The January Mailbag: Holiday Gifts, Student Behaviors, and No-Name Artwork (Ep. 449)

Welcome to Art Ed Radio, podcast for art teachers.

This show is produced by The Art of Education, and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz.

All right. Welcome back to the podcast. Welcome back from break, everyone. I’m pretty sure almost everyone I know started back to school yesterday and we’re excited to come through with the Mailbag podcast, the first one of 2025. Amanda Heyn is joining me.

Amanda, how are you?

I am great. I’m fine.

Are you sure?

I don’t know.

The break felt short and I can’t quite put my finger on why.

Well, it felt both short and extremely long. I have two school age kids. I’m happy they’re back but… I don’t know. There was a multitude of illnesses and driving here and there. We didn’t do any really big, fun things but it was still nice to have a break so I will say I’m medium.

How are you?

Okay, that’s fair.

I actually had a pretty good break, all things considered. We had a very hectic holiday season but then we also took a little bit of a vacation toward the end of break and that was very refreshing, very much needed, so I’m actually feeling pretty good. I think that’s good news.

For everybody that has not listened before or they’re just tuning in because people are saying, “Hey, these Mailbag episodes are really fun, you should listen to them.” Just introduce myself, I’m Tim Bogatz. Like I said, I host this podcast. I also put together the NOW Conference. I taught art for a lot of years, and I’ve now been working for The Art of Education for, what? A decade?

Doing a lot of stuff and you’ll see me a lot of places.

Amanda, would you like to introduce yourself quickly?

Yes. I’m Amanda Heyn. I am the director of community engagement at The Art of Education. I have been working here for 12? I think this is going to be my 13th year going on.

Oh my goodness, yes.

Which is really wild, since the beginning basically and previous to that, I taught elementary art. I oversee the conference and all of our media stuff and our new community, the Art of Ed community, which has been so fun. Happy to be here.

Yeah. I actually took a break from the community when I took a break from everything and then when I signed back in, I was like, “Oh my goodness, so much to catch up on; so many cool things that I missed out on,” and I actually felt bad for taking a break. But just jumping back in, so many cool things happening.

Do you want to tell us about what’s upcoming in the community?

Yes.

Because we have one big thing that’s really fun, but then a couple other things too. Can you tell us what’s going on?

I sure can.

First of all, we crossed 3800 community members recently.

Wow. That’s awesome.

If you’re not there, what are you doing? You should be there. It’s a lot of fun, obviously.

You can join by going community.theartofeducation.edu and from there, you can join. You can also, if you have an AOEU account, you’ll see a little tile that you can click to join. So multiple ways to come in there. It’s free to join.

We have coming up on Thursday, January 9th, just in a couple days.

Two days from now if you’re listening to this podcast on release day.

Sorry to jump in, I’m just excited about this.

Oh, no.

It is our art club meeting. This is our monthly get together where you can come and hang out.

Tim and I are hosting for the first time so we’re excited about that. We’re going to be doing something called Delightful Doodles, which is an activity that hopefully will be delightful for you and then you can bring it back to your students for a cool activity to do in your classroom.

And usually, we give away one prize every art club but since Tim and I are hosting and really since I’m hosting, we’re going to be doing more than one prize.

A little NOW teaser as well, a little NOW Conference teaser. Come and check that out.

Also, on January 22nd, which is a Wednesday, we have a second event for January and that is our pop-up studio, which is more just like come hang out, make art. Come make whatever you want to. Come chat, turn your camera on, turn your camera off, whatever you want. Those have been really fun lately. If you’re looking for someone to hold you accountable, like have an art buddy, you can come and just come hang out and make art with us.

And then there’s also another exciting thing happening in the community, which is the NOW Conference space is open. If you’ve attended a NOW Conference before, this is our… If you’re unfamiliar, this is our biannual online conference worth 15 PD hours. Tons of fun. Tons of prizes there as well.

But if you’ve been to that event before, you know there’s a really amazing energy there and then it has nowhere to go and so now with this new NOW space in the community, this is where all the energy can continue to flourish after the event.

But we thought it would be fun to open up the space ahead of the event so you could come in. If you are attending the conference, you can join the space. And if you are not attending the conference and you just want to learn more about it…

Yeah, see what it’s all about or ask any questions about it or whatever. Amanda and I, the hosts of the event, will be in there. You’ll see some presenters in there and you will see a bunch of people who have attended previous conferences and so you’ll have a lot of perspectives on what’s going to be coming. And like you said, Amanda, a lot of excitement there as well.

Yes. Yes. So we’re excited about that. Lots of exciting stuff happening.

And of course, we also have daily poll questions. You can come in there and ask your questions that you want answered. That’s our favorite thing to happen in the community. So come on in, check it out, come hang. It’s a great time.

Yes, it is.

And like I said, I enjoy just going through, seeing the discussions, seeing what people are asking about, seeing what people are talking about, and it’s a very cool space to, I guess, feel supported as an art teacher and feel part of something. And I think those are very valuable feelings, so it’s a good place to be.

All right, Amanda, anything else you want to cover? Anything else you want to talk about before we dive into the questions?

I do have one thing I need to talk about.

Okay.

Generally, we start with a story time and I would like to tell everybody about the best holiday present I received.

Okay. Yes.

Okay. Tim knows this, but my husband, two weeks before Christmas, all of a sudden started mysteriously disappearing to the basement and he was like, “I’m working on your Christmas present.” And I was like, “What?”

Well, and I was very curious about this. You had told me and I was like, “Wait, are there tools running? Is he building something? What’s going on?”

Totally silent.

A couple times, he came in with crinkly bags that he was like, “I need to put this downstairs. Don’t look.” I was like, “What are you doing down there?”

And so the kids got really invested too because he wasn’t telling anybody about what he was making. Last year, he got into crochet, those little crochet animals and stuff, and he designed his own. I was like, “Maybe it’s crochet.” And the kids were like, “No. We asked dad, it’s not crochet.” I was like, “Well, then what is he doing?”

Christmas morning came and I opened this present. I’ve never laughed harder in my entire life. I’m going to show it to Tim because he will know the context and then I’ll explain it to you and maybe I’ll post this on Instagram the day that the episode drops.

Can you see that?

Okay. What this is, is it’s a cross stitch, and it’s a cross stitch of a cardinal and on the cross stitch, it says, “World’s worst bird.”

Also, Toby designed this. He made up this whole thing, and then he cross stitched it perfectly.

This is because for the past three years, a cardinal has been ruining my life. I cannot overstate how much I hate this bird because it just bangs into our window constantly.

And what I have learned is this is bird behavior. It’s fighting its reflection. It’s an adolescent cardinal.

But the extent to which this particular cardinal is taking this action is unknown to anyone I have come in… I have reached out to the DNR, I have reached out to the National Wildlife Society, and I’m just like, “What should I do?” And they’re like, “Oh, that’s really interesting. Usually, these birds don’t do that in the winter. Usually, it’s a spring thing around mating season.”

This bird is nonstop.

This bird… You know my mom listens to the podcast. I even called her and I was like, “Are you okay?” Because a red cardinal is her symbol for my grandma who has passed away and I was like, “Are you fine? Does somebody have a health issue? Is this grandma banging on our windows?”

Anyway, we looked insane. I had printed out pictures of random strangers, posted those in the window, and like, “Maybe it will be scared of people.” No.

Printed out pictures of owls, put those in the windows. No.

Put painters tape strips because they were like, “Well, if it looks like it’s going to fly into bars, it won’t hit the window.” No.

This bird was psychotic.

Bird has a singular obsession with running into your window.

It was leaving bits of its body on the window.

I would text Toby every day, “I’m going to cry.” “I’m going to murder this bird.” I like animals but I can’t do this.”

Anyway, he decided to commemorate this bird in the most beautiful cross stitch for me. And it has a googly eye, which I really like.

I was just going to ask. I was going to ask, if you could hold that up again, I wanted to see the googly eye because combination of cross stitch and googly eye is impact.

It just really captures this bird’s inner struggle, I think.

Anyway, knock on all the wood in the world. The bird has come only a few times. It used to be every day all day long, which is when I would have to wear earplugs around.

Maybe it’s growing out of it. I don’t know.

I think it might be growing out of it.

That’s a long adolescent-

It might have so much wing damage-

… bird.

… that it doesn’t remember where the other “bird” it was fighting was.

We did put up a permanent frosted-

Oh my goodness.

… on the window that it would normally start on because then… We have brass plates outside. I don’t even know if I’ve told you this.

We have brass plates on the outside of our front door, like the door kick or whatever they call it. It would fight its reflection in those. I was constantly covering those with Press ‘N Seal because they’re not shiny.

Really?

Really, really.

Anyway, I cried laughing. I was hyperventilating. It was the best present I’ve ever received-

Amazing.

… from anyone.

It is very nicely framed as well. Is that going to hang up somewhere?

Oh, yeah. I’m trying to… I had it in the living room but then I was like, “But this is my personal artwork, so maybe I’ll put it in my office.”

Going to say, just don’t hang it where the bird can see it because you never know what that-

You’re right. No.

… might start up again.

It’ll come invite it. That’s inviting him back and he is definitively unwelcome at our house.

That’s fair. That’s fair.

Anyway.

Yeah, that is an amazing gift. I love it. Love it.

All right, well, let’s go ahead and transition here into the questions we received.

Amanda, would you like to do your official honors?

Yes, please. Let’s go ahead and open up the mailbag.

All right. Our first question, this was an anonymous one that came through the Art of Ed community and the question says, “I received zero gifts from any of my students this year. I’ve received less things each of the past few years. Is that the case with everyone else? I don’t expect a million gifts, but when I don’t even get a single thank you or any acknowledgement, I feel really discouraged. What do you think about this? Am I just being dramatic?”

Let me just say, this is an excellent question.

Yes. I love this question.

I’m very glad that we brought it up because I wanted to gauge this. I just texted a few of my teacher friends like, “Hey, did you get fewer gifts this year?” And everyone is responding in all caps, “Yes.”

I really feel like anytime you bring this up with teachers, they’re like, “Oh my goodness, I’m so glad somebody said it.” And so I think this is an issue that teachers want to talk about so I am glad we wrote that in.

I was going to say, between those texts, other conversations I’ve had, I would say there are definitely fewer gifts being given. Teachers are receiving a lot fewer gifts. Obviously, I don’t know all of the reasons for this but I think just the past, what? Four or five years post COVID, just fewer things being given out. People aren’t giving it as much. And honestly, I know a lot of people are struggling right now.

We got gifts for all of my kids’ teachers even just small things because they have so many teachers. That adds up to a lot of money. That adds up very quickly.

I know there are a ton of families that just can’t afford to do that. The economy is super tough right now. People don’t have extra money to be spending on gifts and… I don’t know. I think it was a lot of effort too. That seemed like a lot for me. I can see a lot of reasons that people are not giving.

But I would say honestly the thing to keep in mind like, no, you’re not being dramatic. Yes, it’s normal to want to feel appreciated. And I would just say that it’s not a reflection on your teaching if you’re getting fewer-

No. Absolutely not.

… things at holiday time. It doesn’t have anything to do with who you are or what you’re doing in your classroom or what kind of a teacher you are. The extenuating circumstances really override that.

I’d say it’s okay to feel disappointed but don’t feel like it’s in a reflection on yourself or you’re teaching.

Amanda, thoughts on any of that?

Yeah. I agree.

I just said I’m a former teacher and I really love gifts. We just heard also that I like to get gifts but I really love to give and find the perfect gift. I used to go all out with teacher gifts. Sometimes, we do handmade presents but good ones.

I appreciate the caveat.

We did like Shibori-dyed tea towels.

Oh, yeah.

Beautiful, handmade. Cute notes, everything.

And now I’m just so tired. The last few years have really taken a toll on the amount of energy that I have for things like that.

Personally, my family has had some really significant health stuff.

To your point, Tim, it’s not a reflection of anyone’s teaching and I think it’s more an overall zapping of personal resources, whether that’s time or money or energy or something else. You never know what people are going through.

That said, I absolutely contributed what I could to the community pool of funds and we’re very lucky at my kid’s school that we have room parents who do that work to coordinate that and so it was very easy for me to give a nice chunk of money to be distributed among all of the teachers.

And also the parents at our school are very amazing with not forgetting the specialists with really-

That’s good.

… including them.

And so if there’s something like that at your school, one thing you might want to speak up about if it feels comfortable to you is that are the specialist teachers included in appreciation days. That’s something you could maybe bring forward to a principal or a PTO or mention it to some parents that you trust.

That’s my suggestion there. But no, definitely not a reflection on your teaching and I think more of just a collective exhaustion of the world.

No. I think that is the simplest explanation.

And I was going to say, just on a personal level, my wife’s a history teacher and that collective gift from the PTA was very nice. She ended up with something decent but very few gifts other than that. I think a candle and a few candy bars and one kid gave her a bag of God knows what from his backpack. There’s a couple cough drops and… I don’t know. Seventh graders-

It’s the thought that counts.

… are weird.

It is. It’s the thought that counts for sure. That’s good.

Okay. Another question from the community. This is from Christina Champion and Christina said, “What are some ways to reward positive behavior for second through fifth grade? I have many consequences in place for behavior problems but would love to have larger, more enticing while still free list of meaningful ways to acknowledge positive behavior.”

Amanda, I’m going to let you take this one because this is your experience. I will just say a couple of things really quickly.

This was definitely not my scene when I taught elementary. I was traveling in between [inaudible 00:19:06] I would go into teachers’ classrooms to teach art. But a couple of cool things that I saw that I think are very effective is, number one, helping kids feel important or feel special. Whether they can help with something, whether they can teach something simple or even just deliver a note to another teacher, they love doing that.

Or having lunch with friends in the art room or in the classroom. That can be great and that could be a whole another discussion whether we want to give up lunch or how we do that or how you let kids in while still getting work done. But I’ll just say, if you can manage that and it sounds like a good idea for you, I would encourage that one.

And then a class wide ideas would be just a day where they can use a little more technology than usual. Let them play on their iPads for a little bit. Even something small, they can enjoy that.

Or a snack day. You got to balance how to do snacks in the art room. But if they want to bring in snacks, then that can be a really good incentive or a really good reward as well.

But those are just a few quick ideas. Amanda, I know you’ll have a lot more and a lot better ideas.

I do have more and better ideas.

No. Just kidding. Those are good ideas.

First of all, I just want to give kudos to Christina for thinking about free ways to reward the kids. We do not want you spending money out of your pocket to do this.

Again, caveat you know your students best so some of these may be incentivizing, some may not. Some may be feasible, some may not. Okay.

For group rewards, a really easy one is choose your own seat for the day. Some kids get really excited about that.

Another seating idea is to choose a non-traditional seat for the day, whether that’s under the table or on the floor or on the rug or outside or wherever. Obviously, you need to all go outside if… Don’t just send two people outside.

You could let the class vote on the music that you’ll play during work time or play music during work time if that’s not something you generally do in your classroom.

That was way too overstimulating for me but I could have probably handled it for a reward day.

You might let them use a special supply that you have. Maybe you get those weird donations where it’s something cool, but there’s six of them.

There’s not enough. Yea.

Right. You’re like, “Wow, thank you. And also, how am I going to use this?”

That might be an option.

Maybe they can earn extra free choice time.

Another fun one that my Spanish teacher and P.E. teacher used to do sometimes would be to switch classes. They have a special guest teacher.

Ooh, I like that.

The P.E. teacher teaches art and the art teacher teaches P.E.

Maybe that’s a nightmare to you. Again, I don’t know, maybe you like this, maybe you don’t.

Or have the principal come in and teach the class or read a story. Just a special guest in the classroom.

And then the final one is to head outside for our class. Just really easy. Bring a sketchbook, bring a piece of paper, sidewalk chalk, keep it really simple and low prep for yourself.

And then if you’re looking to individually reward students, some of the group rewards might work here too, like preferential seating or special materials. You could single kids out and do those.

But I have seen, I think… Is it Marina Alfera? Somebody does face painting.

Oh. Okay.

And I don’t know if that would fly at every school, but I know the kids go wild for it. But-

I’m sure.

… an adjacent idea is to draw students something special on a sticky note so they can have a little special drawing personally from you.

I’ve also seen recently a few teachers on my local Buy Nothing group on Facebook asking for little trinkets for their classroom treasure boxes.

Oh, yeah.

And people are very happy to clean up their junk for teachers.

In fact, one of my kids had a teacher and it was like every month, “If you did these X things for your grammar book,” or whatever, “You got to pick out the treasure box.” And the treasure box was filled with things from her own house, junk from her own house.

Oh my goodness.

Which is the most random… “I don’t need this ice cream scoop anymore.” “I don’t need…” Kids thought it was their funniest, best thing ever which I think is really fun.

And then I also had eat lunch in the art room or spend recess helping. I was the kid who… I’ll stay in for recess and absolutely… I’ll do that.

Anyway, those are some ideas for that one.

Yeah, great.

I was the kid who would’ve gotten excited about the ice cream scoop.

There you go. There’s something for everyone. You know your kids best.

I love it.

Okay, third question also from the community. This is from Karla Scarff. Amanda, I’ll let you answer this one first. The question is, “Does anyone utilize AI in the art classroom? If so, how? In photography class, I’ve tried out generative AI for backgrounds and it was fun, but it felt like a slippery slide.”

I think that thinking is correct but, Amanda, thoughts?

Yeah. Well, this is like three questions in one, so I’m going to tackle them one at a time.

Number one, does anybody use AI in the classroom? Yes, we are.

If so, how? I think there’s a variety of ways. And here it is helpful I think to think about the scope of this question.

You can talk about using AI with students specifically. You can also talk about using AI with a group of students and you can talk about AI as a way to help you as the teacher.

Gosh, where to start?

First of all, I think we need to start with a caveat, which is you have to follow your school’s guidelines about AI usage and your technology policies because there are some schools who are an absolute no, especially with letting students use AI directly. And there’s lots of different thoughts out there about plagiarism and intellectual integrity and all of that.

If you’re unfamiliar with AI, I would suggest that you start by just playing around with it and seeing what it can do. We have some really good articles on the AOEU website to help with that. If you’re just getting started, there’s a really great one by Josh Chrosniak called AI Based Platforms, Benefits, and Challenges for the Modern Art Room, which we can link to in the show notes.

And then we also have two different articles by Kyle Wood. One is called Discover How to Teach Responsible Artificial Intelligence Use in the Art Room.

I think this is what you’re getting at with that slippery slope. It’s like, yes, it can be great and also it can be dangerous.

Very much so.

Just like when social media came out too though, I think running away from it completely is not the best approach. I think teaching kids how to use it responsibly is where I would definitely be heading if I was in the art room right now. And so that article can be really helpful if you’re thinking about those things.

And then Kyle also wrote one called Ways AI can make your Art Teacher Job Easier for Planning and Assessment.

AI can do things like generate potential report card.

Anything you need. Lesson plans, rubrics-

Letters column.

… comments, all of that stuff.

Lots of stuff.

Now here’s where the slippery slope also comes in because you, as the teacher, have to know is what AI is giving you good information or bad information. Often, it’s bad information or incomplete information or information that doesn’t necessarily align with best practices or your district policies or whatever. You do have to check and you do have to use your critical thinking skills when using AI.

Specific to photography though, we actually also have an article just for that and it’s by Christina Brown who teaches photography. It’s an excellent article. It’s called How AI Is Changing Photography and How to Embrace It in the Art Room.

Obviously, I’m not going to go through that whole article. You can read it but I did want to pull out two points.

Again, to the slippery slope or slippery slide, I’m going to just read a quote from Christina here which says, “One significant concern with AI in photography is its potential to blur the lines between reality and fabrication. AI tools can create highly realistic images or deep fakes. This can lead to misinformation and the manipulation of public perception. Challenging the credibility of visual media is essential for students to learn how to critically analyze and verify images.”

And then she also gives some specific ideas that you can do in the classroom to help your kids think about these topics and wrestle with these issues. That’s brilliant. Such a good idea.

Yes.

She also gives ideas for specific activities, excuse me, to do in the classroom related to AI in photography. Asking students to edit both manually and with AI and then compare and contrast the process.

Anyway, tons and tons of great ideas in that article. I think you’re asking the right questions. I think you’re thinking about it in the right way like, “This is cool and also, what do I need to really be thinking about before I talk about this with kids?” Right?

Yeah. Absolutely.

I would encourage you to continue experimenting because like you said, Carla is definitely on the right track. I think there are a lot of fun things that you can do with photo class and AI. Those questions that Christina is asking, those activities that she’s suggesting are very valuable, especially for developing that critical thinking and getting kids to realize what they’re seeing and how that may affect them. I think that’s good.

I would say AI is probably not ready for prime time. It’s not ready for use when it comes to photography. And so it’s fun to experiment. It’s fun to see what’s out there. I would encourage you to experiment and see what’s out there just as a teacher so you have knowledge, you may see what kids are doing, but I don’t think it’s ready for utilization for anything that you would consider a final piece or to put into a portfolio of any sort.

And like you said, Amanda, it goes way beyond just images. If you are thinking about using AI, you can do it for vocabulary lists or creative prompts or giving you a list of display ideas, any of that stuff along with what we’ve just mentioned. A lot of the administrative tasks, there’s a lot of help that can be found via AI.

I would just say if you are coming to the NOW Conference we talked about earlier, Jen Leban and Todd Leban are going to be doing a presentation on artificial intelligence and art education. I am not going to say that they’re going to answer all of your questions but they’ll give you a very good framework about how to think about it, how to utilize it as a teacher, how to utilize it with your students, and there’s a lot to be learned there. I would definitely encourage you to check that out if you’re coming to the NOW Conference.

Okay. Moving on to our next question.

Amanda, would you like to read this one or would you like me to?

Sure. I can read it.

Okay, let’s go.

It’s a great one.

Okay. This comes from Samantha and she says, “I was being observed by my assistant principal. I had one kid talking, being pretty obnoxious, honestly so I paused my instruction and gave him the look.” We all know what Samantha is talking about.

Absolutely. Those quotes are doing a lot of work there, but we know exactly what she’s talking about.

“He stopped immediately and I went on with what I was doing, no big deal. But when I was meeting with my assistant principal about the observation, he said that I handled it all wrong, that I needed to name the kid, call out the behavior, and talk about what the consequence would be for not stopping the behavior. That seems way over the top to me, especially because I was always taught to solve management problems with as little interruption as you can.

Two questions I guess. One, how would you handle this in your class? And two, how would you handle this with your assistant principal?”

All right. Samantha, I would handle it exactly how you handled it. And then as far as… No, I really think that is the way to go.

10 out of 10.

Yes, no notes.

I don’t want to make assumptions about your assistant principal, or maybe I do, and in the spirit of professionalism, I will not.

But I will just say that sometimes admins are looking for ways to knock you down on the observation rubric and their hands are tied on certain things.

I had a principal tell me that people couldn’t be all fours on the Danielson model. It’s literally not allowed from their perspective to let anybody be outstanding in every category.

A lot of times, I don’t know if we want to say nitpicking, that may not be the right word, but they’re maybe looking for things a little differently than what is most effective for what you know is going to help your students.

I would say continue to handle that the way you handled it. I would keep doing what you do in your classroom, especially if it’s that effective and you know what your kids need and you can give that to them when it comes to management, just keep doing that.

And then when it is time for the post-observation meeting or whatever else you need to do with your assistant principal, thank them for the advice, do what you need to do to have that discussion with them, and then go back to teaching in a way that works for you and works for your kids.

Amanda:

Yeah. It’s rough.

I agree that you handled it beautifully. Textbook, exactly what I would’ve done. You didn’t stop the instruction, you didn’t shame the student, and you stopped the behavior. I don’t know what else the admin [inaudible 00:33:43]-

Right, like what more needed to be done?

Yeah. I also think it shows that you have a really good relationship with this kiddo because he knew from just the look that he was crossing the line and then he got back in line. I think that shows a really strong teacher-student relationship. And in my opinion, calling the student out publicly would have likely only served to escalate the situation, whether that was immediately or down the line.

It does seem like this administrator… I was trying really hard to think about why. Why would the administrator suggest that? Right? What are they thinking?

One thing I thought of is maybe they were thinking about the best practice of students should know what the consequences are and what happens when they break them.

Yeah. That makes sense.

This is good classroom management.

They should know what consequences are going to happen if they break certain rules. But generally, you don’t go over your entire classroom management plan every time-

Every time misbehavior occurs.

… the student is breaking the rules in the moment.

If you do want to go back and not necessarily counter your admin’s perspective, but have that discussion with them, you might just explain that your kids do know this information because you have been proactive about it, which in my mind-

Yes. That’s a good point.

… is always the best classroom management plan. You might talk about how you taught those rules and routines and procedures upfront or at the beginning of the semester, how you remind them about those throughout the semester, and that it isn’t generally your practice to do that in the moment.

Another thing that might be helpful, because the reality is this teacher, or I’m sorry, this administrator might be coming in and looking for you to have changed things. I don’t know how that involved they are. I don’t know how many observations you have, but posting that information can also be great because the admin can then see that it’s posted in your room and the kids are aware of it. I find that to be a best practice as well of posting the classroom rules and then any consequences that go along with those.

Just some ideas of how you might navigate that same conversation in the future and maybe a little bit where your admin was coming from. But again, never have I heard that it’s best practice to recite your entire classroom management plan every time. You would get nothing else done.

Very true. Very true.

Cool. No, that’s a great answer, Amanda. Thank you.

Would you like to read the… Oh my gosh. It is the final question already.

Final question.

Would you like to read the final question, Amanda?

I really just have the final countdown playing in my head.

Okay. I won’t sing for you.

All right. The final question is, “Thank you so much for the podcast and everything you do. I’m a second year teacher who has learned so much. I’ve listened to 200 episodes, so only 250 more to go. LOL.”

So far, I love this question.

Okay, here’s the question.

“I teach elementary art and I still haven’t figured out a good way to deal with no name papers. Do you have an easy solution for me, or I guess even a not so easy solution? Any help would be appreciated.” And this is from Harper, so thank you, Harper.

Yeah. Well, I appreciate the compliments. I appreciate that you’re listening, Harper, so thank you for that.

I have a three step plan for you that works well.

I think you just start every single project with putting your name on the back of the paper first and in my notes for the show, I put that in all caps and raise the font a few things. Just imagine me yelling that at you.

Nicely.

Yes, yes. They would really need to put their name on there first, and then I have them check it with a friend. Just look over to see that your neighbor has their name on, the neighbor can check and make sure you have your name on, and in my experience, that eliminates a huge number of the no-name issues.

Put their name on it first, check it with a friend, and then if you’re able to organize it on your end by class, I think that can be super helpful.

But step three is just having a specific place for no name papers. If they miss the name first and if they miss checking it with their friend and there’s still no name on it-

Because you know some kids will.

Right, right.

As foolproof as we love to think our plans are, kids are still kids.

And so if you have a box that says no name papers and maybe a couple exclamation points and some decorations to make it look a little more fun, then I think that’s good. Kids can look in there for any papers that maybe don’t have their name on them, but if they’re all in one place, it’s going to save you a lot of headaches.

Amanda, do you have an easy solution or even a not so easy solution?

I just have some strategies that you could pick and choose from depending on what you want to do.

I agree, name is always the first step. That could look like, or that did look like in my elementary classroom, meeting the kids at the door saying, “Go find your seat, put your name on your paper, and then meet me at the carpet.”

Nice. Yeah.

If I had a few extra minutes, I would put a paper, a blank, whatever we were using for that art project at their seat, and they would go and they would put their name on their paper and then they could come and sit down.

A very visual clue and a physical movement of what they needed to do.

Same thing. You could do that when work time is starting. Maybe you start at the carpet or you start at desks, but the paper isn’t passed out and then the first thing you do before you give any other directions, you don’t even tell them what you’re going to be doing, it’s just go, “Put your name on your paper and sit down and raise your hand when you’re done. And when I see everybody’s hands raised, then we’ll pull together at a different table and I’ll show you the first step of the project, or we’ll pass out the supplies so you can get started.”

Really make it so that there is nothing that they can do except put their name on their paper.

Another thing I like to do because, again, even with those strategies, there would be some kids who do not have their name on their paper and quite honestly, probably one of my own personal children.

Another thing I like to do is circulating the room during work time, excuse me, is a best practice. I would check everybody’s paper when I was going around. Just do a visual check, get to a table, have the kids flip their paper over, “Is your name on your paper?” Great.

Some teachers also use name stickers and just print a sheet of labels for each class. Now, obviously that takes extra work and budget money.

I don’t know if I would personally use that in my own classroom, but I know it really works for some teachers, especially with kindergartners who may not come in being able to write their name.

And in fact, with kindergartners, I often would write their name for them the first couple of class periods because that was how I got to know their names. Circulate and write their name on the back of their paper so they could also witness what that looked like.

And then my other piece of advice is to have a backup system. Like Tim said, the no name bucket. For me, every kid had a portfolio, which was literally just a 12 by 18 sheet of paper folded in half decorated with their name. That was always our first project. And then all the papers go in there after class. Even if they didn’t have their name on their paper, it would probably be in their portfolio, which did have their name on it. That was a really good system too. I know sometimes things were too big for that, but even if it stuck out of the sides, that was fine. It was just an extra little catch all for all of their work and then I organized those by class.

Anyway, a perennial problem. You are not the first teacher to have this problem-

Correct.

… and I would venture to say every teacher has this problem. Hopefully, some of those ideas might work for you.

Yeah, that is a good list of possible solutions.

Now, Amanda, before we go, would you like to play this or that?

Yes.

Okay.

Now, the last couple times we’ve done this, we’ve had themes. No theme today. The theme is just random stuff that I was thinking about that I want to ask you about.

All right. This or that. Runny eggs or burnt bacon?

Oh my God. Burnt bacon. I like burnt bacon.

Do you? Oh.

I don’t know if it’s like crispy.

No, I’m talking burnt. Burnt, like… Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, burnt.

Manicure or a pedicure?

Oh, a manicure.

Okay.

I don’t really like somebody touching my feet but I like having sparkly nails.

A boring book that you have to read all the way to the end, or a week’s worth of Instagram scrolling with only people on your timeline that you hate.

Oh my gosh. I love a hate follow though so I’m going Instagram.

Okay, fair, fair.

Zoo or aquarium?

Aquarium. It’s less stinky and more beautiful.

Fair, fair.

Staples or paperclips?

Staples.

Okay. I thought you were going to go paperclips because we can get rainbow. We can get glitter. There’s a lot of variety there.

There’s something-

Staples are standard.

… so satisfying. I was thinking about… I don’t like to fiddly… Putting a paperclip on something is not my favorite activity. But kachunking a stapler…

That’s good.

And kachunking a staple gun into a bulletin board is satisfying to me.

Yeah.

And you can get rainbow staples. I think you just aren’t on the right part of the internet.

I feel like that’s opening up a whole different discussion about most satisfying things to do in the art room, like cutting paper. Okay, that’s going to be good. I’m going to note that for future reference.

All right, and then finally, organized pantry or organized refrigerator.

Ooh, pantry.

The refrigerator is a lost cause for me, but the pantry is not.

Did you do any organizing over break? I know I could sure use-

I sure did organize my pantry. I organized my spice cupboard. I organized my baking supplies. It was great. I love that task.

All right. Very happy for you.

All right, so I think that’s all I have for you.

Amanda, thank you again for playing a very random game of this or that. Thank you for answering all these questions and all of the advice. Appreciate it. And let’s do it again next month.

Okay. See you guys next time.

Tim:

Thanks to Amanda for another great mailbag episode. We’ll have a lot of links in the show notes, especially about AI and all of the articles that Amanda mentioned. We also talked a lot today about the Art of Ed community, and honestly, if you’re not there yet, we would love to have you join us. It is an amazing online space just for art teachers, and we have almost 4,000 art teachers there!  It is filled with positivity and professionalism, great conversation, great ideas, and I love being online there. So, if you have some time, please come check it out.

Art Ed Radio is produced by the Art of Education University, with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Thank you for listening to this episode, and every episode, we hope you’ve enjoyed them. For a deeper dive into anything we talked about today, again, find those links in the show notes, or you can check out theartofeducation.edu. Also, be sure to subscribe so we can join you again, you get the next mailbag at beginning of next month, and if you love the show, please jump over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen, give us a five star rating, maybe even leave us a review. We’ll talk to you next week.