The July Mailbag: Preparing for AI, Second Year Success, and Teaching Fine Motor Skills (Ep. 422)

Tim:

Welcome to Art Ed Radio, the Podcast for Art Teachers. This show is produced by the Art of Education University, and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz.

Hello everyone, welcome to July. Welcome to the July Mailbag. We are so excited to have you joining us. However, when we get to July, it is stress time for me and Amanda. It’s exciting stress, it’s good stress, it’s fun stress because July is the month of the Now Conference. We are thrilled about it. But at the end of this month, July 31st is the kickoff for the Now Conference.

So as you know, the kickoff is an amazing evening with games and giveaways and prizes and art making. You’re gonna love all of it. And then August 1st, the next day, that’s gonna be a Thursday, we are going to do the main event with all of the presentations, all the professional development, all of the art making you need. And then after that, August 2nd and beyond, you can revisit access all of the conference, everything that you missed, everything that you want to revisit, everything that you want to learn, and it’s all there. It’s all available for you. So if you’re not registered yet, or you need to learn more, please go to the AOEU website. We will link to the show notes, just like in the mailbag, we always link to everything in the show notes.

But I’m gonna bring Amanda on. We have a lot to talk about, including gardening. Thank you to those of you who wrote in. Amanda’s gonna be so excited when I tell her that. but we have a lot of questions, a lot to get to. So I’m going to quit chatting. I’m gonna bring Amanda on and we’re going to get started with the mailbag.

Amanda Heyn, welcome to the show. How are you?

Amanda:

Thanks. I’m great. How are you?

Tim:

I am doing well. Getting over a little sickness, which apparently everyone has had recently is what I’m told, and it’s not fun. So apologies to anybody who’s been sick and has what I’ve had because it has not been great.

Amanda:

No.

Tim:

But we are now together and ready to record a Mailbag, which I’m always excited about. We always have a good time. So before we dive in, can I tell you about a wedding that I attended recently? Because there’s some good stories that go with it.

Amanda:

Yes.

Tim:

Okay. Okay. So beautiful wedding, beautiful ceremony. The real story is about the reception here, but I do need to say the flower girl was incredible.

Amanda:

Okay. Tell us more.

Tim:

Outdoor wedding. Yeah. We’re at an apple orchard. It was beautiful. Flower girl comes in, stops at the back of the aisle. Takes her hand, reaches into the flower girl basket, pulls out all of the flower petals as many as she can grab, and just dumps them directly on the ground without moving. She then takes her flower girl basket, takes it above her head, and then spikes it like a football and she just walks out the back. She’s done. She’s done after that. So she was there for four seconds, I think. Just like-

Amanda:

Is this like a two-year-old flower girl or an eight-year-old flower girl? Because I respect it either way.

Tim:

I feel like, I should have started with that. Yes, she is two.

Almost two and a half, but yeah, just not there for long. Just came in, dropped everything, spiked the basket and walked back out. Just an all time flower girl performance. So that was pretty spectacular. Then, beautiful ceremony. It was great. We go to the reception and if you could brainstorm with me, let’s say hypothetically you are catering a wedding. What sorts of things do you think you would want to bring along?

Amanda:

Okay, so this is interesting because I worked catering weddings in high school.

Tim:

Did you? Okay.

Amanda:

I did. I don’t know if you know this about me. It was a wild time. You know like kitchen people, when you are one and then … whatever, it was a lot of fun. I think I would bring food, enough food to-

Tim:

Yeah. There’s one. There’s one.

Amanda:

Okay, have the people eat and then, probably plates and cutlery.

And serving spoons.

Tim:

Two and three. Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda:

A great attitude because weddings are high stress.

Tim:

That’s true. That’s true. Well, our caterer forgot a good portion of number one, the food. Also, forgot all of two and three. There were no plates, no silverware, no napkins. Also, nothing to keep the food warm and no condiments, no salt, no pepper, no anything, basically.

Amanda:

What did they bring?

Tim:

They brought about two-thirds of the food, and that was it.

And so anyway, we were just scrambling around. Again, this is not like a regular wedding venue-

Amanda:

Creativity challenge.

Tim:

Yeah, absolutely. We were able to send the caterer back. This caterer was very new.

Amanda:

Obviously.

Tim:

Yeah. I don’t know why the manager would just send the newbie rather than them coming themselves, but they did. We sent them back for whatever they forgot and they came back with the plates and the silverware and most of the condiments, but forgot the napkins and forgot the rest of the food.

Amanda:

No. I’m sorry. Okay. Catering is one job, and the one job is to feed people-

Tim:

To deliver the food.

Amanda:

And that’s your only job.

Tim:

Yes, yes. So, that was not received well when the van showed back up, without the rest of the food.

Amanda:

I need to know the state of the rest of the … what is happening? Obviously, someone is messing up big time, but how are the people reacting who are supposed to be eating imaginary food.

Tim:

We are all having a great time still. A very, very good-natured wedding. Nobody is going to freak out about this-

Amanda:

I would freak out about this.

Tim:

My wife’s family is pretty chill about it. I will say the bride went outside and you could not hear, but you could see her and you could see her just scream into the void. And then a few tears were flowing right after that. And then, after that 30 seconds, just kind of wiped her eyes, came back in and went about her day.

Amanda:

Amazing.

Tim:

Everybody was pretty chill about it. It ended up that a couple groomsmen later in … they tried to make the food last, couldn’t quite get there. So a couple of groomsmen went out and went to Little Caesars.

Amanda:

Stop it, no.

Tim:

And just brought back all of the pizzas they could. So there’s like 18 pizzas that everybody was eating, but on top of all of these food mishaps and not everybody being able to eat everything, the cake delivery person dropped … Okay. Sorry.

Amanda:

You should see my face. You don’t see my face, but it looks very scared.

Tim:

Yes, so quick step back. You have one cake for the bride and groom to cut, for all the pictures. You have a second cake for everyone to eat the sheet cake, right?

Amanda:

Okay. Yes.

Tim:

The cake delivery person dropped the bride and groom’s cake into the sheet cake, ruining both cakes. So yeah, they could not do that. And not that I’m great at anything, food wise, but I was like, I’m a little bit artistic, maybe I can try to do this just for pictures. And I went back to look and immediate, “Nope, nope, there’s no saving this.” And so that was a little rough. And then, to kind of top it all off, during the father-daughter dance, the music just stopped 15 seconds in. The DJ could not get it going again.

Amanda:

Again, everybody has a job like the cake-One job.

Tim:

Yeah. This is like you had one job failing over and over and over again.

Amanda:

My gosh.

Tim:

Man. It was wildly entertaining from my perspective. Probably maddening from their perspectives, I’m sure.

Amanda:

Yeah.

Tim:

Man, good stories and they got all of their money back from everybody-

Amanda:

Okay. That was going to be my last question.

Tim:

Yeah, yeah. It was kind of a nightmare for them.

Amanda:

Free wedding, but it sucked. I don’t know, maybe I would not take that deal, but maybe some people would be happy about it.

Tim:

Yeah, a lot of laughter about it. Just one of those … I don’t know if it’s gallows, humor or whatever, just like you have no choice but to laugh about it-

Amanda:

You have no choice.

Tim:

It was a rough evening, but makes for some great stories.

Amanda:

Amazing. Wow, that’s like an SNL skit or a sitcom.

Tim:

Yeah, it really felt like it was-

Amanda:

Or a horror movie, depending on your-

Tim:

Yeah. So yeah, great times there. Anyway, do you have anything, probably not that exciting that you want to share?

Amanda:

Not that exciting but remember, I think it was last time we were talking about how we wanted to want to go on a roller coaster.

Tim:

Yes, yes.

Amanda:

Well, I went on a water slide against my better judgment and it was a closed tube and it was pitch black and I still feel sick. And this was 24 hours ago.

Tim:

That’s rough.

Amanda:

My youngest kiddo was like, “Come on the slide with me mom.” And I was like, “I’m cool. Okay.” And then, I was like, “Why would I do that?” It was horrible. And we’re going to the wizarding world of Harry Potter later this summer.

Tim:

Yes.

Amanda:

Now, I’m scared for my life. I will go on the rides, but will I be okay? I don’t know.

Tim:

I went a few years ago. I think you’ll be okay. I don’t remember them being all that scary.

Amanda:

I’m not scared. Just my insides can’t handle it.

Tim:

Yeah, they weren’t that rough.

I mean, they’re made for kids.

Amanda:

So are water slides.

Tim:

That’s what I was going to say, good point. All right, if anybody wants to chime in and give us any advice for the wizarding world of Harry Potter, that would be good.

Amanda:

I would love that.

Tim:

Yeah, we’ll take it. I know there have to be some huge Harry Potter nerds out there-

Amanda:

We need insiders. Yeah.

Tim:

Got to have some connections or some knowledge. So if anybody wants to share anything, we’ll appreciate that. Also, speaking of people writing into us, we need to talk about our gardens.

Amanda:

Did somebody want to know?

Tim:

Yes. Okay. So first of all, somebody slid into my DMs about gardening, which I will keep them anonymous, because I don’t want to embarrass them, but the message just said, “Please give me all of the gardening talk on the next podcast, LOL.”

Amanda:

This is a dream come true.

Tim:

Yeah. So we actually had a pretty good conversation in the DMs about gardening, but we will share a little bit more. And we got an email as well. So if you don’t mind me reading, does this count for the Mailbag?

Amanda:

Yeah. Should we open the Mailbag now? I guess we’re opening it.

Tim:

We are. I didn’t even think about this. Let’s open the Mailbag. Okay. That was interesting, because I just stole the, “Let’s open the Mailbag for you” line.

Amanda:

I flared a little bit, but I’m okay with it. I’m already over it.

Tim:

Everything’s messed up today. That’s okay. We’re good. This is from Avery. And Avery said, I for real, would like to hear more about the gardens that you and Amanda were talking about, but also, can you talk about other creative endeavors? I don’t remember how she phrased it, but it’s the presenter from the summer conference, talked about appreciating the acts of creativity that we do in our hobbies or just our life every day. We should all be talking more about those things and appreciating those things.

Amanda:

This is such a good question.

Tim:

Yes. Our presenter is Andrea Slusarski, by the way.

Amanda:

Right. A little-c creativity is what she talks about.

Tim:

Yes. So Amanda, thoughts on gardening or creativity or tying it all together? All of the above.

Amanda:

Yeah, I have so many. I mean, just a warning for anybody who’s not at this stage of life, you will find yourself approaching 40 and then, suddenly you care about gardens and birds. It’s very disorienting and upends your sense of self. And then maybe you go to New York and you get a giant tattoo to make yourself feel cool. Just like maybe that’s something you might do.

Tim:

Just hypothetically. Hypothetically.

Amanda:

Hypothetically, but both things are true. Gardens and tattoos are cool.

Tim:

Yes. Yeah, you can love both things. Have you seen that … I don’t know why I always refer back to tweets for my best jokes, but have you seen that one that says when you are … or up until you’re 34, you’re actually 27, but as soon as you turn 35, you’re actually 50.

Amanda:

I haven’t seen that, but that rings very true.

Tim:

It is very true. You just get a little bit older, but then all of a sudden, you are a lot older. So I don’t know, just a warning to everybody out. I feel like everybody in their late 30s is shaking their head yes right now.

Amanda:

100%.

Tim:

It’s so true.

Amanda:

It’s so true.

Tim:

Anyway, but Amanda give the people what they want. Can you talk about your garden?

Amanda:

Yes. I might’ve misrepresented garden. It is like a small raised garden bed, but it brings me so much joy. We always plant to herb garden and then throw in a few random things to try. So if you’re looking for this, it’s at Costco, it’s on wheels. It’s amazing. It’s self-watering, which is great for me, because I hate watering. So we actually did a little art project this year where the kids and I made labels for all of our different herbs and we took really wide popsicle sticks and the kids helped me paint them and then, I wrote on them and we sealed them and so, kind of combined a little art garden project, which was super cute.

So we have all of the herbs basically that you can think of. Last year, we tried purple cauliflower and it grew really well, but then I went to harvest it and 27 earwigs flew out of it.

Tim:

No.

Amanda:

It was one of the most horrifying experiences of my entire life and I drop kicked it. This was my instinct, like I’m going to drop kick this into my yard. And then, I refused to touch it again. I was like, surely an animal will drag this away. It didn’t. I made my husband go out and put it in the compost. It was truly terrifying. Horrific.

Tim:

That’s rough.

Amanda:

Zero out of 10, but this year, we have some peppers and peas and strawberries and things that where insects can’t nest inside what I tried to go for. So it’s been a joy.

What about you?

Tim:

Well, I have not had luck with strawberries. They sound fantastic. I’ve tried strawberries so many times and they don’t work for me.

Amanda:

We only got one plant to placate my kids, so we’re paying $14 for eight potential strawberries is what’s happening.

Tim:

That sounds about … see, I just got tired of doing that and so we’ve moved on, but I just grow everything that my family eats. So in our raised beds, we have peas, carrots, all the leafy stuff, spinach and lettuce and kale. I love growing bell peppers, like green peppers. So those work pretty well for me. I’ve enjoyed that. We’re trying something new. There’s this Native American system of planting called three sisters planting where you grow corn and then, you grow green beans and green beans, climb the cornstalk, and then you put some sort of zucchini or squash or something to shade the ground and keep weeds out.

Amanda:

That’s so cool.

Tim:

I don’t know how it’s going to harvest, but at the beginning of July here it is going beautifully, like things, I don’t know, corn is growing, the green beans are climbing. The leaves from the zucchini are covering the ground. It’s beautiful right now.

Amanda:

Just like your three projects at once in your classroom.

Tim:

Yes, absolutely.

Amanda:

Amazing.

Tim:

So that’s going really well. And then, I’ve talked before about my pollinator gardens. The butterflies are not here yet, but all of the bees are here. Sweet. We do need to bring up your butterfly aversion every time we chat about that. All the bees are here, and talk about being in my 40s, going on 68. I went to a talk on bees, a couple of weeks ago. And so my wife was laughing at me pretty hard. She’s like, “You’re doing what now?” And I’m like, “I’m going to learn about bees.” Now, I know a lot more and I’m very happy that I did that. Anyway, beyond gardens. Other creative endeavors that you want to share or things that you’ve been excited about doing?

Well, I love this topic because I’m not somebody who sits down and works in a sketchbook every day. I’m just not. And for a long time, I was like, does that mean I’m not creative? Does that mean I’m not an artist or Artie or artistic anymore? And it’s like, it kind of just means I don’t have time to do that right now or I don’t make time. I don’t know, but I think for me, my most artistic creative endeavor is makeup. I love makeup. My pandemic project was learning how to do winged eyeliner on a hooded eye, which is an optical illusion. Look it up. It’s amazing. Other than that … but it’s just a little painting on your face every day.

And I don’t do crazy makeup, but it’s very enjoyable to me. Also, I’ve been getting really into nail art and getting my nails done and going to somebody who’s a true artist, I’ve been very into Chrome Nails. They make me very happy. Also putting together a cool outfit. Beyond that cooking I feel like is creative for me. And trying to hack gluten-free baking is a lot of trial and error.

Tim:

Yeah.

Amanda:

And then, just helping my kids explore their creativity. So my kids are always making something new. They’re always into something new. And so just trying to find ways to help them learn about new things, takes a lot of brainpower. My oldest was like, I want to do dry ice on the last day of school. And I was like, “Okay, where can I get dry ice? Do you know we have a dry ice store five minutes from our home and that sells dry ice in many pellets and chunks.” It’s like $5 and then, looking up different experiments we can do with that. So that’s kind of where my creative energy is going these days. What about you?

Tim:

I like it. Well, I need to first of all say I am one of those people who sits down and works in their sketchbook every day. So even if it’s just 10 or 15 minutes, I love that. I’ve always done that. And it’s a nice creative release for me. And then, I’ll echo what you said about cooking because, for me, it’s just become this creative endeavor where I’m on this problem-solving quest. I am on a quest for the perfect baguette. I’m trying … I’m making so much bread-

Amanda:

Do you have a baguette pan?

Tim:

No, I do not.

Amanda:

My god. I’m going to send you ours, because I’m never going to make a baguette. I can’t eat bread anymore. I think you need the pan.

Tim:

Well, I’ve tried a few different pans and I’m learning what each of those pans does,

Amanda:

I mean the pan that cradles the baguette.

Tim:

I know exactly what you mean. I’m just saying that I’ve tried a bunch of different things and that’s part of the learning process, which I appreciate. I’ve also been trying and failing to make my own yogurt. I need dairy-free yogurt. Yes. That’s the reaction I wanted. Thank you, but trying to make my own yogurt, and it’s going terribly like I would not say it, but just trying to problem solve. I mean, what if I try this? What if I do this differently? And it keeps me intrigued, I guess. And so I think that’s a good creative outlet as well.

Amanda:

I feel like you’re trying to use alternative milks and that’s it.

Tim:

I am, and there are ways to do this according to the internet, but according to-

Amanda:

Okay. Well, I think keep us updated.

Tim:

According to my yogurt, they’re not. We’ll see. We’ll get there eventually, but I’m not there yet.

Amanda:

Okay, so send us your tips about Harry Potter and yogurt please.

Tim:

Yes or baguettes or gardening or whatever. We appreciate all of them. Okay. Actual art teaching questions. Let’s go with this. We have an email from Alyssa and Alyssa says, I wanted to say thank you for doing these episodes every month because they’ve been so helpful as I try to get through my first year of teaching. One of the hardest things for me in this past year is that I had to do so many extra things, subbing for other teachers when they’re gone, plus lunch duty, plus recess duty, plus just anything else my principals needed. I think we’ve all been there. Do you have any advice on how to handle that? Because I don’t feel like I have time for anything in my classroom when I’m always doing something somewhere else in the building.I listened to your advice and said no to lots of extra things and volunteer things, but I still feel so overwhelmed. How can I make that better next year?

Amanda:

Okay. Well, the first step is asking for help. So great. Yes, good for you. For saying no to extra things. I think a lot of new teachers don’t have that skill yet. So in a sense, I think you’re ahead of the game.

Tim:

I definitely did not.

Amanda:

Same. Someone said, could you please make me a dragon boat? And I said, buy when? And they said tomorrow. And guess what I did? I did that. So great job. I think the good news for next year is that you are not going to be a first year teacher anymore. This is really huge. You don’t have to come up with everything from scratch, learn how to be a teacher and do all of the extra things so you naturally, I think are going to have more bandwidth. However, that said, some ideas for continuing to make things manageable. One hack that I liked when I was a new teacher is to plan the same project for two grade levels a couple of times.

You don’t have to do this for everything or use similar materials at the same time. Anything you can do to cut down on your prep time is really going to serve you well. And then, you can just add in half new projects the next year. And so that’s kind of a nice way to ease into things. I also think you should think about how to batch tasks. So I always had a list of shorter tasks and a list of longer tasks so I could match up the amount of time I had to the tasks. So if I had 20 minutes before school, I would always cut paper, fill water cups, some of those kinds of things, and then save my longer chunks of time for things like lesson planning or deep cleaning or things that take a longer time.

I would also start to think about, and I think sometimes it’s easy when you’re a new teacher to just do it all yourself, because you’re not even really sure what help you need yet, but this year think about how your students can help you. So what can they help with, with cleaning procedures, maintenance tasks, what can you teach them to help them help you maintain the space? And that’s just good for them too because it’s part of being an artist is maintaining a studio space. And then finally, my last bit of advice is to look at your personal life and think about if there is anything you can do to help yourself there.

And my number one thing would be meal prep. That was a huge one for me. So making something on Sunday and taking it three days in a row for lunch or having a formula that you always do for lunch or something where you are making the start of your day easier before you even get to school, pick out your outfit. Whatever you can do to make yourself get a little bit more time or bandwidth in the morning is always a smart thing, I think, heading into the school year.

Tim:

Yeah, anytime you can make fewer decisions starting your day, I think that can be a big thing. I would just reiterate a couple of things that you said, Amanda, just they are really best practices. The shorter tasks and longer tasks. I had short, medium, and long on my to-do list. And so it just kind of depends on how much time you have and rather me like, “Oh, I can’t lesson plan, I only have eight minutes.” Look at your short task. What can you do in eight minutes and get those things done. That can be incredibly helpful. And then, again, having kids help out. Now, that you are in your second year, Alyssa, you have a better idea of what kids can do.

And I would say embrace that fact and embrace that help. Get them to do what you can that will make your life a lot easier. You’ll feel a little bit less overwhelmed. I would say, continue to keep saying no unless you’re super passionate about something. You may start to feel a little guilty like, “Oh, I didn’t help with this last year, maybe I should this year.” Don’t. Until you are ready. As long as you’re still feeling overwhelmed, don’t do it. And that’s okay. It’s okay to continue to say no one other thing in your classroom. I would say labels and organization really take a lot of mental load off because it makes it easier for you to keep track of things.

It’s easier for kids to help put things away, help keep things in their place that will save you a lot of time and a lot of energy. And if you’re still feeling super overwhelmed, I would just talk to your principal and say, “Hey, this is a little bit too much for me. Is there anything more we can take off my plate?” And that answer may be no, but more likely they’re going to work with you to find some alternatives or find some solutions for you, so I like that.

Amanda:

Yeah.

Tim:

Next question. This comes from Jennifer Erblin on Facebook and she asks, how do we teach students to understand when they are finished with a project? When is enough enough? That’s another great question.

Amanda:

This is a really good question and I think a good one for a podcast because I think there are many answers to this question or there is more than one answer. So I think there are two sides of this. Number one, kids who think they’re done, but you know they can do so much more, right?

Tim:

Right.

Amanda:

Who kind of put in the minimal effort, check the boxes are not pushing themselves. And then on the other side, you have kids who way overwork their work. And then you might have someone in the middle. So I had a high school teacher who would push me so far beyond the point where I thought I was done and I hated it. And it made me so much better at observing and rendering. My drawing really, really grew a lot that year, even though I was so annoyed because we’d put it up and we’d step back and I thought it was fine. And he’d be like, “Oh, you could deepen the shadow here,” whatever. So I also can really get into torturing a drawing or a painting to death, myself. So striking that balance is really nuanced, I think.

And I think it’s like anything and kids need practice. So when I got to college, on the flip side, I had a different professor who taught me, you don’t have to spend hours on something to make it look good. I remember I was painting-

Tim:

Right.

Amanda:

… One time and there was a glass jar and I knocked it out in 10 minutes and I was like, “Well, I feel like I should work more on this.” And she was like, “It’s so good. Why would you do that?” So okay, so coalescing those into an answer. I think what it comes down to is just practicing and showcasing how you can ask those reflective questions while you’re working. Do you truly feel like you put forth your best effort? Do you feel good about the result? Is your artwork saying what you want it to say? I think there are also intangibles about … especially a project at the high school level, does it have to be fully complete for the student to have gotten something meaningful out of it or for them to have grown.

Maybe they did it and they’re just so frustrated and you know if you push them to quote-unquote, finish it, they’re just going to throw it in the trash anyway. Maybe they’ve learned what they need to learn and that project is done and they’re moving on. So I think this can take a lot of different forms. Does the work have to be quote-unquote, finished? I would argue sometimes maybe it does not. So I don’t know, Tim, can you pull all that together for us?

Tim:

No, probably not, but I will do my best. My first thought is just that with those kids who don’t work enough, that’s easy enough to solve because you can’t … I mean, at the risk of overdoing it like your teacher did, you can always hang it up and you can point out specifics in areas that need more effort and more time. And it’s easy to encourage kids along on that point. Like you said, you can easily overwork things and you need to try and find that balance. And Jennifer asked when is enough enough? So I think she’s got those kids who are maybe perfectionists or maybe overworking things a little bit. And in my experience, perfectionists just don’t know when to stop. They just feel like, “Oh, this could use a little more work and then this could use a little more work.”

And then they notice something else does, but I think that kids know that feeling when they stall out or when they’re spinning their wheels where they’re putting the work in, but it’s kind of diminishing returns or putting that effort in, but not getting the results they want. So, I had a painting professor in college who gave me the wonderful advice that maybe the most important part of painting is knowing when to quit effing things up. So, I drop that knowledge on my high schoolers every once in a while without the curse words in there, but I think that is a really important point. You got to know when to just stop messing with stuff.

And I’ll talk to my kids logically and just say, “Hey, you just spent 90 minutes working on those two square inches and it doesn’t look noticeably different. Is that worth your time? Was that worth the effort that you just put into it?”

Amanda:

Yeah.

Tim:

And then I asked them, I think the question that really gets them, for your next 90 minutes, your next two hours, is that better spent continuing to muddle around with this or better spent developing your next project, starting on your next project? And just get them to think about it as maybe a choice between not like I have to do this, I have to do this to get it finished, or maybe a choice, is your time better spent continuing on this or starting on something new.

Amanda:

Yeah.

Tim:

I think you’ve put 20 hours into this and it looks amazing, but then the last six that you’ve put in really hasn’t changed that much.

Amanda:

Right.

Tim:

Do you need to keep working, or can you start something else? And generally, that’ll kind of get them out of the sort of, I don’t know, the tunnel vision on that single work and let them know that there are other options out there. So, I think giving them a choice between continuing on and starting something new can be really effective there.

Amanda:

Or telling them, let’s put this away for a week. And if you still really want to work … you know what I mean? Sometimes just saying, if you can come back to it if you want to, but I’m going to make you take a break from it. Sometimes that’s enough to snap them out of it too, because they’re like, “Oh, actually I’m more interested in this other thing now, or I was being hypercritical when I really didn’t need to be.” So that’s another tip I just remembered.

Tim:

Good advice. No, that’s really good. Amanda, would you like to read the next couple questions?

Amanda:

I would. All right, so this next one comes from Tonka Creatives on Instagram who says, what careers can we recommend with AI in the future? Small question.

I think the short and unsatisfying answer is we don’t know. We don’t know what AI is going to look like. We don’t know what the future is going to look like. I mean, just think about what did AI look like six months ago, what it looked like a year ago. And it’s noticeably different. It’s changing so quickly. So, it’s really tough to say what’s going to be out there, years down the road. So I guess my best piece of advice there is to worry less about the jobs and worry more about kids learning and adapting to new tools that technology is always changing and kids need to be able to adapt and change with it. And probably side note, so do we, as teachers, we need to be able to do the same.

Tim:

So I would say for yourself, but especially for your students, just focus on creativity, on problem solving, on higher order thinking, on creative thinking, and make it explicit in your classroom, so kids are knowing and naming what they’re doing. These are the skills we’re doing. This is how you just use them. How else can you use those skills that you just learned? What are we doing with them in the future? And then kids can maybe realize how they translate where my creative thinking also works in this field, or the problem solving that I’m doing here also works really nicely when I’m working on this.

And just make those connections out there, so kids are … it’s very meta cognitive, but kids are thinking about what their own thinking and seeing how that translates into different areas. So I don’t know if that answers the question quite as well as we would hope, but I don’t know if it’s possible to answer that question because it is so unknown as what that’s going to look like in the future. So I don’t know, your thoughts, Amanda?

Amanda:

Yeah, no, my thoughts are very similar. So many jobs that will be available are not even invented yet. We don’t even know what they are. We have no idea. Think about 100 years ago, would anybody be sitting here like … well, I don’t know, maybe that’s it. I was going to say making a podcast, but they might have been on the radio. Would anybody have been here working for an online art education service?

Tim:

Right, right.

Amanda:

So many jobs also that are invented will look much different with the advent of AI, but also other technology. We don’t even know what other technology is coming on top of AI. So we’ve talked about this on the podcast before, that AI isn’t going to replace a lot of jobs, but people who understand how to use AI will replace people who don’t. So it is up to us as educators to stay on top of, of course not everything is changing all the time. It’s changing by the hour. I don’t mean that, but broadly, stay up to date with what’s happening. Figure out how to help your kids understand what’s happening. Even if you don’t use it in your room, be able to have a conversation about it with them.

Art, like you said Tim, prepares kids to be creative problem solvers and think outside the box. And those are actually the skills that we’re going to need no matter what careers are available. Those are the skills that are going to be prized. So just like now, not everyone’s going to be an artist, so that’s not going to change with the advent of AI and the acceleration of technology. So I would recommend that kids go into a field that they’re passionate about and interested in doing meaningful work in. And that could be many, many different things.

Tim:

Yeah, well said. Well said.

Amanda:

All right, next question is from @Swift_Hammer on Instagram who says, how do I convince admin that I need a legit planning hour?

Tim:

All right. Amanda, can I let you take this? I feel like you’re going to have some thoughts on that.

Amanda:

I’m ready. I am ready to answer this, right. So I’m going to make an assumption that this question is saying they need a full planning period instead of 10 minutes here or there, sprinkled throughout the day, just more consecutive time. And this is so important, especially for our teachers because we know there are so many tasks that need to get done every day. And like we talked about, you have your shortlist and your long list, but you cannot get your longer tasks done in five minute chunks. It doesn’t work like that, right? So it really comes down to advocacy here. And I’m going to throw back to a very excellent article by Melissa Purtee. It’s quite old, but it is still ringing very true. It’s called How to Advocate for Yourself in Four Steps.

Because really what you’re asking for here is a schedule change. And that is actually sort of like a policy change, and that can be tricky. You can’t just say, I want more planning time and not have that affect other people in your building, because as someone who is on the scheduling committee, like wow, that is a very tricky brain-teaser to figure out. So I’ll give you a general overview, Tim, that we can link to the show notes-

Tim:

Yes, we always link so many things in the show notes during the podcast, with the Mailbag.

Amanda:

So essentially in the article, Melissa would say that there is a policy or a procedure that is making it difficult for you to teach, right? And that is what I’m hearing. You cannot get your work done in the prep time you are allotted. So you have to advocate for change. So the first thing you’re going to do is develop some solutions. So it’s much easier for someone to say yes to a change than figure out what the change should be. For example, one easy thing to look at is maybe you figure out you can get a full planning period, if you drop a morning lunch, or I’m sorry, a morning duty or a lunch duty or a recess duty, right? One of your duties.

That’s a really simple solution because then admin just has to find someone to cover a duty. They don’t have to rearrange the schedule. If that’s not possible, “Okay, then you have to go to the drawing board and you have to at least make a stab at coming up with a solution.” People are much more receptive if they know you have put in some work ahead of your pitch to think through what could be done. You also may need to recruit help, which is sort of the second point of the article, which is finding power in numbers. So are other specialists at your school having similar complaints? Does the music teacher also have less period or less planning periods than they would like?

That’s the gym teacher, right? And so maybe the other art teachers in your district, share your frustrations, right? Find who else has a similar problem and work together and advocate together. Once you have those two pieces in place, you’re going to ask for a meeting and make sure, again, it’s very solutions focused. And I would make sure to tie it back to why it would be good for you but also, the admin is really caring about student outcomes as well, so how is this also better for students? What will you be able to do for your students if you have this planning time that you’re asking for? And then finally, Melissa says to get involved.

So again, going back to that scheduling committee from experience, not the most fun committee to be on. However, it’s important for you to have a seat at the table because I think people don’t realize what our job entails. And so if you can help advocate for yourself, the other specialists in your building, about why you also need a planning period. I mean it seems so silly that you wouldn’t have that, but to really advocate to your leader, but also other staff members who may be on that committee. I know when I did that, it opened up a lot of eyes. They were like, “Oh wow, I didn’t realize you didn’t get a planning period,” right?

Tim:

Right.

Amanda:

Or like, “Oh wow, I didn’t realize you did have three times as many duties as I did.” So that can be really powerful for getting into the ground level of that change so that you can make a difference there. So not an easy task, but I definitely think a doable task.

Tim:

For sure, and I like the steps that you outlined and I obviously, can’t add much to that, but I will just throw out a couple quick ideas, make sure, first of all, that you have a good working relationship with your principal or with your admin. Another good article which we will link in the show notes. It’s called Six Concrete Ways to Improve Your Relationship With Your Principal. That’s an older one from Lindsay Moss. Again, still really good. Then also, we talked in podcast a couple of weeks ago about the state of the art ed survey. I brought it up four different times I think, but there’s good information in there.

The last one said that nearly 60% of teachers get 45 minutes or more of planning each day. So I think just if you can use that as a data point, as a type of comparison, that may be helpful for you. So just a couple of more things that we’ll link to if those might be helpful.

Okay. We have one final question for the Mailbag today. This comes from Christina Kane on Facebook, and Christina says, “How do you teach art to kids with minimal fine motor skills?”

Amanda:

Do you mean all kids at school?

Tim:

Yeah. Maybe. Do you mean all of the kids?

Amanda:

Just kidding. We do know that this has been a big problem and a trend, right? So you’re seeing older and older kids who have fewer and fewer fine motor skills. There are fourth graders coming in who do not understand how to use the scissors. Sorry, that is my Midwestern way to say that. How to use a pair of scissors or high schoolers who don’t know how to use a ruler or any number of things, not tying, forget it. We’ve all been there. So I think the answer is that you meet them where they’re at, and you also do projects to develop those skills. They have to practice. You can’t just wish that it’s going to get better.

You can’t wish that parents are going to address it at home. Of course, if you have an art teacher kid, probably like my kiddo was using a scissors, “Oh my gosh, a pair of scissors at age two,” because that’s what I found to be important and I knew how to do that, but not all parents do. So I think first fine things that will make kids successful. So maybe you’re doing action painting, abstract art, gestural work, right? Things that don’t require a lot of fine motor skills. Make sure that the art room is a fun place for students that they want to be at, where they feel safe to take risks so that when you ask them to do things that are a little bit trickier for them, they are more responsive to that.

So then after they’re feeling comfortable, I would introduce some projects where it is specifically about fine motor skills. So often, they literally have to strengthen their hand muscles. This is a big thing of why kids don’t have fine motor skills. So a lot of tactile things like collage, beading, weaving, zentangles, like small little drawings. Neurographic art is great. It requires a lot of hand control. Pull out the tracers. Tracers are fun. They actually need a lot of coordination and concentration to use tracers or things like ceramics, right? And if you’re at the elementary level and you have early finisher activities, you can think about how to use those opportunities to further develop those skills.

So have kids string beads on pipe cleaners, have them play with legos, pattern blocks, modeling clay is amazing. It takes a lot of hand strength to warm up modeling clay and use it. So think about some activities that you can pull out. Maybe it’s just like in kindergarten, one out of every four classes is just stations like these, right? Just to build these skills with them. So those are some ideas that I have. What about you, Tim?

Tim:

Those are all great ideas. And as a high school teacher, I run into that with Intro to Art where kids just haven’t had art, they don’t have practice, they don’t have those skills. So we do a lot of those things and we just … again, those loose gestural type things, I think are important where kids can find success even if they don’t have the skills. So, if we’re doing contour drawings and “Hey, don’t look at your paper, it’s probably not going to look good.” Nobody is going to look good and that’s okay. That’s part of it. And the neurographic art, these zentangles. All of those things kind of slowly develop skills but also allow kids to find success.

So I think everything that you listed works really well there. And I was just going to say, one of the presentations that I’m really excited about at the NOW conference at the end of the month there, is from Kathy Dang. And she is going to do a presentation on building fine motor skills. She does a fine motor skills lab with her youngest students, which I think is brilliant. So she’s going to talk about that and just kind of break down, here are the skills that I think should be developed. Here’s what you should before you do that, and then activities to do, and let’s say it’s model magic, like let’s roll a ball, let’s turn that into a cube.

Let’s roll a coil, let’s turn that into a donut and just list all of the things that she does with her students, all the activities that she does, and then, how those activities sort of scaffold and build, how they translate into other areas, and just how she uses all of that together. And I think her ideas are brilliant, super excited that she’s going to be sharing that. So everybody, come to the NOW conference, check it out, a presentation. It’s probably worth it on its own. We’ve got a lot of other really cool things there too, but I think that’s one that’s worth checking out and worth seeing. So, all right. Is that it for us, Amanda? Is there anything else you want to add before we go?

Well, I just want to add, we’re going to have some fine motor stuff coming on YouTube later this year. Some informative short form videos. So if you aren’t subscribed to YouTube yet, you should be. Also, there’s so many fun things there right now. We’re doing Art Teacher Cribs, which as a child of the 90s is making me really happy.

Tim:

Those are very spectacular.

Amanda:

Homes and classroom tours would also provide a lot of great inspiration ahead of the school year.

Tim:

Love it.

Amanda:

Check that out too.

Tim:

Appreciate the suggestions. And Amanda, thank you as always for doing another very long Mailbag episode with me. These are always a blast.

Amanda:

You’re welcome. Thanks everybody for listening. See you next time.

Tim:

Okay, thank you to Amanda. I am going to wrap this up as quickly as possible. I know we talked forever. So make sure you check the show notes for anything that you want to explore further. We will put as many links as we can in there. Please write to us with any comments you have, any thoughts you have, any extensions to this discussion, and of course questions you may have for future mailbags.

Hit me up at timothybogatz@theartofeducation.edu or podcasts@theartoeducation.edu, or just hit us up on socials at the art of ed on Instagram. We would love to hear from you, any thoughts, any questions, or anything else any way you want to continue the conversation? But thank you as always for listening. We’ll be back in August with our post-conference mailbag, and I will be back with a regular episode of Art Ed Radio next week!

Art Ed Radio is produced by the Art of Education University with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Thank you, as I said, for listening. We love having you every week and we love you sharing anything that you find helpful with someone you think you could use, who could use it. Now, that may be sharing a fun mailbag episode like this, it may be sharing something a little more thought provoking that we do in other episodes, we do in the magazine, anything like that. We would love for you to get that in the hands of people who need it so we can continue to reach, continue to help as many art teachers as possible. Thank you again. We will talk to you next week.