actually, that’s very developmentally appropriate for those kids. Please don’t be mean to them.

Honestly. I kind of want to hear the voicemails from the people who really don’t allow any corner suns. They need to call in.

Call us.

And then the other hill to die on. This is from Laura. Laura said, “This is just a general teacher thing, but don’t ask me for extra credit, just do your projects and turn them in.” Laura, I hear you.

Zoom is going to cancel out my snaps, but I’m snapping for you, Laura. Just do your work just it’s way easier than doing extra credit kids, believe me.

And we do have an excellent voicemail coming about extra credit and about other things from Lindsay McGinnis. We’ll just-

Yeah, hold.

… Keep an ear out for that. There’s some good thoughts coming. But before that, we wanted to get to the Overrated Art History Edition. This was from last month. I think I put a discussion prompt in the community. I just wanted to know who do people think is overrated when it comes to art history? Another one of my hot takes, Picasso kind of sucks. And even my wife got mad at me when we were at the art museum because she loves Picasso. And I had told my kids that and she’s like, “Don’t say that. Picasso’s amazing.” And so we’re not going to get into a fight at the art museum. But we discussed a little bit-

But we are now.

There are some good ones. I know you have one that you had put in there, but Jen Leban, who we just heard from, she’s over Impressionism. Just all of Impressionism.

Honestly, same. It’s fine.

And I never thought I would be here as the one defending Impressionism, but amongst our team, I am the one who has to say, “Oh, hey wait, Monet was actually good.” And nobody believes me.

I don’t think he’s bad. I just don’t care.

Okay, that’s fair. That’s fair.

I mean, I’ve seen it in person. It is very beautiful in person. And actually sometimes when I’m driving to the gym in the morning and I see the hay bales, I kind of get it. You know what I mean? I’m like, “Oh, they’re different color today. It’s kind of beautiful.”

Okay.

But also, I don’t know.

Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. Michael, in this discussion said, “Warhol, I just can’t with that guy.” And Don said, “Mondrian with a sleeping emoji,” which made me laugh pretty hard because if anybody’s going to put you to sleep, it’s Mondrian.

Yeah, that’s fair.

Amanda, who’s overrated for you?

Well, I think I said something like, “I hate Cezanne and I don’t care who knows it.” I just like, I don’t care, I don’t… Like, but then-

Too many bowls of fruit?

To many fruit, I don’t like fruit. Too much fruit. It’s fine. Again, it’s fine. But then Jen showed me, he did do a painting of a really cool skull. And I will say, “Okay-”

You like the skull?

I like the skull, but the fruit I could-

The fruit, the landscapes, they’re not doing it for you?

I don’t want it.

All right, well I’m not going to argue with you here, but again, he’s great, so it’s fine. But we will go with Ariel who said, “Picasso. It’s Picasso. Hands down as the most overrated artist.” And she also said, and this is where we’re venturing into real hot take territory, which I love. Thank you, Ariel. She said, “And I know this may be not so nice, but when I hear an art teacher say their favorite artist is Picasso, I side eye them and I think, so tell me you didn’t pay attention in art history classes without telling me you didn’t pay attention in art history classes because for real, he’s the worst.” And I can’t disagree. Terrible person. Overrated artist. Yeah. I appreciate the support for my Picasso kind of sucks hot take.

There you go.

Okay. Now as promised, we have the longest voicemail possible from Lindsay McGinnis, but I promise you it is such a good rant, it’s going to fly by. You’re going to love every minute of it. We have a little bit on grading, a little bit on extra credit. This is Lindsay McGinnis.

Okay. Okay. My hot take is I really don’t want Janet to hear this because she’s the assessment expert and I’ve read all of her articles and watched all of her videos, but, but my hot take is I absolutely heavily grade behavior in the art room. Janet, please don’t hate me. Okay, but really hear me out. I think Janet’s stuff is great in theory and it’s something to strive for to assess the artwork and have students’ grades reflect their work. But when you’re teaching 40-something teenagers per class, priority shift to even get to the point of making art, I need to manage behaviors. To manage behaviors quickly and efficiently. I’m going to leverage behavior and tie it to grades, participation, grades level, the playing field for students who have no experience or interest in art. Once again, if I have 40-something students in an Art I Foundations class, and most of them have never taken art before in their life, it’s intimidating.

I will still grade their actual artwork with a rubric that is tied to standards and clear criteria. But I’m also going to have a totally separate participation grade. If students are following directions, exhibiting appropriate studio behaviors, and actively trying, they can still get an A or B in the class. I think it evens out as well because if students are motivated to participate all period naturally, their artwork will get better because they’re putting time and effort in. And it’s also important to note to have a rubric with clear criteria for behaviors as well. It’s also tied to how the real world works to some extent. We want to say we evaluate employees based on solely their work, but we also evaluate employees based on their behavior. If they show up on time, contribute to the culture of the officer company, follow staff handbooks and codes of conduct, communicate respectfully, care for shared spaces, and much more.

And speaking of contributing, let’s talk about giving extra credit points or treats. I will preface all this and say I do put a cap on how much extra credit they can get. At the end of the day, you absolutely cannot buy your grade, but you can get a little boost and a little extrinsic motivation for contributing. High schoolers brains don’t fully develop until they’re in their mid-20s. They don’t have the brain capacity to see long-term how their actions will affect them later. They don’t care yet. They also have a hard time seeing and feeling how their actions affect others around them. They’re very self-absorbed, focused on what they can get here and now. This is why paying teens for extra chores at home or bribing them with fast food can be really, really effective. Yes, we absolutely want them to take ownership and contribute to the house on their own, but we often need a little bribery push to get them to say yes, to follow through, and then to experience that rewarding feeling on the other side.

In the classroom this is why stickers and small pieces of candy are so motivating even to those 18-year-old seniors. Yes, they can go spend a couple of dollars and buy a whole bag of candy instead of spending like 10 or 15 minutes sweeping your entire floor for one piece, but they don’t care. And yes, I may pull out a bin of candy or stickers when things are feeling dry to get students to start shouting out answers. And yes, that bin of candy or stickers may be provided by students who got extra credit for bringing those in. I have no issue giving a little incentive to students who contribute even supplies, because when you’re on a budget of $7 per student for the entire school year, you got to get creative. And once again, it prompts students to give back to the class with things that they actually want and like too. All of that to say my hot take is yes, I absolutely grade behavior in the art room. And sorry, not sorry to Janet, but also go read her articles and watch her assessment pro packs because she’s amazing and straight goals.

Okay, so much great stuff there from Lindsay. Amanda, what would you like to respond to there?

I mean, in sum this is one of the best things I’ve ever listened to. It’s a very hot take, but it’s said in such a loving way.

She’s so kind and so confident at the same time that she could not possibly be wrong about this.

I know, and I have to say I started out as a skeptic, but I think I’m a convert. I think that I believe Lindsay. I used to really hate when my kids would come home with handfuls of candy, but also the game has changed. Do you know what I mean? The teaching game has changed. We are not teaching the kids of 2000 or 1990. You just might need a bag of Dum-Dums to get through the year. And I think it’s okay and sometimes even warranted. I did resonate when she said kids’ brains are not developed. You can shoot for the moon, but you are not going to have all the kids coming along with you without some external motivation.

Oh, for sure, for sure.

Okay. What do you think?

Oh, I don’t know. Like you said, she kind of made me a convert. I don’t think I’m ever going to grade kids based on behavior. That is not for me. And I’m not going to give extra credit either. Again, I understand why people do, that’s not for me, but just like Lindsay, I am not above bribing kids. I am more than happy to do whatever it takes to get them to turn their stuff in. Because like you said, there are a lot of different ways to motivate different kids and while do whatever might work.

Yep.

Okay. Now Amanda, to close out the show, I don’t even know if we can follow Lindsay, but I have my second-hottest take. Do you have one more for us? Would you like to close the show or would you like me to start first here? How do we-

Sure. Whatever you want. Also, I have 10 hot takes. We could stay here for four hours.

I’ll limit to one and then if we need another episode later on, then we’ll be good. Okay. I want to circle back to the art history discussion. And I want to tell you that your favorite artists are kind of boring. When it comes to teaching kids and getting kids engaged in your classroom you need to constantly be looking for new artists. As great as Cezanne, for example, is. But no, whoever your favorite artists are, list your 10 favorite artists. Kids are maybe going to be excited about two of them and you can do more when it comes to storytelling and showing their work and giving explanations to why this stuff is great. And if you’re excited, your kids are going to be excited. But most of the artists that you like not worth showing unless you can really, really turn the switch on and make them really appealing. I would say you really need to get past those traditional artists that you love and look for some new ones and keep looking for new contemporary artists that your kids are going to connect with, your kids are going to engage with.

I like that.

Thank you.

That’s good. All right. My last hot take for today is just glaze. You are doing too much. You are doing too much with the glaze. I’m watching teachers decant the glaze into tiny containers, then it dries out, then they pop out the dried glaze and they put it back in the container and they add water and they shake it up and then they make glaze chunks and then they’re like, “Oh my God, my glaze budget. It’s evaporating.” You are making yourself cry. Glaze is not hard. Here’s what you do. You have 10 colors. We’re not getting 50 colors of clay.

We’re not running a pottery studio here.

We’re not running a pottery studio, especially at the elementary level. You are not taking the glaze out of the container it comes in, okay, you are going to make a station. You’re going to make a blue station and a green station and a brown station, and the kids are going to… Oh, we should link, I think I have a very old YouTube video that shows this process.

I’m on the search.

And the kids are going to pick up their project and they’re going to go to a glaze station. And you’re like, “Oh, the glazes aren’t going to get all mixed.” No, they won’t. They’re at a station. All the brushes are blue. And then you just open the glaze when you start the glaze and then you close the glaze when you’re done. And the things I’m watching teachers do with glaze to manage glaze, it’s like a second full-time job. I can’t… Just stop it. Just stop. There’s a better way. There’s a better way.

I love it. I love it better way. You are 100% correct on this way.

There’s a better way.

And I feel like that is an amazing place to leave the episode.

Oh, I got to take a deep breath. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, just breathe. After getting all worked up about the glazes, we appreciate it. But thank you, Amanda, so much for so many of your hot takes. I think you’re right on with most of them. I think we’re in good shape-

Okay, I’ll take it.

… But we appreciate hearing from everybody on this. I feel like this is a super fun episode, but thanks for joining us for it.

See you later.

Thank you to Amanda for coming on, and thanks to everybody who shared their hot takes with us. I loved having the voicemails, I love the discussions in the community, and we will link to both of those discussions we talked about in the community if you want to join in. And then who knows what new prompts that this episode will inspire over there. Make sure you join us in the community, join the discussion there. It’ll be a lot of fun if you have your own hot takes to share, that is the perfect place to do it.

And then, like I said, we have a ton of other great stuff going on in the community and other spots in the Art of Ed. We have the Glass Blowing podcast with Momo Schafer from last week. We have a couple new episodes coming on the next couple of weeks that we are very excited about. We have a bunch of good stuff on YouTube that’s coming. We have some hot topics in the magazine. That Dear Sketchbook series is really, really good on YouTube. That’s going to be a lot of fun. And of course we’ll link all of those things for you in the show notes so you can check out everything that’s hot in this month of July.

Art Ed Radio is produced by The Art of Education with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Please make sure to subscribe so we can join you again. And if you love the show, please give it a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen. Keep sticking with us for the next couple of weeks. And then of course, make sure you’re coming to the Art Ed Now Conference at the beginning of August, August 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. You can find out everything you need to know at www.theartofeducation.edu/now. Hopefully we’ll see you there.