The November Mailbag: Live from Chicago

Recorded live at the Illinois Art Education Association Conference, Tim Bogatz and Amanda Heyn dive into the November Mailbag to answer the audience’s best questions! They tackle how to avoid the internet rabbit hole when planning lessons, ways to design meaningful projects with very limited class time, and how to help middle schoolers generate their own ideas through scaffolding, choice within boundaries, and celebration of creative risk-taking.

Along the way, they connect these topics back to the power of community—online and in person—and even weigh in on the great Halloween candy debate (Snickers? Baby Ruth? Smarties…really?). It’s an energetic, audience-driven episode filled with important discussions and concrete strategies you can use in your classroom immediately.

Full episode transcript below.

Resources and Links

• • Join the Art of Ed Community
  • Check out AOE’s FLEX Curriculum
  • Designing Your Art Curriculum
  • How to Help Students Make Meaningful Original Art

Transcript

Tim:
Welcome to Art Ed Radio, the podcast for art teachers. The show is produced by the Art of Education, and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz.

All right, welcome to the month of November. November. We are playing this. Welcome to the first of the month mailbag, and welcome to our first-ever live episode of Art Ed Radio.

Thank you. We are at IAEA, the Illinois Art Educators Association Conference. They invited us to come do a live podcast, which we are so excited. For those of you listening who don’t know me, my name is Tim Bogats. I’ll introduce myself in a second, but I need to also tell you that with me is Amanda Heyn. Amanda, how are you?

Amanda:

I’m so excited. We’ve been doing The Mailbag for over a year now.

And it is very exciting to be in front of live audience and answering live questions. It’s just gonna be so much fun.

Tim:

Yeah, we’re in very, very good shape. So like I said, my name is Tim Bogatz. For people listening who don’t know me, I’m a podcast host. I’m the director of the Art Ed Now Conference, a short-time elementary art teacher, a long-time secondary art teacher, and have been working at the Art of Ed full-time for quite a while now.

Amanda, can you introduce yourself?

Amanda:

Sure. I am the director of community engagement. I was an elementary art teacher to start, and I’ve been at AOE for a long time and oversee lots of things, including our new exciting community. And like we said, we’re super excited to be with the live audience. So can I ask you all one more time to give us a good round of applause? What’s excited?

You are all really nailing this. Thank you so much. Thank you. This is so exciting. So as I’ve mentioned, we have our art of Ed community. We are so close to crossing probably by the time this comes out. I’m just going to say it. We have just crossed 8,000 members in the art of Ed community. my.

And it’s so fun to be here in person. So during this next hour, we’ll be discussing some of our favorite topics, including the importance of community, maximizing your conference experiences, and of course, answering questions from the mailbag.

Tim:

Yeah, a lot of good stuff going on. So yeah, let’s start there. Since we are excited about the community, since we are part of an in-person community here in Illinois right now, let’s start with that.

Amanda, me ask you to start things off. Why do you think it’s so important for us as art teachers to develop and to foster that sense of community?

Amanda:

Yeah. Well, I don’t know if anyone here has noticed, but the world is kind of a lot right now. I just, you know, there’s a lot of things going on and being a teacher is always a rewarding and difficult profession, but even more so right now. And so I really think having a supportive community can make all the difference, especially in this sort of like ever-changing landscape of education. Science shows that having a community can reduce your sense of loneliness, it can boost your mental health, it can boost your physical well-being, it can really provide that really critical sense of belonging. And one thing that we always hear in the community is, I’ve found my people.

People are just, come in and it’s people who get you, right? And that’s so important to see your experiences reflected back and to really understand that you are not alone. Other people’s kids are running out of their rooms. Other people’s kids are, you know, having a tough time and they’re having to problem solve on the fly. And that’s not something that is just happening in your isolated classroom. It’s really a universal experience. And then the power of the community is that you can come together and you can really talk about that and problem solve and just have a listening ear. And so I think it’s really critical, especially for art educators.

Tim:

Yeah, I was just going to say, think, like you said, especially for educators, we have kind of a unique position. I would maybe even say an isolated position. Like so many art teachers are alone in their school or very few teachers in the district. And it can be really difficult.

Isolating and you don’t have that community that the grade level teachers have that the science department has. And so it can be difficult to find that. And so I think it’s worth developing. It’s kind of finding that community in order to fight that isolation, to fight that loneliness. Like you mentioned, I think that’s huge. And there are so many benefits to doing that. the.

The feeling that you have when you’re able to help someone else out, whether it be ideas, suggestions, strategies, you know, being able to help other teachers is worthwhile. It feels good. know, like we’re in good shape when we can do that. And a lot of times you need to be on the receiving end of that too. You may need help, may need suggestions, you may need strategies. And if you have a place to go, if you have people that you can go to, then I think that’s really, really worthwhile.

When we all do that, when we all share those best practices, I think we can do a lot to sort of elevate art education as a whole. If we’re all helping each other, if we’re building each other up, I think that we can do a lot of good things with that.

Amanda:

Yeah. It’s a really good point. You know, we see that reflected in the community all the time. You’ll see somebody post one day and be like, I’m really struggling with this and people are rushing to help. And then it’s somebody else the next day. And that same person is then offering their support or their suggestions. And so I think that’s important to recognize that it can feel good to be part of a community on the receiving end of help, but also on the giving end of help.

Tim:

Yeah, absolutely. So, okay, so let’s talk more specifically, I guess. What strategy have you seen or what strategies do you think are really effective when we’re trying to build community, when we’re trying to help each other, when we’re coming together as art teachers, what are the specific strategies that you think are worth pursuing?

Amanda:

So I think there’s kind of a few different categories, right? Of course, online, we have social media, which again can be sort of a dumpster fire. We like to proclaim ourselves as like a dumpster fire free zone. Would you say Jen or like bring your dumpster fire, but the community itself is not a dumpster fire. Yes. and, so obviously you can find community online and often we have to, right? Because we don’t always get a chance to sit in this room together.

But it is exciting when you do get to. And so thank you for being here. It’s, it’s hard to step away from your classroom. It’s hard to give up your free time. If this would be a day off for you or an afternoon off for you. there’s a sentiment I feel like that’s going around right now, which says something to the effect of the price of community is inconvenience. And I think that’s really true. there are times when, you know, I have committed to something with a friend and it’s like, I have to get out of my pajamas and I have to go and you know, I have to deal with my kids being sad and I’m like, but it’s like, no, you really have to make time to do that. You have to inconvenience yourself if you want to then have a community to depend on, if you want to build that community up. So thanks for being here. This is really exciting. And events are just another way to come together in the community. We also do have online events.

But they are live so you can come and chat with other art teachers. So we have art club, is once a month where we learn from an expert, create a little bit of art. We also have a pop-up studio, which is just come hang out, make art, share what you’re doing. And those have been a really wonderful way to meet people and get to know them. And it’s fun to see some community members who we see online in this room right now.

Of course, at school you have your department meetings, your committees. I would encourage people to do classroom visits. This is something I love to do when I was in the classroom. Just get out of your classroom for a day. I know that’s not always possible. I know it takes admin support, but if you can advocate at least once a year to go visit another teacher, that can be a really fun way to build community. And then of course, out of school you have your book clubs, you have your dinner, like go to a museum again. Inconvenience yourself because it will be really worthwhile once you are out and doing something.

Tim:

Yeah, I just want to echo that. think it takes some effort to nurture those relationships, to nurture that community. And sometimes you have to talk yourself into it. You have to say, you know, this may not be what I feel like doing right now, but it’s going to be worth doing. And as much as I don’t want to do stuff as an introvert. like Tim and I, surprise, we are both very introverted. Like it takes a lot for us to come, and like, it’s always so fulfilling. I rarely regret doing this.

I think like I said you just have to talk yourself into it and you have to know that it’ll be worthwhile and I think that’s gonna be exactly the the mindset you need to continue to develop that community.

Amanda:

Okay but like you said we’re super excited to be here in person with with the crowd with a lot of like-minded individuals a lot of art teachers so you know what what are some of the benefits you see when you’re connecting with people in person, not just the online events, which are great, but when you actually have the chance to meet in person, what are you looking for, what do you think comes out of that? Yeah, I think there’s just a different energy of being in person. You can text with someone all you want, or you can send each other Instagram memes. Those are great ways to build community and build friendships. But there’s something really special that happens when you’re actually in the same place.

And I think the in-between times are the best times for me at an online or I’m sorry, at an in-person conference, you know, the dinners or the catching up in the hallway between sessions or the work time in a session. Like all of those times where you get to sort of go off script are the parts that I like the best and the parts where I find like that’s when the inside jokes develop and that’s when you can really connect really deeply. And so those are the times and places I look to connect with people.

Tim:

Absolutely. I would say the same thing when you can sort of let your guard down. You don’t have to be learning all the time, be networking all the time. You can just sit and enjoy each other’s company. And the more chances you get to do that, then I think the better you’re going to feel about that. But I also want to ask you about just strategies, I guess, for attending the conference. Obviously, you’ve done a ton of in-person conferences. We do the online conference multiple times each year. So I guess I’d love to get ideas from you as far as how do you approach that conference? How do you get things out of that? And I guess the question specifically there is like, do you have a strategy or an idea or a way of doing things that you’ve discovered at a conference before that you’ve taken away that you think is worth learning about or really kind of made a good change for you? Yes.

Amanda:

So you’re asking me what?

Tim:

I’m asking you a lot of things all at once.

Amanda:

Okay. think I understand. Like what is something I’ve learned at a conference that I’ve taken with me? Yes. Okay. I think you’re welcome. I met Janet Taylor. If you don’t know Janet, she’s amazing. She also works for AOE.

And the reason she works for AOE is because we were out scouting at NAEA and I went to her presentation and she really changed the way. Janet’s presentation with Matt Milkowski was talking about lesson planning, like this is something that’s really stuck with me.

Just how creative you can be in your lesson planning. think there was something in Janet’s presentation about creating an artwork with grass seed and just non-traditional materials and just really pushing the boundaries of what an art lesson can be. And so that’s something that I’ve continued to sort of like use as a lens when we’re developing content or thinking about like the now conference, like how can we really push those ideas even further? So. Yeah.

Tim:

I think that’s really good. I love just anything you can take away that helps you on a day-to-day basis. Just those little things that you know work because you’re seeing people share them. Like, this works in my classroom. You know the idea is effective. You know the strategy works with students. Being able to take those away.

Is always worthwhile. But yeah, I love when you go to a presentation and just like the light bulb goes off, you know, you’re like, oh, that’s how it’s done. Like for me, this was a long, long time ago back when I don’t know if any of you teach AP, but back with the old portfolio back in the day, I went to a presentation and

I forget who it was even, they just showed some of their works and they’re like, they’re looking for these three things, you know, in the rubric and this one lesson shows. And rather than, you know, an individual artwork for every part of the rubric, you know, one artwork can fulfill so many different things for that. I was like, we can do it that way. And it really kind of changed how I approach things. But anytime you can get one of those, those ideas that really sort of shifts how you think about things.

Then I think you walk away with great ideas, but also a great feeling of, know, this is, this is worth coming to. So, okay. And then I guess the other thing that I’m thinking about or curious about, we, come to these things. They’re so exciting. There’s so much positive energy when, we’re doing that.

How do you bottle that up? How do you take that away? Like how does the energy, how does the motivation keep going when you’re done? Like how do you actually take all of these ideas from a two or three day conference and actually put them into practice?

Amanda:

Right. I don’t know if you’re like me, but every time I leave an event, I have a literal notebook full of things. And then I get back to my classroom and I don’t do any of them. Like very excited about them at the event and I could try this and I could do this, but there’s never enough time to actually implement. And I think that’s actually something missing from a lot of conferences is that time to actually implement your new learning.

So I like to keep an ideas and I just add to it after each session. And I really try to be judicious and think about, is this something I’m just, I can appreciate or is this something I actually want to do in my classroom? And if it’s something I actually want to do in my classroom, it goes on a separate list than my appreciation notes. And that way, when I get back to my classroom,

It’s a very curated list. And I also try to think about what is going to actually make the most impact in my classroom. Yes, sure, I could try 17 new ceramics lessons that I learned about in like a power hour situation. But maybe I don’t need to. Maybe my ceramics lessons are actually great. And what I actually need to do is spend my time implementing the new classroom management lesson. So anyway, that is one idea. And then

I also like to block an actual time on my calendar after the conference. can be even just an hour, but taking that list then and breaking it into, okay, I’m going to try this in quarter three, right? Or I’m going to try this idea next week and putting it on the calendar and in just giving some time to actually implement those and blocking that off for myself, can be really helpful and also help hold me accountable to actually doing those things. Because yes, it’s great to come and hang out, but.

If we’re not taking the new learning back, a piece of that experience is missing, I think.

Tim:

Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it. And I like the accountability idea. I think you need some kind of a plan to take all these ideas when you’re going to take them back to your classroom, how you’re going to implement them. For me, I always like to do a short-term, medium-term, long-term plan. And so I’ll go through my curated list, if you will, of all the ideas.

And like, hey, what’s one thing I can do this week? Like what’s a simple idea I can do this week in my classroom? And then I may be find a second idea or two that I will do before the end of the month. And then I find a couple of big ideas that I want to try before the end of the school year. And, you know, that’s obviously not making effective use of all the ideas I have, but at least gets you started and at least lets you try out some of the different things that you are bringing back. And I think it’s also important to give yourself permission to just kind of experiment with new ideas too, because we’re learning from all of you that have put all these ideas together. They’ve been going on in your classroom for years, probably. And I’m going back and trying them for the first time.

Amanda:

It’s not going to be quite as smooth. And so you have to allow yourself some grace to learn, to experiment, and to get it right. It’s not all going to just magically to work for you. Yeah. Sometimes I think it could be really intimidating to come to a conference and you go to these sessions and these teachers are doing these incredible things, but you have to remember sometimes they’ve been doing that for 10 years. And so what is one idea or one little nugget that you can take back and maybe plant the seed in your classroom. don’t need to do everything all at once.

Tim:

Absolutely. Okay. Are we ready to shift into our very exciting mailbag?

Amanda:

Yes.

Tim:

All right. Can you officially give us the mailbag intro?

Amanda:

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

Tim:

All right, our first question comes from Annette, and we’re starting off with a hard-hitting one, everyone. What is your favorite chocolate or candy?

Amanda:

Okay, this is the journalism that we all need. How much time do you have? Do we have this room until midnight? What isn’t my favorite type of candy, think, is the better question. This is a great question for this time of year. I guess if you’re asking what I’m going to be stealing out of my children’s Halloween bucket is a Snickers, of course, but also a hundred grand. And I’m kind of old. I really love a baby Ruth.

And there has been a distinct lack of Baby Ruths in the Halloween candy over the last three years. It’s been on a steady decline. We got one last year. So PSA, if anyone’s listening, please buy Baby Ruths. I’m getting thumbs down from the audience over here.

Tim:

As you were talking, you were looking, and half the people you said Baby Ruth and half the people were shaking their heads. Yes. But the people who were not doing that, the look of disgust on their faces . . .

Amanda:

I like a nougat. What can I say? All right. Skittles. Is the Skittles a favorite? Taste the rainbow. feels very on brand for an art teacher. Maybe I can redeem myself. also like Skittles. That’s fair.

Tim:

OK. So you mentioned being old. And it makes me realize that the older I get, I’m mid 40s now. The older I get, the darker I want my chocolate to be.

Amanda:

Heck yeah, give me 80%. Right?

Tim:

And so, like five years ago, it was definitely not like that, but now I want the darkest chocolate I can get. If you can add some sea salt to it, that’s going to make me happy. okay. Okay, you’re doing better on this question than I am. Crowd like my candy selections better. I don’t know. But I’ll eat just about everything. I love gummy candies. Like. Yeah.

Gummy bears, Swedish fish, I will take those. My wife and I argue about this all the time. She thinks peanut butter &Ms are the perfect candy. I think peanut &Ms are the perfect candy. So can’t go wrong with those. Mixed reviews on that.

Amanda:

I mean, everybody has strong opinions on it. This is why this is such a good question. That’s right. Well, we can continue this in the community.

Tim:

Yep. I was gonna say, this is gonna be a much longer discussion. And I would just say miss me with Smarties. I Smarties. Smarties are gross. Any like blow pops, lollipops? Yeah. And also, malted milk balls are the worst candy in existence.

Amanda:

I can’t eat those anyway. One vote for whoppers from Lindsey Moss, let the record show.

Tim:

All right, well, as soon as we’re done recording, we know what the rest of the conversation is going to be tonight.

Question number two. This is from Julie. We’re getting into serious art teaching now. All right, when I’m exploring new art units or themes, how do you avoid falling down the internet rabbit hole? I suffer from analysis paralysis.

Amanda:

That’s great. That’s so easy to do. You start looking things like that’s really cool. That’s also really cool. That’s also really cool. And all of a sudden like two hours are gone. So how do you avoid that? I mean, well, I don’t, but if I’m trying, yeah, here’s the thing. Pinterest is infinite. Like it never, there’s not an end. And so I really feel this question deeply.

In fact, I was trying to do something very simple. The other day I got it in my head. I’ve been married for 17 years this November and we’ve had the same silverware organizer for the entire time. And it was disgusting because we bought it when we were children and not that I was a child, right? This is sounding bad. was 23, but still very young. Okay. So I was like, I’m going to get a new silverware organizer. Do you know how many kinds of silverware you can get? I spent one hour on the internet.? Stainless steel, and you can get bamboo, and you can get expandable ones. You can get silicone ones, you can get plastic. And I just was, I just turned the computer off in frustration and I just, there are so many kinds of everything. And then when you’re trying to think about like lesson planning and what is going to come into your classroom and the different ideas and now everybody’s sharing online, which is great.

Don’t get me wrong, but everybody is sharing online and so everything is online. So, okay, I’m done ranting. So what do you do? here’s what I would do. I, I sometimes like to arm myself with a very intentional search. So write down what exactly am I looking for? And then just stop when you found it. Maybe there are 6,000 more color wheel lessons that you could teach, but have you found one that you like?

Maybe just stop because you already found it. And I kind of going back to what I said before, you can appreciate things on the internet without having to do them. And so you don’t have to write down 500 ideas. Maybe you just need five. So be very discerning when you are looking at the internet and think about what you actually need and then just shut the computer when you found it is my best advice.

Tim:

No, I think that’s great advice. And actually, I think my takeaway from tonight is that you can appreciate things without having to do those things. And I think that’s a good lesson. But yeah, my advice is very similar. Just set a time frame. I have half an hour to look for things, or I’m going to use the rest of my plan period, and then I’m done.

Amanda:

Use that visual timer. How many of you have the time timer with the red? That can work for you too. That’s good. I also would be remiss not to mention AOE’s FLEX curriculum.

Tim:

Yes. I mean, that is, we do need to say that’s highly curated and lots of good things. Great place to search all the resources you need makes life easy. So that’s good. but yeah, just being intentional and putting some thought or planning, like I’m specifically looking for these things. And, you know, I was actually, I don’t know how much time people want to put into these things, but when I was taking a grad course from AOEU, I was working on designing your art curriculum.

And it was super helpful to lay out all of my lessons, all of my curriculum, and then you can see exactly what you’re looking for. Like, I need this lesson to follow up contour drawing. And then you specifically know this is what I’m looking for. Later in the semester, I want to do these two things, and you know exactly what you’re looking for.

Amanda:

Also, it’s okay not to reinvent the wheel every, if you have a color wheel lesson that’s working, you actually don’t need to search for 20 more because you already have one.

Tim:

That’s true. That’s true.

Although I will say like as a teacher, I always I’m looking for new things. Like I always want to make it more exciting, not necessarily for my kids, just for myself. Um, cause you know, you get bored teaching that same color wheel lesson over and over. But again, like it doesn’t have to be a huge time suck for you. If you decide you, want to change that.

Question number three, this comes from Kelly. Kelly says, how do you create meaningful lessons when you have less than 40 minutes every other day to see your middle school students?

Amanda:

And I think that relates to elementary kids that you’re seeing once a week, or kids that you see for just a quarter. How do you make it meaningful? Totally. We have a couple of thoughts. First is just being in your room is meaningful. They are having a meaningful experience just by coming to experience art from you, no matter what content you’re teaching, how you make your kids feel in your classroom, I think is what makes it meaningful for them to be there.

I think accepting your limitations as part of this, you can only work with what you have, and that’s okay. It’s okay if you only see them once a week or I mean once a quarter, I would actually say is not okay. is, that’s bad. But that’s what you had, right? And so you’re going to make sure those kids have a really great time when they’re in your classroom.

I think also thinking about your definition of meaningful is helpful here. So not every project has to hit a ton of ideas. So I think I would think about, I will feel good about this lesson if my students blank, right? If they have fun, if they experiment with a new material, it could be something such as if they learn how to draw in perspective, right? But it also doesn’t have to be the outcome of every lesson to get the, you know, technical skill down, they can be learning other skills or soft skills or however you want to put that in your classroom. And that can also be a meaningful experience.

I think if you’re looking at how to approach it and making sure that you’re getting the most out of your time with them, I would break the lesson into specific sections. This might make your lesson take a little bit longer, but it might get at more of that feeling that you’re trying to capture of like making it worthwhile or making it meaningful.

Maybe you have a day that’s an intro and sketching, and then you have three work days, and then you have a catch-up day and a closing activity, kind of stretching it a little bit. Yeah, that makes it feel more substantive. yeah. You can also, I we’re talking about limitations here, whether that’s 40 minutes or whatever time frame you have. Also think about changing the scale. I think that a lot of teachers think you have to do these big grand projects, and really, they might get something very meaningful out of a short one-day lesson that’s on a six-by-nine sheet of paper and learn the same skill that they would be doing a finished artwork. So, that’s another thing I would kind of play with.

Tim:

Yeah. I think those are all great ideas. I wanted to shout out Jen Leban once again, cause as soon as I read this question, I thought back a couple months ago, we did a hot takes episode. So fun. And.

Jen’s hot take was that in middle school, I’m paraphrasing, in middle school, the skills don’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you teach, it just matters that you are teaching. Like you said, it’s meaningful for those kids to come into the art room. It’s meaningful for them to spend time learning about art, enjoying themselves, enjoying you as a teacher and just enjoying that classroom. And enjoying school. Like they’re coming to school and they’re having a great time.

That is meaningful. Yeah, absolutely. And if they leave, you know, your classroom with, you know, a great grasp of value and shading and how to work with different line weights. OK, cool. OK, but if they leave your class going, I love art. I feel like that’s a much more important lesson.

Amanda:

Totally.

Tim:

OK, question number four, also from Kelly, but a different Kelly, different Kelly Kelly number two.

Kelly says, I need advice on how to get my middle school students to come up with their own ideas. They want me to tell them what they should do or they ask their peers for ideas on what they should do when I give them a choice. I want them to choose things that are meaningful to them. Brainstorming is very difficult for them. Why?

Amanda:

Great question. Tim, do you want to take that one first?

Tim:

Yeah. Why? Why can’t middle schoolers come up with ideas? It’s like kids in general. I don’t even know if it’s I saw a lot of heads nodding along to that question. Well, and I don’t want this to devolve into “kids these days.” But I think for middle schoolers, it’s a lot about confidence. I just live in general when you’re 13 years old, like, it’s tough to be confident about things. It’s intimidating.

It’s risky, it’s difficult to take chances when there’s no clear answer if your teachers are opening up everything to you. It’s really really tough to kind of put yourself out there like I said, especially when you’re in middle school, when you’re in that age because high schoolers are the same way and you know if you rewind three or four years, it’s it’s even more difficult, but that idea of brainstorming of skill development like just like anything else. That’s something that takes repetition. It takes practice. It takes guidance from us as teachers. We need to show them how to develop those ideas, how to make those choices, how to bring their ideas in, and how to translate them into artwork. And it’s really tough. That was a mistake I made as a new teacher. Like, hey, your choice. Do what you want. And then I’m like, why are these so terrible?

You know, and like you need to give them some guidance. need to scaffold it for them and show them how it’s done. you know, I don’t think in middle school you can just say, hey, you know, go do your thing. You need to give them some limited choices. You need to structure it for them so they feel safe in taking those risks. And when they do take those risks, celebrate that. Like, celebrate that experimentation.

Celebrate the fact that they’re trying something new, and just let them know that the art room is where you can do that. The art room is the place to try new things, to explore ideas, to put yourself out there, and just let them know that this is the place to do it.

Amanda:

Yeah, I think it’s so important because the peer relationships are so intense at that age.

And they are really afraid of getting something wrong, or looking silly, or looking stupid. And they don’t want to take a risk even at the brain, especially at the brainstorming stage, because if you really think about it to us, brainstorming is low pressure. It’s like, just well, all ideas are fine. These are great. But to middle schoolers, that is creativity, brainstorming is creativity, and that is a higher-order thinking skill. And so I think you really need to scaffold that.

Just like you do with any skill in the classroom. So maybe that looks like generating a list as a whole class and then letting them choose something off of that list or doing partner brainstorming. they’re coming up and they can be silly and they can kind of push the boundaries with their partner, but they don’t have a fear that it’s only their idea. Then it takes the pressure off of it being just them, and I think it’s okay to limit the amount of choices and decisions again, as you’re scaffolding those skills.

So that you can get them to a place where they do feel safe. But I think you have to build in those little increments of sort of letting go and letting them let go in a safe way.

Tim:

Yeah, that’s really well said. All right. That was our final mailbag question. I just want to say thank you all for coming.

We covered a lot today. The candy is number one. Yes. But also just talking about motivation and creating meaningful lessons. And I think, you know, just the idea of us all being here, the idea of building community, I think, is the big takeaway and just all the benefits that come from that. So I would encourage anybody who’s listening to this whenever they’re listening to you, just kind of take a moment to think about what you’re doing right now to build community, what you could be doing in the future, and the actions you can take to help build the community that you want to be a part of. Anyway, thank you all for coming. Thank you for giving us such great questions. Thank you for being a great audience. Can you give us one more round of applause before we go?

All right. Thank you, Amanda.

Amanda:

Thank you. We’ll see you all next month on the Mailbag.

Tim:

Art Ed Radio is produced by the Art of Education, with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. 

We obviously enjoyed our time at the IAEA Conference, and as we talked about, it was amazing to see our community come together in real life. If you want to join the community, we would love to have you! community.theartofeducation.edu, it is also linked in the show notes–come find your people, come join the conversation, come be part of the community that you want to see.

Thank you, as always, for listening. We will be back with you again next week!