The March Mailbag: Collaboration, Creativity, and Classroom Energy (Ep. 411)

Welcome to Art Ed Radio, the podcast for art teachers. The show is produced by the Art of Education University, and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz. It is the first Tuesday of the month, so we are back with another mailbag episode. Amanda’s here and I will bring her on in just a second. First, I want to tell you about the next podcast miniseries we have happening here at AOEU. It’s called Ask the Experts, and it’ll be running for the next few weeks here in the Art Ed Radio podcast feed. We’re going to forego our regular episodes and bring this new miniseries to you on Tuesdays in March and April.

Now, this series was inspired by the mailbag, which we were doing monthly, and the First-Year Art Teacher series that I did with Janet Taylor. And during those series we realized that people have a lot of questions, a lot of things that they need answered, and we want to provide this miniseries as a resource, whether you are a new teacher looking for different ways to instruct with different medium, veteran teacher teaching a medium for the first time, or maybe just somebody who’s brushing up on ideas and skills. These podcasts will have something for you.

Now, each week is going to feature a different media with photography, ceramics, printmaking, drawing, painting, sculpture, and we’re really excited to answer listener questions about each medium and really do a deep dive into what it’s like to teach those media with some experts in the field, some teachers who are doing things very, very well. So as I said, that’ll be replacing Art Ed Radio for a few weeks, so you’ll see that coming on Tuesdays over the next couple of months here. But for now, we do want to answer some listener questions right here with Amanda. So let me bring her on and we will answer some mailbag questions. All right, Amanda Hein, welcome. How are you?

I am great, Tim. How are you?

Also great. Excited to open up the mailbag. Excited to answer questions as always, which honestly, these are my favorite podcasts that we do, I think. So don’t tell my other guests.

Okay, I’ll keep it on the down low and hope that everyone listening also doesn’t tell them.

Okay, that’s good. No, I really do enjoy these because I love hearing from our teacher community. I love answering questions and it’s good, but I feel like before we get to that, can you tell us about your adventures earlier this week?

Oh, sure. I did have an adventure, so I went to New York to get a tattoo.

I mean, a lot of questions about that, but why are the tattoos in Wisconsin not good enough for you?

Okay. This is very interesting. Everybody I’ve told that I did this, they’re like, “Why did you go to New York?” And I was like, “Because that’s where the artist was.” Like I’m an art teacher. I deeply care about the craft. This is my first tattoo ever. And it was very large and it needed to be very good. And I had been looking for artists for a long, long time, and I saw this artist work and I was like, “Okay…” Excuse me. “If this artist is anywhere in the continent of United States, I will fly there.” I drew the line at Europe. I’m not going to Europe, but she was incredible. I loved her artwork and I also loved her message. She’s all about self-empowerment, so it was very meaningful. It was a very cool day, and I feel extra cool about it because my husband was supposed to come with, but one of my kiddos got really sick, so we had to stay behind. So I conquered New York-

So you’re going solo to New York.

I was literally flying solo and it was great. I mean, incredibly painful and a very long day.

That was going to be my next question. How bad was it?

Yeah, I mean, it was a seven-hour session, so all of the artists at the shop were like, “Sorry, this is your first tattoo? This is what you chose?” Yeah, and I’m glad because I think had I gotten a smaller one first, I wouldn’t have done this, and that’s what I really wanted to do.

Okay, fair. Can I ask more questions, by the way?

Yes.

Okay. So seven-hour session. Do you take a lunch break in the middle of that? Does the artist need to get up and walk around for a little while in between? How does this work?

Yes, to all of the above. Yes. We took a lunch break after one incredibly painful part. I was like, “I think I’m going to black out. I think I need some candy.” Okay, of course me, I’m a researcher, so I had dug deep into the Reddit threads about tattoos. What do you do? What do you bring? How does it work? So I had a lot of Skittles. I had a king-size bag of Skittles, a lot of Skittles. I ate a nutritious lunch. But yeah, I would say the second half of the day, definitely harder than the first. It’s like all of your adrenaline is gone, and then it’s not coming back.

Just pain is remaining?

Just the pain is remaining. But yeah, it was very cool also, as an art teacher, I’m like, “Ooh, did you design this in procreate? And how did you…” I’m getting this woman’s whole life story. And then it was a very cool tattoo shop in Brooklyn, and everyone there is at the top of their game and everybody’s doing a different style. And so it’s so cool just to witness that level of artistry. There were probably, I don’t know, six to eight other artists working in the same space, and it felt much cooler than my 38 and a half years there.

Very nice. Very nice. Okay, so I’m just thinking though, because I was like, “Oh my God, flying to New York for a tattoo seems crazy to me.” But then as you’re telling this story and as I’m thinking about just like you have to be all in every way with the time commitment and just the permanence of the tattoo, and like you said, it’s gigantic. You got to make sure it’s right. And I think in the grand scheme of things, like the cost of a flight is maybe not that bad.

It’s really not. Now, if I was working on a sleeve and I had to fly to New York seven times, no. This was a once in a lifetime thing that I did. This is not a habit that I’m going to get into.

Okay, one last tattoo question for you before we move on. Sorry for everyone who doesn’t care about this. A lot of people, they get that tattoo and then immediately they get out of the chair like, “Yes, can’t wait for my next one.” Are you feeling like that or is it going to be a while before you do anything else?

Oh no, it’s going to be a while. That was quite intense is the word I would say.

Okay. Right.

Yeah, I’m not saying… Huh?

You’re happy with it?

Oh my God, I love it. I feel like I’ve always had it. I have wanted a rib tattoo, it was on my ribs, for 20 years. And when we got done I was like, “Yeah, this is what I look like.” I don’t know, it just felt… So I told my husband when I found the artist, I was like, “I’m having the feeling.” I have this intuition feeling where at points in my life, I’m just like, “I a hundred percent realize this is crazy or this is not what everyone else would do, but I’m going to do it. I know this is the right choice for me.” And I had that feeling and then the whole time I was just like, “Yeah, this is it.”

That’s great. That’s awesome to hear. I love it. I love it.

It’s great.

Can I just tell you that I don’t have any exciting stories like that?

I was going to say, “What’s going on in your world?”

No, nothing, but I think we can all relate to that.

Maybe you should go to New York, get a tattoo.

Probably not, but I was just going to say, I’ve had this overwhelming feeling of just being old lately, which I’m not even that old. I’m going to be 44 in a couple of weeks. Not that old, I don’t think… But I just remembered when I first started teaching, I thought about those teachers who had kids who were already in high school and who had kids who were driving. I was like, “Oh my god, they’re so old.” And that’s literally my life right now. My son is in eighth grade and I’m watching all of his band concerts and just going to everything that he’s doing. My daughter just started driving and we’re literally planning college visits.

Wild.

Just getting to that point where I remember looking at those people [inaudible 00:09:28]. Now I’m one of those people, just been my overwhelming feeling lately.

Can I tell you something that will add to that feeling?

Yes, please.

Okay. So at AOEU, we communicate, I don’t think I’ve told you this already, via this chat platform Slack. It was like messaging, and we have the opportunity to make custom emojis. So I have an emoji of myself. You have an emoji. Everyone on our team almost has an emoji, and my youngest kiddo was like, “Oh, can you show me the emojis again?” And he’s going through them. He’s like, “That’s you, that’s Lindsay.” He’s like, “That’s Tim.” He’s like, “Tim doesn’t have brown hair.” And I was like, “That emoji was made a long time ago, Sam.”

So related note, I was just at one of my son’s concert, he’s doing indoor marching band called Winter Winds, but-

We’re going to have to talk more about that later. I don’t understand indoor marching band.

You know what? It was my first one. I have a lot to learn. I don’t understand it either. I’m there. I am learning. But one of my former students was directing a different school’s color guard, and so I went and said hi to her. It surprised her and she turned around and literally the first thing she said to me was, “Your hair is so white.”

Thank you. Nice to see you.

I laughed really hard and then I thought back to it and I was like, “I did not teach her that long ago.” My hair turned white very quickly at a very young age.

But I don’t know that it would say it’s white.

The front of it is.

Well, okay.

It’s fine. It does not bother me at all. I have a good laugh at it. But yeah, that is absolutely the fact of life and yeah, you are making me feel much older, so I appreciate that.

You’re welcome.

All right, that being said, we should probably open up the mailbag. Amanda, would you like to do the dramatic introduction and then we can get our mailbag sound?

I would. Thanks everybody for writing in. Let’s open up the mailbag.

All right. First question. I am very excited about this one. Again, we’re just wasting more time before we answer the actual art questions, but this is an email from Andy in New York and he says, “Fellow art teacher and fellow basketball junkie here. So I have a March Madness question.” That first sentence, I was like, “I’m in.”

Yeah, a hundred percent want to be friends.

It says, “Tim, you told us to look out for the Iowa Women’s team last year and they went all the way to the championship game. Great call. What are your predictions for this year’s tournament, either men’s or women’s?” So Amanda, would you like to chime in before I do? Do you have any thoughts?

Not really. I also love basketball. I played varsity basketball. I love basketball, but I think I have to throw it back to you because I only really know about Wisconsin teams. So as a resident Madisonian, as a UW alum, I’m very disappointed. This year the Men’s Badger team was doing quite well, and they really-

They’ve been great for a while.

Had a fall from grace. The women’s team, fine. Although both Marquette teams are holding down the fort for Wisconsin. So that’s a positive. I mean, in case Andy in New York is especially interested in Wisconsin sports.

Okay. So I was thinking about this. All of my friends in New York, they love pro sports. I mean, not that I have a ton of friends in New York, but the few I do are big into pro sports don’t care or know anything about college. Andy, you are very curious. If you want to email me again and let me know why you love college basketball, college sports.

I bet you grew up in the Midwest. That’s my guess.

Definitely possible. Definitely possible. Okay, so just quickly, I picked South Carolina last year and they did not win for the women. I’m going to pick them again because they look so good again, and even if you’re not a women’s basketball fan, I would encourage everybody to tune in and watch Iowa and watch Caitlin Clark. I could talk about her game for days, but she is special.

Yes, she’s very good.

Any chance you have to watch her I think would be definitely worthwhile. In the men side, I really like Connecticut, UConn, so right next to you, Andy in New York, go for them. Houston also looks good, but I’m going to pick UConn. And also if we’re talking about localities, Nebraska basketball, or as we say around these parts, Nebrasketball. I’m not even kidding, it’s a hashtag, but I have been going to Nebraska basketball games for literally 40 years, since I was four years old. Again, sounding old.

When you had brown hair.

Yes, I was blonde when I was a kid.

Oh my gosh, what a life you’ve gotten to experience.

But Nebraska has never won a game in March Madness, which is just an incredible futility, incredible, and I’ve continued to root for them for 40 years, but they are probably going to make the tournament this year and maybe win a game. And that would be literally one of the highlights in my life, as pathetic as that would be. You’re looking forward to something for decades and then it finally happens. It would be awesome. So just crossing my fingers, not getting hopes up, not expecting anything, but man, if it happened, it would be very cool. So anyway, just something to look forward to.

Excellent.

Okay, thank you, Andy, for the question. Amanda, we need to talk about some actual art things too.

Okay.

We had the conference last month, the NOW Conference, and so much great discussion happening there. So many great conversations happening in the chat, just about everything related to that. So most of the questions that we have here are either coming from the chat or related to the now conference. So just letting everybody know where we’re coming from. The first one is from April White and April says, “I’d love some tips on how to present the collaborative art course subject idea to the teaching staff who is interested.” And I think this came from Candace Stewart’s presentation where she’s talking about co-curricular planning with students pursuing student interest and maybe collaborating with some other teachers on art lessons or art lessons that can cross over to different subject areas. So Amanda, any thoughts or any suggestions on that?

Oh, yeah. So I really like this question because I loved collaborating with other teachers when I was in the classroom. I did a lot of cross-curricular planning, but I think there’s a way to do it that can really serve you versus feel like a burden. So we’ve all had that teacher come to our classroom and be like, “Hey, can you help me make papier-mâché globes?” And you’re like, “Well, when do you need them?” They’re like, “Not soon. Next week.” And you’re like, “Well, okay. No, I can’t.” Right? And so I’m not suggesting that we be beholden to the whims of every teacher who rightfully so assumes art can enhance their lesson. And we do want to encourage that line of thought. So if you are looking to get started with cross-curricular planning, I would be open to ideas, but also set some firm boundaries. So for me, what that looked like is at the beginning of the year, I would ask for a curriculum map.

I taught elementary. I would ask for a curriculum map for each grade level, and then I would decide what themes or topics from that list went with what I wanted the kids to learn in the art room, which things matched the standards that I was trying to meet. And then I would propose a plan to each grade level about how and where to fit those projects in. And so it was not every project, obviously, but I tried to do one per quarter for each grade level. And it was really great because it gave me really good ideas for lessons. It let the kids come in with some background knowledge, ready to jump in and take things to the next level.

And it positioned me as a team player, but allowed me to maintain control of my curriculum. And then if a teacher, they would still come to me with ideas outside of that plan occasionally, and sometimes, yes, I was accommodating sometimes I said, “Well, maybe let’s circle back for next year. I don’t have time to fit that in right now.” Or sometimes I said, “That doesn’t really match with what we’re doing.” So great idea, but not going to happen. And I don’t know, I felt that worked pretty well.

Yeah, I think that’s some great advice actually. I love the comment about it being something that’s beneficial and not a burden. I think that’s a good framing. I think that’s a good thing to keep in mind. And yeah, I love the idea of doing it on your own level so that it fits in with what you’re doing already, but you’d still look like a team player. So I think that’s really good advice. I was just thinking about the high school level, and what I would always do is just you have an idea of who’s open to it and who’s not, just depending on what they’re teaching and how they’re teaching it. And if something naturally came up, then yeah, definitely pursue it. But I think most high school teachers are so busy with their own curriculum, it’s tough to fit things in. So that was an interesting one.

I remember one time one of the English teachers was studying romanticism in literature and asked me to come give an art history, talk about what does romanticism look like in art? And then had kids compare and contrast. I was like, “That was really cool.” That was also a ton of work because I don’t know a ton about romanticism off the top of my head that involves some research and some putting it. So it was cool, but it was very time-consuming. And sometimes you have the capacity to do that, sometimes you don’t. But I think one thing you can do at the high school level is just have kids do things on an individual level. You can put that on the student. If we’re doing a self-portrait and they’re super interested in science, what are some things that are visually interesting from the science curriculum that can fit into the background or can be part of their self-portrait?

And just ask them to dive in and research that and maybe talk to their instructors there about different things, different ideas that maybe could be incorporated into a self-portrait or whatever other project you’re doing. I think there’s some ideas that maybe don’t fit for the whole class, but you can do it an individual level and I think can be really effective and really interesting for the kids to research and incorporate. So I wouldn’t say put it on the student a little bit too, and see if there’s some individualized learning that can go on there.

Yeah, that’s cool.

Our next question is from Jillian Davidson and Jillian says, “We are being directed to minimize our reports home to one sentence for the learners. How do we maximize the importance of what we do in one sentence for parents to read in the learning report?” All right, so do you mind if I answer this first?

No, please.

Okay, so I was thinking about this and how do we boil down what we’re doing to one sentence, like that’s difficult because we do a lot in the art room. And I would just say my elevator pitch for art and for what we do in the art department is three things. We help students with critical thinking, with problem-solving, and creativity. And we do those three things, critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity through ceramics, through painting, et cetera, et cetera.

And just we talk about how we teach those three skills. Those are the skills that transfer to everything that kids need in abundance. And art does that as well or better than any other subject area. And so I’m not saying that needs to be your one sentence or your elevator pitch, but I think just the simplification of what you’re doing is really key here. And so if you can boil down what you’re trying to do in the art room to that one sentence, just put some thought into it and then you can bring everything back to those two or three things that you think are most important.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I don’t know the cadence of these reports going home. To me, it sounds like maybe it’s quarterly or something or monthly or something like that. But I would figure out the one thing you want to communicate to students and their families about what you have been doing lately. So taking that idea because I agree those are the things that we want students to do in our classroom. And so it might sound something like this semester students showcase their creative problem solving skills through list three of your main projects or this quarter, students were challenged to think critically about and insert a couple of topics. Something to help tie the artwork that they see coming home to that bigger idea of your class I think would work pretty well.

Yeah, I think that’s all really, really good advice. So I like that. Amanda, would you like to read the next question for us?

Sure. This is from Brianna Cunningham and was inspired by Andrea Slusarski’s talk about creativity. So she talked about these different levels of creativity, and Brianna is asking, “What are some of the little c activities that you do every day?”

Oh yeah, that is a great question. Before I answer, I want to just explain really quickly for people who were not at NOW or did not watch Andrea Slusarski’s presentation research based… Oh, I’m forgetting the names. I know it was Kaufman and maybe the ghetto, I don’t know, but two researchers on creativity, and they had basically four levels of creativity. There’s mini c, little c, Pro C, and Big C. And so mini is just the little things that you learn that maybe just a tiny bit of creativity involved and it’s not going to be anything revolutionary, but just learning something new to you. And then little c is all of the little things that we do every day that have some creativity with them. And we’ll circle back to that in just a second. Then Pro C or just people who make their living doing something creative, painters or graphic design professionals or musicians.

Tattoo artists.

Tattoo artists, perfect callback. And then the final level is Big C. And those are those huge things that the people spend years doing, filmmakers and musicians and artists who are just putting out these things that are a culmination of their life’s work and are going to be remembered forever. And most of us are not ever going to get to that level. A lot of us are not even going to get to the Pro C. But one of Andrea’s points in her presentation was we are all doing little c creativity every single day. And it can take so many different forms, but that’s something that we get a lot of enjoyment out of things that we should spend more time appreciating because we’re going to be happier if we can appreciate those little acts of creativity that we do every day. So I know I said a quick explanation.

Six hours later.

We’re talking tattoos, we’re talking basketball, we’re talking creativity for way too long. So to answer the question though, the little c activities that I do every day. For me, I love cooking new recipes, finding new ways to put food together. I am on the quest for the perfect potato. I’ve been trying for years, and I’ll get that. I’m getting close, I’m getting closer.

I don’t know. You sent us that recipe and now that is our family’s perfect potato where you boil it with the baking soda and then it gets so crispy when you put it in the oven.

Yeah. So I’ve been experimenting more. If you scuff them up a little bit more before they go in the oven, there’s more surface area for a little more crunch.

Oh my gosh.

Again, it’s just little steps, little steps, we’re getting there. But anyway, just recipes are good. I love just finding new routes when I’m out on a run or just exploring new areas with my dog. I love just talking to my family, telling good stories, having a fun discussion with my wife about whatever, just working in my sketchbook. Just those little things that we do every day and I’m just trying to come to a better appreciation for those and just enjoying those little moments of creativity that we are doing every day. So what about you? What are the little c’s that you do every day?

Well, I think before I say mine, I also want to say, I think it’s important to recognize the little c’s. I think sometimes, especially if you have obligations outside of school and you’re not making your own art as much as you think you should or you want to or whatever, you are using your brains in creative ways because you’re an art teacher, that part of you is always there and it’s always in the background whether or not you’re truly making traditional art. So this might sound weird, but I think one of my little c’s is organization. I love coming up with different new systems for storing and organizing things in a beautiful way, whether that’s our pantry or my makeup or my desk or a shelf that I’m like, “Ooh, I can tweak this. I love arranging a bookshelf array.”

Oh my gosh, what kind of books are going to be grouped together with what objects? And so that’s one of my faves. I also love cooking. I would say right now my little c in cooking is continuing to hack, I should say, gluten-free baking. So learning what works, taking everything I know, tweaking recipes until they’re very perfect, I really enjoy. And then also finding ways to bring creative activities to my kids. So often when we clean up, we have a makerspace in our home, and when we clean that up, I’ll often just put out a couple of random supplies and set sort of a creativity trap I like to think of it. Something we haven’t-

Just see what happens? Yeah.

Yeah. Just see what happens. Things that maybe they forgot that we had or have been in a closet or whatever. And it’s really fun to see what they do with those. So those would be some of mine recently.

Yeah, love all those. Okay, next couple of questions just kind of came in through the chat and I didn’t get people’s names, so sorry in advance, but these are topics that drove a lot of discussion during the chat. And so I think we can probably chime in too, but this question was apathy seems to be consistent across the country. We’re seeing it from every place at every level. Why do you think that is? Why are students caring less? Why are students apathetic? And I will just say, if I knew the answer to this, I would be very rich to be touring the country as an educational consultant. But no, we really don’t know. It’s difficult. There’s a lot going on in the world.

I mean, I feel like I know why. If the question is why, don’t you think it’s like the pandemic followed by high levels of social unrest followed by very intense, awful global issues, and there just really hasn’t been any sort of break or reprieve. And then we’re connected 24/7 to the news cycle. So that stuff is in our face all the time. And many of us are very sympathetic individuals. And so we’re trying to figure out what do we do from our little locus of control? And I think one thing that’s different is that now students are connected to that.

Do you know what I mean? I was just talking about this with someone like when I was a kid, I had no idea what was going on in the world. And maybe that isn’t one extreme that is also not good because I felt like when I became an adult, I was like, “Hold on, what?” But on the flip side, it’s like our 13-year olds who are on Instagram really ready to see all of that without somebody helping them put it into context or understand it.

That’s what I was just going to say. Collectively, we do a very poor job of dealing with all of those issues that we just mentioned. How do we process that? How do we deal with that in healthy ways? And we’re not doing a good job of figuring that out.

So I feel like just the world as a collective community is burned out. I feel more apathetic sometimes, and it’s just like… Okay, we know that that’s true, but what do we do with it?

Right. That’s the question. And I think this came up during a presentation from Lindsey Moss and she’s talking about being your best art teacher self, how to take care of yourself. And she loved the idea of having a purpose. And if you’re purpose-driven rather than happiness-driven in the long term, you’re going to be much better off, which I love that idea. But as much as I love it for us as individuals, as professionals, I don’t know if it transfers to students if we’re answering that question and could I have figured out my purpose when I was 16 or 17? I don’t think so. And I don’t think we can expect our students to do that. What if they’re 12 or 11 or 10? They’re not going to be purpose driven. And so I think that limits what we can do. So I would encourage everybody who was at the NOW Conference to go back and watch Lindsey Moss’s presentation again, if you’re feeling apathetic yourself, just see what she has to say about prioritizing and what your purpose can be.

And I think that can be really helpful. As far as the student level, I don’t know, not a mystery I guess, but solving it is tough. And one good point that I saw brought up in the chat is that kids are consuming a lot of media, a lot of content, but they’re not really creating all that much. And I think one thing that we can do in the art room to counteract that is just to get kids creating more, making more, working more, coming up with more ideas and pursuing those ideas rather than just always consuming content. So I don’t know, thoughts on that?

Yeah, I think that’s a good thought. I mean, certainly an 11-year-old child is probably not going to know their purpose in life, but I do think that you could do a project where you ask them to choose something that they care about or that is important to them and teach them how to use their voice or their artwork to communicate their feelings or work through their feelings about it. I’m not advocating for you to become an art therapist, that’s actually unethical. But connecting art right to something of significance in their lives, whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, it could also be a very positive thing, I think could be helpful.

I also think Janet Taylor, friend of the show and one of our community team members, has also been talking about how the enrollment for high school courses that are super hands-on has really been skyrocketing because kids just really want to use their hands after so much time on devices like the jewelry classes, the ceramics classes, the sculpture classes, all of those are overcapacity, which I think is really interesting and really cool. And so if you are at the elementary level, maybe bringing in some of those different kinds of things. I also think going back to the idea of play, no matter the grade level, I think we often forget about it at the secondary level, but get blocks out and let your kids play with blocks or get Play-Doh out and let them just play with Play-Doh or have an entire week where the only purpose is to explore materials in a bunch of different ways.

I think kids feel a lot of pressure these days too from a lot of different classes and a lot of expectations. And not that we should dumb down our curriculum or not have those expectations, but providing them a little bit of respite in the art room against all of those demands on them I think can be really great. And then obviously just building relationships. It’s what it always, always comes back to. I think it’s somewhat difficult these days to do that, but sit down and work with your kids, ask them questions, don’t give up on them. It might just take them more time than in the past, but I think you can get there.

Yeah, all great advice. Love all of that. Okay, two last questions to finish up with. Amanda, would you like to read these last two?

Yeah, sure. This is one of my faves. How do you deal with the question, “Is this good enough?”

Oh man, I just feel my entire body tense up when you say that just because, yeah, so many years of just hearing that. And also when I was teaching elementary, “Do you like it?” Or say, “Oh yeah, I do like that one.” And then the kid next to it is like, “Oh, do you like mine?” And just a domino effect. Everybody in the classroom is then holding on, “Do you like mine?” Anyway, to answer that question with I guess the youngest students, I usually go with, “Oh, what do you like about it? Just turn the question back to that. And I’m like, “Oh, I like the color.” Or, “I like this part of the animal I drew with the detail.” And then we talk about, “Oh, could you add more colors? Could you make these colors more solid? Could you add more detail?” And just look for ways for them to extend what they’re doing.

And then as they get old enough to have specific objectives for their lessons and understand what the goals are for each thing that you’re doing, I just turn that back around on them in that way. Let’s look at the objectives for the project. One of the reasons we love having objectives on the board, just like, “Are you meeting the objectives? Is this what you would consider good enough?” Or like, “Hey, in this project I’m asking you to do X, Y, and Z. X looks good. Y probably not, Z maybe.” How can you improve those? And just talk specifics and give them just a clear idea of this is what we’re looking for. And then ask them, “Do you think you’re getting there? Are there places you can improve?” And just have them do the work and answer the question themselves of is it good enough?

I mean, same. How do I deal with the question? Honestly, I don’t. I’m not containing that question often. But yeah, at the elementary level, I did exactly the same thing. Maybe in a little more less rigorous way or whatever, but I would always just turn it around, just like you said, turn it back to the student. What do you think? Do you feel finished? Is there anything else you could do to make this better? What’s one area you feel confident about? Which one are you not as excited about? And just ask some of those probing questions to get them to do the reflection themselves about do they feel it’s good enough? Because honestly, it doesn’t really matter how we feel about it. To me, I want them to feel good about it. I want them to know that they’ve done their best job, and that’s what’s really important to me.

Yeah, fair.

All right, last question for this mailbag. I teach art on a cart and it can be difficult to create my own classroom energy. Any advice? This is such a good question.

It is. Okay. So as you may or may not know, my first couple years of elementary art teaching, obviously, man, I’m talking twenty years ago, I went to seven different schools and that was wild. But I was there so infrequently that when I did come in with my cart, it was just like I was a rock star. There’s so much energy and that was wonderful. But if you’re only only at a couple schools and you’re moving around on the cart and your teacher’s like, “Oh, art’s here,” you’re not helping me classroom teacher.

That can be a difficult situation. And so I would just say, I don’t know if you want to say fake it till you make it, but just bring your own energy in that. Stay authentic, but act as excited as you possibly can. Like, “Oh, I am thrilled to see you third-graders once again, we’re bringing in oil pastels. We’re going to make some amazing work. Look at these super cool examples. You’re going to get to do the same thing.” And just really just hype up everything. Hype up the fact that you are loving being in that classroom, that you’re excited to work with them again, that you have a very cool project, you have some really fun materials, and just build up that anticipation as much as you can.

And then when you are excited, the kids get a little more excited and then you get into that feedback cycle where their energy can drive you a little bit more, and then everybody’s feeling a little bit better about what you can. So I would say just come in with a little more energy than you naturally have, even if it’s just for a couple minutes and get those kids excited about creating, get them excited about making art, and that can really drive the energy for the classroom for quite a while.

Yeah, a hundred percent. I would also say think of your cart as a magical thing. When you push it through the classroom, that actually becomes your classroom. Nobody owns any classrooms in a school. We like to think we do, and this is our domain, but really it belongs to the school. So yes, that classroom teacher might have specific routines and procedures. They might ask you to follow a certain classroom management strategy, but that doesn’t mean you have to follow everything a hundred percent. It’s just a room you get to decide what you do in there. I think, like you said, besides keeping the energy up when you come in, create a really strong routine for the beginning and end of class so that the kids are really aware like this is the start of art. This is the end of art. And so even though they’re not entering and leaving your classroom, in a way they kind of are.

You’re bringing them into your world and then you’re taking them out of it and you’re leaving. But I would think really, really hard about whether that’s you always start with a book or a mantra or a song or a five-minute sketchbook routine. It can be whatever works for you and works for the kids that you’re working with, but something really, really clear and definitive to let them know that art is starting, art is ending I think would be good. And then I’m also going to recommend there’s a really excellent pro pack if you have access to pro learning called Getting Started Teaching Art on a Cart by Lindsey Moss. And it’s one of my favorite pro packs we’ve ever made because it talks about the benefits of teaching on a cart. So it’s not like, “Oh, how do you get through this?” It’s like, “How do you thrive here and what are some good things that can come from being on a cart?” So I would highly recommend to anybody teaching on a cart to check that one out.

Yeah, it’s such a good approach and it’s so comprehensive. Again, shout out Lindsey Moss for the second time in five minutes. Yeah, she’s awesome. All right. We had so many more wonderful discussions, wonderful questions, but we do need to cut it off there. So Amanda, thank you so much for all of the conversation, all of the advice today. As always, it’s great doing the mailbag with you.

Yeah, great to be here. Please submit your questions for next time.

Thank you to Amanda, and thank you to everyone for indulging us with some basketball talks, some tattoo discussion, and what a little foray into the world of potatoes, which by the way, if you have a recipe for great potatoes, please email me, timothybogatz@theartofeducation.edu, would love to get anybody’s suggestions or perspective on the best way to make some potatoes. More seriously, more importantly, I would also love to hear about your little c creative endeavors that we talked about and just we’re all creative people, and I would love to hear what you’re doing.

If you have some everyday creativity that you think is really fun or that you just want to share, I would love to hear from you. So just shoot me an email, let me know what you’re doing on a daily basis that is creative, kind of fun. But for now, we will go ahead and wrap it up. Thank you so much for joining us, and we’re looking forward to sharing Ask the Experts episodes with you in the coming weeks. Art Ed Radio was produced by the Art of Education University with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Thank you as always for listening.