The October Mailbag: Student Teachers, Critiques, and Teaching Without Supplies (Ep. 437)

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.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the October mailbag. We are very excited to have you. Unfortunately, Amanda is not able to record with me this month, but we have Janet Taylor with us, familiar voice on the podcast, frequent guest. Janet, how are you?

Hey, Tim. I am doing pretty good. How are you?

Good. I am great. Well, I’m always excited to record mailbag episodes. These are my favorite. I do want to say we got a bunch of new listeners now that the school year started. With the September episode and a few people wrote in and we’re just like, “Hey, the podcast is great. Who are you?” And so I thought that we should probably begin by introducing ourselves. So just really quickly, for those of you who are new to this podcast, my name is Tim Bogatz. I am a longtime art teacher. I did some elementary art, I did a lot of secondary art, and then I’ve worked for the Art of Education University for the past eight years, full-time, doing all sorts of cool things, including the NOW conference and this podcast every single week. So Janet, can you give us a quick introduction and tell us who you are please?

Sure. So I’m Janet Taylor, and I am a high school teacher in the western suburbs of Chicago. I have taught pretty much any different course that there is, different media or whatever, but mostly teach jewelry metals, and ceramics right now and AP. And I came by AOEU like, what was that, 2019? So it’s been like five years. That’s crazy to think-

It is that’s awesome.

Five years. Part time. So I’m the K-12 content specialist with the community engagement team as well.

Yeah, very cool. And you’ve been all over the podcast. We’ve done so many things together. So I know your voice is familiar to a lot of people, but before you host a mailbag episode, I need to ask you, are you good at gardening?

I’ve always been waiting to be asked that actually. No, I’m, what is gardening after? Okay. I am a terrible, terrible gardener, actually. I feel like every year I really want to be a good gardener. We plant vegetables and I’m really good at killing everything. In fact-

That’s okay.

… In fact, yeah, my neighbor around the corner was doing a fundraiser and I bought mums. I thought, okay, it’s October, or it’s almost October, so we should probably get some little yellow buds going, a little bit longer to feel. And my husband picked him up and said, “Are you sure you want to give up these?” And she’s like, “Well, why? All you have to do is water them once a day.” And he’s like, “You know you are sending them to their death by sending them over to us.” I was like, “How dare you say that?” But it’s so true. Sad.

Oh, that’s funny. No, I just feel like Amanda and I talk about our gardens to the point of annoying some of our listeners, but as Amanda said, you’re in charge of your own destiny. You can hit the fast-forward button, but I will spare everyone any gardening talk, but things are going well for me, I will say. Our big thing that we need to talk about though, before we actually open up the mailbag is Amanda kind of teased this in the last mailbag episode at the beginning of September, and then last week I had generally been on the podcast to introduce the Art of Ed community. And I would just say we are very, very excited about it. We’ve been working on it forever. How long, Janet? How long has this been?

Like a year and a half. It feels like it’s been like five years,

But we’re so excited that it has actually launched, as Amanda’s been calling it, your new favorite place on the internet, a community for art teachers to get together and do all sorts of amazing interactions. So we’ve sent out a lot of communication about it, but in case you haven’t heard, I’m going to do a quick synopsis and then Janet, I would love to get your opinion as well.

So the Art of Ed community, it’s a best way to say, it, is a dedicated online space for our teachers to come together and hang out with other art teachers. And you can ask questions, answer questions, give and receive support. We have daily polls, daily questions, we have monthly events so people can get together live online to learn new things and to make some art. I think I talked about this a little bit with Jen last week, but it’s like all the best parts of social media all in one spot without a lot of the headaches and a lot of the annoyances that come with social media. And I think that’s been a really sort of refreshing experience. So Janet, what has it been like for you since the community has launched?

It’s refreshing, I have to say, right? I just noticed the other day I was scrolling through some social media. It’s just so much spam now, and I’m always just trying to get to the good stuff. I’m like, no, no, no. I want to get my questions answered. I want to talk to my community, my people, and it’s hard to sift through it. So I’m really excited because our community is truly that. You just go in, everybody’s so welcoming and warm and just really wonderful positive space, which gosh, we all really need a lot of that right now. You know?

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, so I’ve really been enjoying that as well. I also wanted to ask you though, before we open up the mailbag, how is the school year going for you? I mean, we’re what, six weeks in for a lot of us? I don’t know, are you a month in now, but how are things for you?

Yeah, so I am a little over a month in, which is crazy because I mean, I keep asking myself, it’s like got to be winter break by now, right? I literally walked into the building the other day and there was the teacher that I didn’t even know. I was like, “Oh, I really like your outfit today.” And she’s like, “Yeah, man, I’m so tired.” And I was like, “Really?” She goes, Yeah, we been teaching for seven months already? I was like, “It’s not just me. Okay, okay.” Yeah. So it’s going pretty well. Okay, so a little bit fun note. My daughter is a freshman, not at my school, but her other school, whatever. But she’s a freshman this year, and so I feel like very particularly attentive to those little babies.

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense.

I feel like I’m experiencing her freshman year, even though I’m not even around just watching these freshmen walk around.

Watching what they do. Yes.

So it is interesting being a parent and having that kind of experience again. But so my classes are going really well. I’m pretty excited about them. Actually, my day goes, I feel really good. I feel happy and excited to be there, which is a great feeling. Last year, one of our ceramics teacher, amazing ceramics teacher, she retired. And so this year some of her students came over to me and were like, “Can you please continue Clay Club?” And I was like-

Clay Club. That sounds amazing. I mean, I love the alliteration as everybody knows.

I know.

It just sounds like so much fun to come to Clay Club.

I know. I was like, I’m not doing a club, I’m not going to do a club. I don’t have time to do a club. And then they were like, “Please Mrs. Taylor.” And I’m like, “Okay, okay, okay, all right, fine, fine.” But I was like, “You two have to be the leaders.” And it’s just been like, oh my gosh, we had two Clay Club meetings and it’s just like packed. Everybody wants to play with it, but okay, I have to tell you about this really cool activity that they did.

So the first day they wanted, so again, I said to these two leaders, I said, “You guys have to plan things, I’ll help you, whatever.” And they totally brought it. So they brought this activity called the Fortune cookie activity, and I think she literally just made it up. She saw these porcelain fortune cookies on Pinterest something, right?

And she’s like, “Oh my gosh, this would be such a good idea if we can teach them about the stages of clay and how clay will dry out and it’ll be brittle, be bone dry.” And I was like, “Okay.” So she said, “The first day we’re going to all do little fortune cookies and write little fortunes and put them in the cookies and then we’ll put them out to dry. And then the next week when we come back, we’ll open up the fortune cookies, pass them around.” And oh my gosh, it was the best activity ever. I’m like, these two leaders are going to be art teachers. They’re going to be art teachers. Yeah. So it was really, really great.

Important question. Have you posted about this activity?

Okay. Yes I did. I made a little reel about it. And here’s the funny part. Okay, usually my stuff gets two views. No, I’m just kidding. It’s like a couple hundred or whatever. I have a small following, whatever. It’s very tiny. I’m not one of those amazing elementary teachers who are viral every time they post something, right?

Yeah.

And so all of a sudden on Instagram, I got this notification that was like, your post has gotten a lot of views, and I look and it’s like at 2,000 views within 24 hours. And I was like, am I viral? Did I go viral? I literally had to go on Google and look up what does it take to be to go viral? What does that actually mean? I’ll just like to admit for those of people that are my age, I did not go viral with it.

I feel like if you have to Google search, am I going viral? You’re probably not.

Probably not. Yeah.

I like it. But still, we can link to your Instagram in case anybody wants to find what you’ve posted about.

I love it. Thank you. But I just have to say that’s twice now in the podcast. We haven’t even talked about the good stuff yet. Twice now, I feel like I’ve been outed for my gardening skills and now my ability to know what going viral really means.

Well, I was just going to say, you’re doing a great job subbing in for Amanda because we are 11 minutes in and still have not gotten to the first question. So I feel like we’re doing great.

Okay, good.

That being said, we do need to get to some questions. So the official sound is going to play after I say let’s open up the mailbag. Okay. First question, this comes from Trevor in Nebraska and the subject line, which is perfect, which is why I asked you, it says, “A teaching question for your gardening podcast.” Which just made me laugh really hard when that came into the email. So I told Amanda, I feel like we’ve been successful with our gardening talk.

There you go.

Trevor’s question is what should I do with a student teacher or practicum student? I feel like teachers are never taught what to do with a student teacher. They’re given a few rubrics and tasks the student teacher is to complete before the end of the semester, and that’s about it. What is the key things a mentor teacher should do to best prepare their student teacher?

Wow, that’s such a good question and even a better subject line. Okay, so this one is so good, Tim. I have to say it’s been on my mind for quite a while, and I don’t think I told you this, but I was thinking that we should do an entire episode just on this instead of what do new teachers need to know? It’ll be like, what do new teacher mentors need to know?

That’s good. Yes. Tack it on to our miniseries.

Let’s add it to the list. All right.

I’m not thrilled about that much work, but I’ll admit when I read this question and I even replied to Trevor, I was like, “This could be its own episode.” So yeah, there’s lots to chat about. So can I share just a couple ideas.

Please.

So I think the biggest things to think about at first, and I have some other ideas I want to share too, because Francisco Matas a couple years ago at the NOW conference, put together a great presentation about how to set your student teachers up for success. So I’ll reference back to him in a bit, but my first idea that I want to chat about biggest thing is just to prep your classroom and prep your students, make sure everything is organized, make sure you explain your routines and procedures and just kind of share what’s happening in the classroom and make sure you can share why you do those things in your classroom with your student teacher. Not only the what, but the why. And I think preparing your students as well and just, “Hey, we’re going to have somebody coming in. This is what it’s going to look like.” And just make sure that they’re prepped. So it’s not a huge surprise when when the student teacher is starting to help or starting to co-teach or starting to actually teach or take things over.

And I think it’s important to lay out the process where you begin with your student teacher or practicum student observing and just seeing and learning the what and the why. And then we’ve talked before about the gradual release of responsibility where they’re slowly taking on more things. We talk about it in terms of curriculum or instruction a lot of time, but it works for student teachers as well as they slowly take on more responsibility and slowly take on more of the teaching. But I think it’s super important. I’d say one thing that you can do to best prepare them for teaching is figuring out not only what the student teacher wants to teach, but what they want to get out of the experience. And so if you have some time to talk to them about what their goals are, what they want to learn, what they want to do coming in, make sure that you get on the same page with them, then I think that’s going to set them up for success and give them some of the tools they need to have a positive experience. So Janet your thoughts?

Yeah, totally. So I think what do they want to teach is just a really good question. I worked with student art teachers as a supervisor for a year at a university.

Oh my gosh, I forgot about that.

Yes, I did too. I was like, oh yeah, that was back into the classroom I go. So what was cool about that experience, especially for me was going around to seeing all the students in different schools like elementary, and middle school, and high school and getting to see what their mentor teachers did and didn’t do with their student teachers. That was really interesting to see how that went. But I have to say, a lot of what you do with your student teacher really depends on that student teacher. You know?

Yeah. That’s a great point.

For me, this is my second career. So I think I had already spent my good 10 years in another career, and so I think I came with a different skill set, for example. So walking the classroom is very different for me. I might need to focus on different things than right out of college, out of undergrad, 22-year-old. So that really depends, or maybe if they have an really strong art background or whatever. But I would say, in that first part, when you were talking about the graduate release and the observation, sometimes I think mentor teachers don’t really know what you do with the observation, you know?

Yeah.

Sitting there and what they, and I think student teachers don’t know what am I looking for, what am I supposed to be paying attention to?

As Trevor said, there’s just a checklist and checklist observe.

Done. So I think when it comes to that, a great opportunity for you to do is maybe provide some questions to them as you’re even a little piece of paper or something that they can take notes on while you’re teaching a lesson. Why do you think I did that? Do you think it went well? What did you notice about the student’s response? And then those usually create really great organic conversations around like, oh, I saw so-and-so was having an issue or struggling with this. Oh yeah, how do we help that kid? Or that kind of stuff. And those are the things that really help new teachers. Right?

Yeah.

And then once they get into that kind of place of actually teaching, I think it’s really hard as a teacher to let go of your classroom and let go of your curriculum and trust that, that student teacher is going to do right and by you. And sometimes you have to just let go and be like, “Yeah, they might not have a great lesson, but I think it’s really important for them to try.” Right?

Right.

I know even in my course team, if I have the same lesson as somebody else, I often have to change the materials because teaching it is so different for me and it feels really inauthentic and it’s hard for me to teach something that’s not mine. So I think it’s really important for them to be able to try that out and then taking time to really reflect on that. I think student teaching is a lot, it’s a lot of brain work really. It’s just a lot of reflection, a lot of thinking about what worked, what didn’t work, why? That kind of thing.

The other thing that I wanted to mention too before I forget, is as they’re working through a lesson preemptively, a really great thing to do with your student teacher is to bring up things ahead of time. Hey, what do you think about the materials? How are you going to distribute materials, for example? Asking them those questions ahead of time, but coming from a place of curiosity so that they’re figuring it out as opposed to, I think a lot of times as a veteran teacher, we want to just give them the information you want to impart… I mean, I’m guilty of that. I just want to give you all the things I can.

Right. Right.

Right. And so oftentimes it’s like, oh, you should do this or you should do that. And instead you should really… Now, now I’m saying that, instead, you should. You know? Really ask or offer questions that they can figure it out what’s going to work best for them.

Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, I think that’s important to let them figure it out for themselves. Let them learn on their own rather than you just imparting that knowledge. I think that’s good. I want to ask you too, what do you think, let’s say they are going to present a lesson, you’re letting them try a lesson and you are pretty sure it’s going to fail spectacularly. What is your reaction to that? How do you deal with that?

It’s making me feel anxious just thinking about that, right? It’s so hard to just watch that happen, but I mean, I think it’s kind of that fine line of teetering on letting them figure it out because that’s how you learn best. But obviously, if they’re going to do something that’s off the wall and kids are going to be throwing pain at each other or cutting their fingers with an X-ACTO knife because they don’t know how to do… You know what I’m saying?

Yeah. Yeah.

Right. That’s not really a fine line. I think that’s a pretty clear line.

Right. Right.

On the failure scale. But I think sometimes it’s like, okay, you can see that maybe something’s not going to work out. You ask the questions, they haven’t maybe figured that out ahead of time. So let’s go back to the materials distribution question. So the kids don’t know how to get materials. It took forever, things happen, right?

And then they didn’t even get through the lesson and kids are talking or whatever, because now they’re disengaged or unengaged or whatever. So after that period, that’s a great time to say, “Okay, so what do you think went well? What do you think didn’t?” And then “Let’s problem solve together. Maybe next time try this.” And then hopefully they’ll have another opportunity pretty quickly to reteach that lesson and try it. And then you can reflect on that. “Okay, so did that work better for you? Did this feel okay?” I mean, I don’t know. I just think we all know that learning we do best by failing and figuring it out as opposed to being told everything, right?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I was just going to say there, like you said, there’s a line between letting them fail in a way that helps them learn or just letting them fail, period. And so you need to kind of be aware of that. But I think there is a lot of opportunity for reflection there. Nothing’s going to go perfectly, and I would say as often as you can take advantage of those opportunities.

And then just one last thought to close out this question. I mentioned Francisco Matas. He had that NOW presentation and the four steps he said to set your student teacher up for success was the number one, establish the relationship. Like I said, figure out what they want to get out of the experience.

Number two, get ready to let go. As you and I both said, it’s tough to give up control or to give up parts of your curriculum, but it’s something that you need to do.

Number three says, let them do the heavy lifting, but you still need to support them. Let them do their thing, let them know what teaching is all about, but you’re still there to help. You’re still there to support.

And then number four, creating closure. Just all of those reflection things that we just talked about and what you can learn from them.

So if anybody wants to dive a little bit deeper into that, I will put in the show notes a link to his presentation from a few years back. And it’s a really good one. So if this is of interest to you, then you can definitely check it out.

All right, Janet, our next question is from Jeff in Iowa and just says, “What suggestions do you have for lessons for students who don’t want to be in art class? I have one class with only about 20 kids, but it’s all students who are signed up for the class, not by choice. I haven’t found anything yet that gets them excited about art. What do you say?”

So Janet thoughts on what you can do for students who maybe didn’t choose art class but are in art class anyway, how do you get them engaged?

Yeah, so I guess I kind would be questioning what’s their MO, right? Why aren’t they excited about art? So are they feeling uncomfortable about making art? Maybe they didn’t have a really good experience in the past, or maybe they equate art only with drawing, technical drawing, like we’ve talked prior.

Yeah, so many kids are in that boat. Drawing realistically or nothing at all.

I’m not a good drawer, so forget it. I’m not good at art. It’s like what? Or maybe they’re like, oh, I’m too cool. I don’t want to look like I am good at this. You know what I mean? I don’t know.

Can’t be seen trying hard. That would be-

God forbid, right? So I think I kind of look at that perspective and think, okay, what’s that? So my tips would be to get to know them personally, try to understand what it is that they’re interested in, what’s cool at that age group. So I don’t know if that’s middle school or high school. It kind of sounds more like high school or whatever, but obviously, as we just noted that I’m not cool, or hip with what’s happening in high school, but that’s fine. People love me anyway. No, I’m just kidding. Okay. So I’d say that’s a big part of it. And then from there, kind of branching out from there. So small bite-sized, low-risk art activities, like fun challenges, introducing them to things that are not specifically long-term technical drawing projects that’s going to kill it fast, I think. And then creating a really fun community culture. So I think some things like that could be partner challenges or experiences using fun materials that don’t carry that judgment weight. Instead of doing drawing, doing collage where you’re tearing the paper only. Or you’re taping a marker to your elbow and drawing with a partner or that kind of thing. Or trying some monoprinting that is messy and really low expectation because it’s not something necessarily representational.

And it was funny, Jen Leban and I were just talking about this at the community, we had an open studio time, which was really fun. And I’m trying to remember if her husband Todd had asked about this or something, but we were talking about it and I was like, “I feel like kids are just really excited to use other materials like Shrinky Dinks or just different hands-on stuff like clay.” And she’s like, “Yeah, well you know Janet that digital tools can still be really cool because not every kid has those necessarily those type of tools or experiences at home.” So anything that they don’t have access to feels novel and exciting to them.

And then lastly, I’d say if you were, so again, if you’re using more traditional materials, trying to make it more functional or relatable, so you could do a phone stand or I’ve had students have done little speaker things for their phones or whatever, or my kids love Shrinky Dinks, make the keychain, make it functional that they can put on their backpack. Or if you’re like my daughter going to Homecoming this weekend digital poster for asking a date to Homecoming,

Oh my God.

What could motivate them more? I’m not sure. I’m not sure.

Oh, I love it. I was just going to say though, just to kind of carry on with that idea of giving them opportunities that they maybe don’t have other places, I think that’s a big key. Whether that is building something with clay or just cool processes like the monoprinting that you had mentioned, or digital art or whatever else. I would say just pull out all the creative lessons, creative materials that you think might work for them and just keep trying things and something will eventually pique their interest and it may not be what you expect, maybe something that surprises you, but I would just say try as many different things as you can. You don’t need to go super in depth with any lessons. Like you said, Janet, just the bite-sized art activities, as I think you said, just let them kind of try it out and something’s going to click eventually. So I would say just be patient and be willing to experiment and you will find something that will get them motivated.

Can I share two resources too, that might help?

Please do.

Okay. So if you are a pro subscriber, we do have a great pro pack called Motivating Reluctant students. I think that’s a great one to access. And then if you’re looking for some kind of out of the box materials to get them excited about it, I wrote an article a while back, I’m trying to remember the title of it. It’s like magical. I’m sure it’s got some alliteration in it, but it’s like Magical Media for the Classroom or something like that.

Okay.

Yeah, we’ll link that here too, but it’s-

Okay I will make sure I find that and link that one.

Yeah, I think paper making, things like that, right? Just all those things that we forget about, I feel like you know?

Yeah, no, I think that’s great. And there are a lot of ideas out there and the more time you spend researching, the more ideas you’ll get and I think we can definitely find something that will help for that situation.

Our next question is from Diane in Massachusetts and Diane says, “It’s late September and my supply order is still not come in.” That’s rough. Diane says, “I have pencils and some old markers and that’s literally it. I will take any suggestions you have for lessons with pencils only.”

Okay, I’m laughing with you, not at you because I feel this pain so deeply, right? I swear speaking from a teacher right now, myself, who put in a supply order over the summer and things keep being backordered, backordered, backordered so you just never know when it is coming. It’s the worst feeling.

Yeah, agreed.

Okay, so I hate to even bring this up, Tim, but remember when we were in this little thing called a pandemic?

Oh, yes.

I’m so sorry to say that word. But there are actually surprisingly a big number of resources where you basically don’t have to use anything more than a pencil. And so one of those Saria Krajewski had written an article literally called What to Do When You’ve Only Got a Pencil and Paper or, so I’ll put that in the show notes as well. That one’s great because it talks about all types of mark making the basics of hatching, cross-hatching know scumbling, etc., and then having students come up with their own types of techniques. And name me, I have a contest, that kind of stuff. But there’s other things that you can do besides just drawing too. And I am just going to name a couple things that I thought of. So one is if you have markers, like you mentioned, you could also put them in water and turn them into watercolor paints.

I know that might be different if you don’t have brushes, but there’s just ways to use watercolor in a lot of fun ways. So there’s that. But also as somebody who teaches mostly 3D now I’m going to say your paper turns into really great 3D sculptures. So even if you just have paper, you could even do it in preparation for drawing exercises, like tearing up the paper and strips and turning them into a word like standing upright and then using light sources and taking photos or doing some fun origami or I love zines. So anyway, fold up your paper and use it in different ways.

And then I’m not sure what the age is here about the question, but maybe an actual good use of phones. I hate to say that too, out loud. You could do some scavenger hunts, right? There’s a ton out there as well for that of different prompts and things like that we’ve provided through the years too, so you don’t have to be stuck with just paper and pencil because like I said, you just never know. It could be December before you get your order, but hopefully it’ll be tomorrow. Hopefully it’ll be tomorrow.

Diane does not want to hear that, Janet.

I’m sorry.

No, I was just going to say I appreciate your creativity there because I was just jotting down a list of projects and they’re all drawings, so anyway-

Okay, good. That’s better.

… But honestly, when I was in college, I had drawing 1 and then drawing 2 and all of semester one, all of drawing 1 was just done in black and white media. It’s not unheard of to go through and just do a bunch of drawing for a semester if you need. I think that’s okay, but a quick list of thoughts and list of things that I’ve done before. Obviously not comprehensive, but can maybe give you some ideas to get started. Still life with one object, still life with multiple objects, translucent objects, transparent objects, reflective objects, all good drawing challenges. Portraits are always good. Self-portraits are always good. Portraits of your pets or other animals, always fun as well.

That’s a big one actually. Yeah, pet portraits, biggie.

Yeah, kids love it. Kids love it. Doing just studies of facial features, doing studies of anatomy, going outside, drawing plants, going outside, drawing trees, any of those things work really well. If you want something really in depth, you can do a grid drawing or a transfer drawing. Try and learn about photorealism. One artist that a ton of people don’t know about. But one of the best photorealists I know is actually from Omaha where I live. His name is Kent Bellows, and if you look up Kent Bellows, he does just incredible graphite work as well as colored pencil work. But my kids are fascinated by seeing his stuff. It’s just absolutely incredible photorealism. So if you’re looking to do something in-depth, that might be a good starting point for your graphite drawing. Anyway, hopefully that can give you a few ideas, Diane and can get you on the road to getting things figured out until your supplies come in.

Next question is from Casey, and Casey says, “This is my first year of teaching. Thank you so much for the podcast and all of the resources. I’ve been listening to as many episodes as I can, and it has been really helpful. My question is what to do about elementary students who won’t stop asking, am I done yet?”

Is it just elementary? Are we just talking elementary here? Okay.

She said, “I heard people joke about it before I started teaching, but it’s so much worse than I thought. How do you get them to stop asking?”

Janet, thoughts on this one?

First of all, congrats Casey to your first year of teaching. That’s so exciting. And welcome to the world of, am I done yet? That will not stop. Okay. Okay. So this is kind of funny actually, because we were just talking about this in the community under, I had posted a poll of what are your art teacher pet peeves? I think it came up a few times, like 10 or 12 maybe. I’m not sure.

Wait, what did you put down for your pet peeve? I don’t remember from the discussion.

Oh, what did I say? I have,-

I said mine was side conversations, kids talking when I’m trying to talk, I cannot handle that.

Oh, I think that was actually mine too. I think I posted that because the question, because it was literally happening to me and I was like, this is my pet peeve. Okay, what are everybody else’s pet peeves?

Good conversation piece. I like it.

Oh my gosh. Oh, yeah. I was a little bit nervous actually, that people would go down the rabbit hole of negativity. I’m not kidding. This is the most positive community. I’m not just saying this. I was like, wow, this is really great. Yeah.

I love it, I love it.

And people had a lot of suggestions also on how to curb those pet peeves, so I appreciated that.

Okay, good. That’s helpful. Okay, so let’s help Casey. How do we curb am I done yet questions?

Do you want to go first?

Yeah, I can. I can. So I actually learned this from when I was doing elementary art. I was traveling from classroom to classroom and I had a classroom teacher actually helped me with this and she talked me through it and she wanted me to, going back to the reflection piece, figuring out why they’re asking. And there are a few different ways or reasons that kids might be asking. It might be just approval. They want your approval, they want some praise, and it’s really good to turn that question around and say, “Hey, what do you think? Do you think you’re done? Or what do you think you could do better?” And just let them kind of figure out if they aren’t actually done yet. Second reason might be they just want to be done working on it, which is fine. Some kids are like that, don’t love it if they’ve rushed through it.

And so then you maybe think about what can you compliment about the drawing? I really liked how you did X, Y, and Z. Can we work a little bit more on that? How can you get them to put a little more effort or a little bit more time? And a lot of times with elementary kids just complimenting a certain part and seeing if we can get more things like that can be really helpful there. They might be asking, am I done yet? Because they just want it to be excellent. They might be an achiever or an overachiever. And so if you have a rubric that shows them this is what we’re looking for with this project or just talking through what the goals for the project are, then you can do that, go through that with them, but also remind them, “Hey, your opinion is the one that matters.” And so let them figure out what they think about it, whether they think it’s excellent, whether they want to improve anything and just see how they feel things.

And sometimes kids are just asking because they need some attention, which is fine, but also I can’t handle too much of that. And so I usually would send them the always popular ask three, then me and just get other opinions. And I think that can be really helpful to redirect. And if they keep coming back too many times, it’s okay to shut them down. It’s okay to say, “Hey, I’ve already helped you with this, I’ve already answered this. I have a lot of other students who need my help too.” And then redirect them to go work on whatever they need to do and just kind of move on with things, but don’t let them keep coming back over and over again.

So anyway, just a few thoughts there on why they might be asking and what you can do with them. So Janet, other thoughts? I guess? I mean, you are in high school, so I don’t know, but you just mentioned you do get this question still, so you want to add on whatever thoughts you have?

Yeah, well, I mean think your points are really great, that is kind of how I feel a lot of times too of when they ask me, am I done yet or am I done with this? I almost always put it back on them and ask them the questions about their work, right? I don’t know, like you said, I don’t know are you? What do you think of that? But I think sometimes too when you said maybe here’s some suggestions or whatever, I oftentimes will tell my students, “Okay, this is really great, and also here are some other ideas.” I’m just thinking I oftentimes I’m like, “I don’t know, I’m kind of coming up with this on the top of my head. You could try this or you could try that.” And just kind of come up with a bunch of different ideas. And you could see sometimes their gears turning then it’s like they just didn’t know what else they could do. Right?

Yep.

And I always say to them, “I don’t know, you don’t have to use any of that. You could use none of it. You could be done.” But just kind of getting them to think in a different way sometimes helps them get further. But again, I teach high school, so it’s a little different, but I think this is also a great time to pause. So when kids are coming up to you all the time saying that, or you notice it more frequently, you can pause the class and be like, okay, and do a little mini lesson or discussion about like, oh my gosh, everybody’s asking me is this finished? But I’m curious, how do we know when an artwork is finished? I mean, I just talked to my students about this. How do you know when it’s finished? I’m not sure. Sometimes I don’t know when my work is finished.

Talking about what craftsmanship is, because I think that’s really difficult to quantify of saying, what does that actually look like to take your… I asked my kids, “What is craftsmanship?” They’re like, “Putting in effort.” I’m like, “What does that mean? What does that look like?” And it’s a real stumper, but even the littles they know they will say, talking about paying close attention to detail or drawing neatly or whatever it is, right?

Mm-hmm.

But part of that talk then, becomes like, well, it takes us a while to actually do that. So if we’re slow down, so if you’re coming up and asking me this right after I just gave instruction, am I done? Then you need to think, probably not. Sit back down and work a little bit more. I also like to give some of my students a checklist of what to make sure that they’ve done before they can come and ask me. Whether it’s the rubric or it’s just like these three things need to be done. Did you do this? Did you do that? Did you shade it nicely? Do you see areas, spaces that are not shaded or whatever? That kind of thing.

And then another thing, sometimes students finish really fast and you know it should take them a long time. I mean, I think that’s one of the bigger problems. And so sometimes just breaking that project into smaller chunks so that each of those little sections of instructions takes shorter time, but they know that they have a checkpoint where they can… Before they move on to the next thing. And so that kind of builds that stamina or that resilience to actually focus for an extended period of time to create the artwork that is more significant. Right?

Yeah, that’s a really good point. So yeah, something that I had not considered, but yeah, I like that a lot. Cool. All right, our final question is from Trish. And Trish says, “I teach art K-12 in a tiny little school with very small classes. I try to critique with my middle school students and they did not want to speak up at all. I want to try again, but I’m not sure what I should change. I’m also going to try with my upperclassmen soon too. What advice do you have about getting students to talk during a critique?” Okay, I have a few ideas. Is it okay if I answer this first, Janet?

Please do.

All right. I would say just like anything else you’re trying to teach in the art room, critiques are something you need to build up to. You need to scaffold this. And speaking in front of a group can be incredibly intimidating. Even more so if you are a middle schooler, that’s a tough age to get people to talk in front of everybody. And if you have a small class, a small group, that can be even worse. So there are some things you can do to kind of ease into that. And I would say my first idea would be to do a written critique. You don’t need to make them talk. If you’re just starting out, you can do it asynchronously. You can have the kids write or give suggestions on sticky notes. Put those sticky notes next to the artworks or on the artworks. Or you can have students leave their artwork at their desk, put a piece of paper next to it and have them rotate around the room and leave comments or leave suggestions.

And another idea, you can make them talk, but not about their artwork necessarily. And you can practice on famous artworks or famous artists that you’re looking at in class, show them a piece of your own artwork. This is what I created. What do y’all think? Let’s talk about this. Or you can have them swap classes, talk about a different class’s artwork. So it can be a little bit different. Not quite as much pressure if they’re not talking about their own work or their friend’s work who are right there with them. And if you do talk about a different class’s work, take some notes on that and share them back with that other class. And that’s a good way to connect things between classes. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with just addressing the elephant in the room and just say, “Hey, this is uncomfortable. It’s not easy to talk about your art. It’s not easy to talk in front of people, but we’re going to do it together and it’s something that we can all do together.” And just lead the way with that. And if you can slowly build up to that, then it’s something that, like I said, a skill that you can build.

And I was going to say we have a ton of resources on fun critiques, different critiques, different approaches to critiques. So we’ll link a few of them in the show notes if you’re just looking for some different ideas or looking for something that might work for your students in particular. So Janet, your thoughts please?

Yeah, well scaffolding is a hundred percent true. There is just nothing worse than starting a critique and then just having crickets. It just feels so-

That’s terrible for everybody. It’s bad for you as a teacher, it’s terrible for them as students. No, nobody wants that.

Yes, totally. So I think a big part of that is that they don’t even know what to say because it’s too big of an ask. I always look at when you’re questioning or asking students to talk at all, regardless of a critique or anything, sometimes I’m in class and I’m like ask them a very yes or no, black and white question. And it’s like crickets. I’m like, is my ask really that big? I’m not sure. Do you have a pair of scissors in front of you? Yes or no? Just tell me. When it comes to critique, it is, that’s a big broad statement to just come up with something to talk about it. And so building that kind of ability to articulate or know how to ask or give feedback is a big thing. So I don’t even do end of unit critiques anymore. I really just focus on the process feedback because I also want my students to know that those critique, the information that you’re getting is supposed to help you get better at what you’re working on in progress. Right? So-

Can I interrupt you real quick there? Yeah. Just because I think that’s an important point is it’s good to give something for kids to walk away with at that critique, something to do on their artwork, some actionable item there with the critique. So we’re not just awkwardly sitting around talking and then be like, okay, thanks everybody. It’s good for it to be productive and give them a direction or some assistance with what they’re creating or what their process, the direction that it’s going. So anyway, sorry to interrupt. Go ahead.

No, no, that’s exactly… So you can start even at the planning phase. So kids are just drawing little tiny sketches for their ideas and then have actual little critiques then. So it’s really low risk. Nobody has even put effort into making an artwork. So it feels really low risk there because it doesn’t really matter yet. So even just asking which one do you think is the strongest little sketch? You know?

Yeah.

And then why? I feel like it’s a lot more approachable than giving feedback on a finished work that somebody’s worked on for three weeks. You know?

Absolutely.

And then also in the scaffolding front too, of providing maybe one to three very specific prompting questions. One question even or one thing. And maybe you’re working on a still life, for example. And so the question could be like, can you identify the focal point? What is the focal point? And why are you saying that’s the focal point? If the audience, the responding students, even if… You had mentioned sticky notes, I use them constantly, right? It’s so much more chill. You know?

Yes. Yes.

Or I said it was the apple, but you as the artist are like, no, no, it’s the giant head on the side of the… Or whatever it is. And so then, okay, now how can we fix that? And that’s helpful.

And then sometimes I think artists will feel a little uncomfortable sharing a work in progress because they don’t want to be told like, “Oh, well you should do this.” And then the artists, when they’re having these conversations, I have this all the time with my students, will be like, “But I’m not done yet.” “Oh yeah, I was going to do that.” “Oh yeah, but you don’t understand.” And so what I have my students do is ask a specific question that they particularly want feedback on. So they don’t want feedback on the whole thing. Or they might say, “No, I am open to any suggestions.” And that puts it on them. Or they could say, “No, I’m asking in this area, should I be doing the mark making with oil pastel? Does it work? Do you like it? Why not?” So then it’s just targeting that area and then they don’t feel like the rest of their decision making is compromised by the feedback. You know?

So just quick, small, I think not making them feel so important in a way, they’re still formal. They can still be formal but not feel so risky. I think it helps take that pressure off. Yeah.

Yeah. I love those ideas. Those are all really good. And I love the idea of taking the pressure off, like we talked about with Jeff and his students who didn’t want to be in art class, making the small, bite-sized activities make the bite-sized as well. And I think that’s a good way to build up all of those skills that we’re talking about.

So Janet, thank you for all of those suggestions. Thank you for jumping in to do the mailbag with me. It’s been great to talk to you and we appreciate all of your advice today.

Thanks so much. I hope I lived up to being Amanda today.

It was good. It was good. We’ll let everybody write in with their reviews and I’ll get those.

Oh, please do.

We’ll let you know. All right, thanks Janet.

Thanks.