What Do New Teachers Need to Know About Starting the Year? (Ep. 382)

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

Over the past year and a half, Janet Taylor and I have been working to put together a series of podcast episodes and other resources for new teachers. We’ve done episodes on curriculum, classroom management, organization, professional development, and so many more topics. Today we’re going to talk about what new teachers need to know to start the year. Now on top of these podcasts, our team at AOEU have been working to put together a first year teacher guide on the magazine side of things, as well as a few episodes of the first year teacher series on YouTube that have been really well received and really helpful. So if you’ve not checked those out and you think they might be worthwhile for you, definitely give them a look, but a word about everything that we’re putting out there. Okay? If you’ve already started your year and you feel like this information is coming too late, please don’t worry.

As Janet and I will talk about in the episode, you don’t have to know everything at the beginning. This is a process, and your first year is a time for learning. No one expects you to be perfect immediately, and frankly, it’s impossible to be perfect immediately. So if you only take one thing from this episode, please let it be that. You are on a journey to becoming an amazing art teacher. You’re not there yet, but we are hoping to help you with a few of those first steps along the way. And for those experienced teachers that are listening, if you know any first year teachers or any new art teachers or even pre-service teachers who are thinking about or worrying about the topics that we cover, please send them our way. AOEU has prop packs, flex resources, these podcasts, articles, the aforementioned YouTube series guides, so many other things that can really, really help. We would love for you to share them with anyone who you think would benefit.

And some exciting news on top of that. We’re going to package up all of these podcast episodes for new teachers and put them into the Art Ed Radio podcast feed in addition to our regular art ed radio episodes. So today you’ll just hear the first half of this conversation, enough to get all the new teachers started on the year, and then you can hear the rest of it when the “What do new teachers need to know” episodes start rolling out. We’ll have all of the episodes Janet and I have done over the past 18 months in there, as well as a new episode and some additional content for you, so look for that popping up in your regular podcast feed soon.

Now I’m going to go ahead and bring Janet on, and we’ll start our discussion about what new teachers need to know about starting the school year.

Janet Taylor is joining me now.

Janet, how are you?

I’m doing great. How are you, Tim?

I am also doing quite well. I’m thrilled to talk about what new teachers need to know at the start of the year because there’s just so much that we need to know for the start of the year. But as I said in the introduction of this episode, as people are listening, I don’t want them to get overwhelmed because you don’t have to solve everything right away. You don’t have to have everything figured out immediately. It’s a process, every part of teaching to become a good teacher, to get your classroom set up, to get your curriculum figured out, to get to know your students. That doesn’t happen on day one. It’s kind of a long process for all of us to get all of that figured out. So Janet, before we dive into the questions, do you have any thoughts on that, just the idea of moving slowly and realizing that you don’t need to have it all figured out all at once?

Yeah, I mean, truly, like you said, it really is a journey that you go through your teaching career. It’s not just a one and done, and you don’t have to be perfect on day one. Your students just need you to be there. You just need to connect. And I always feel like every school year, for me, even as a veteran teacher, it’s like going into kindergarten again. I get so excited. It’s what the anticipation of what it’s going to be like, and then after a couple of weeks you just get into your flow and you’re going to figure out what you need and don’t need as you go. So give yourself some grace in that capacity.

Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, all these things that we talk about, whether it is connecting with colleagues or organizing your classroom or getting your supplies ready, or even doing your seating charts, that doesn’t have to be immediate. Those are things that you can work toward and that you can figure out what works for you as you can move through that whole process. But let’s go ahead and I guess start the conversation, Janet, with the idea of setting up your classroom, because I know that’s something that is at the forefront of everybody’s mind when they’re first starting out. So I guess to keep it from being too overwhelming for people, what would be your advice as far as setting up your classroom? What should teachers be thinking about and what kinds of things do they need to know?

So I think everybody first goes to supplies, materials, inventory of some sort. What is actually in your classroom?

What do I have to use, what is available to me?

Yeah, and what is in here that is from 1972, and I have no idea what it is. Some of that start is, I think that part is really overwhelming of trying to figure out and wrap your head around that situation. So that’s one. And then I’d say how your classroom is set up is another thought, whether you’re sharing a classroom with another art teacher, how many tables you have or desks or what does that look like, or art on a cart? So that’s something important to think about. And then maybe just the physical environment of your classroom. Are you going to put decorations on your walls or do you have windows? What is actually happening there logistically?

Yeah, I think all of that is important because I don’t know, everybody has a little bit different situation. You just need to feel it out. So can we talk a little bit, let’s say you don’t have your own classroom either. You’re either sharing with somebody or you’re doing art on a cart where you’re coming into other people’s classrooms. What kind of advice do you have for people who are in that situation? What kinds of things should they be thinking about?

Yeah, so I mean, first and foremost, I always feel like it’s better to err on the side of I’m a guest coming into your space, whether that’s with a general ed classroom or it’s another art teacher that you’re sharing that space with. There’s a wide variety of types of teachers that you’re going to encounter. You might have that teacher that’s like, “Come on in, I’ve made space for you already.” And then there’s the teacher that’s like, “This is all how it has to stay because that works best for me.” And then there’s a compromise in between all of that. So when you’re sharing a classroom, I think it’s important to find time to meet with your colleague that you’re sharing that space with. So that could be shooting an email if you have access to that. Again, new teachers, you may not even have any of this access until first day of institute or first day of school, but I think if you can reach out to them, they may not respond. It’s summertime, and they might not want to think about school quite yet.

But also just during those institute days or work, sometimes there’s teacher work times allotted that you can make sure that you schedule some time to talk to them. And a part of that is finding out what you… Excuse me. Part of that is finding out what they need and what they’re expecting of you or of the space.

Their expectations are important. You need to figure that out, what they’re expecting of you or from you. And if you don’t love that, you can maybe chat about that but it’s good to know before you go in kind of what they’re looking for from you.

And then I would also… I mean, you don’t know what you don’t know as a new teacher. So hearing them out, maybe asking them straight up, “What do you want this to look like? What do you expect from me?” That kind of thing. But also coming in with maybe some of your own expectations and hopes. So those are two different things, what you need out of your classroom. If you’re teaching, drawing and painting for example, or painting, you might need room to store student artwork or to dry it. And having an understanding, a collaboration of how that’s going to work in the classroom is really important. But also hopes, I also would really love if I could hang up these posters that I just made over the summer. And they may say no, or they may try to find space, but those are two different things.

That’s a very good point. No, it’s good because like you said, there’s the ideal classroom and there’s also what you’re actually dealing with. And those are two different things. And I remember going into my first classroom just thinking about all of the stuff that I wanted to do, how I wanted organize it, and how I wanted to just set everything up and how I wanted to make it beautiful. And then I just realized I don’t have time for all of this. And so that’s another consideration there too, because you just have all these things that you may want to do, but then all of a sudden students just show up and it’s time to go, even if your room is not perfect or not beautiful.

And I have to say sharing room though, just to keep in mind, those veteran teachers usually have things set up for a reason, right?

Exactly, exactly.

So that’s a good chance for you to sit back and observe a little bit and see how it’s being used before making those big decisions.

And ask too. If you see them like, “Why do you put these supplies here?” Or “Why do you want the green wire against that wall?” Most teachers that you’re sharing a room with will be happy to discuss with you why they do things like that. They probably have some good stories and some good reasons the way they are.

It’s definitely a good learning experience and it can help you. And I think one thing that really helped me as a teacher for organization, for classroom management for everything was when I taught art on a cart, I was going into… I had a bunch of schools that I went to and I got to see so many classrooms and I would just talk to them about those things and say, “Hey, why do you do things like this? Tell me about how this reward system works,” when I was teaching elementary, or “Tell me why you organize things in this way.” And just asking them or just seeing how they do things and just making mental notes of, “Oh, that definitely works for me,” or, “Oh, I would never do that myself.” Like I said, it was a great learning opportunity and really got me to where I was as far as figuring out how I wanted to do things. And so anytime you can observe and discuss and ask questions of those teachers that you’re working with, I think is a really good learning opportunity.

Yeah, that’s a really great point.

All right, let’s talk supplies. You mentioned supplies because again, that’s another one of those things where you probably have dreams of what you want to teach and the lessons you want to do, and then you may get there and look in your supply closet and those dreams do not match reality. So can you talk a little bit about that, Jan? Just kind of what to think about what to expect when you’re dealing with the supplies that you have and sort of some best practices on what you want to do with those?

So sometimes you have, again, if you’re working with multiple art teachers or whatnot, a lot of times you’ll have supply closets or areas in the classroom or maybe one communal one. And I would like to say this first and foremost, it’s always important that you can’t assume that those supplies are just for the taking. Yeah, because art teachers usually… The way it works is that by the end of the school year, there’s a budget that needs to be used up. It’s usually a use it or lose it kind of situation and so a lot of teachers will either buy those more expensive items that they dream for and want to use it in their curriculum, or they’re planning certain amounts of supplies for particular projects or assignments that they’re teaching in the upcoming school year. So you have such a limited budget a lot of times. It’s really important that if you go in and you’re like, “Oh my God, there’s all these linoleum blocks. I’m going to do a printmaking project.” And then you use that without asking, I mean, that will create a lot of problems conflict with your teacher. That’s a good way to get on someone’s bad side. So I think it’s really important to ask that kind of information first.

So my goal is always to get a general idea of what I have and then use up what I have first. So I like to try to get really creative with projects, use up some old stuff. Sometimes in your budget you might be able to purchase things in the beginning of the school year so it depends on the school. So again, some of them might request that you do it all through a purchase order through a very specific vendor. They have preferred vendors that they go through. Sometimes they have a purchase card that you can borrow, or you can ask administrator to buy certain things, and then they can do that. Sometimes you can even take that purchase card and go to a hardware store, so depending on the…

Oh, that’s my favorite, we get the school credit card and you go to the hardware, you’re be like, “What do we need for a sculpture class?”

It’s like, “I need all of these drill bits. I definitely need them.” And chicken wire and all sorts of things.

But so those are kinds of outlets or ways that you can maybe access or ask for that access in order to do that, but you have to be aware of the budget and I think that’s something that a lot of new art teachers, we didn’t really learn that in college like how to use your budget.

Yeah. That’s another thing with me. When I moved from elementary to high school, I was the only art teacher for the high school. And so they’re like, “Oh, hey, turn in your budget by Friday.” And I was like, “What is my budget? What do I order? How do I do this?”

And I’m the only one, so there’s nobody to help me. So I actually had talk to the secretary in the office who took care of all of that stuff, and I was like, “Can I just come in after school? Can you just show me how this is done?”

I mean, luckily she was very helpful. She was lovely helping me out with all of that. But yeah, I had no idea how much my budget was, what I needed to do or anything like that. So that was a challenge.

That’s a good point to like ask. Don’t be afraid to ask. I think a lot of us, especially new teachers, we feel very vulnerable. “I should know this, I should know.”

No, you should not have to know this already so just make sure you’re asking.

Yeah, it’s much better to go through the awkwardness of asking questions than making a big mistake. And so if there’s something that you don’t know, just ask.

And then I was just going to say, with your point, Janet, of using up old stuff, I think it’s worthwhile the first time you go through a project, just use what you have on hand. And then as you go through that, you can learn and you can think for the future like, “Oh, next time I do this project, maybe it’s better with colored pencils.” Or, “Next time we do this, maybe I want this type of paper for it”. So yeah, for your first time through, use what you have and then think about what you could possibly order in the future for that.

A hundred percent, yeah.

Okay. Let’s see. I think you also mentioned wall decor.

Oh, yes.

There’s people with very strong feelings about how much you should put up or how little you should put up before your students come in. What are your thoughts, Janet?

Okay. Well, I’ll tell you what I do and also what I see. How about that?

So first of all, first and foremost, just don’t compare yourself to what you see. You don’t have to do it all. Remember, the space is really about you and your students, and there really is no need to go crazy on day one. I think a lot of us, again, we get really excited about having it just perfect on that first day, so you know that everything will be easy from then on out, and that’s not really the case anyway, so give yourself some grace on that. But I think some teachers really love to set the tone of their room and they’ll set that tone or the energy that they’re expecting in the classroom or what [inaudible 00:18:42] by putting things up on the wall and having everything that they need to reference available, like anchor charts and things like that. I’ll be honest, and maybe this is an elementary high school thing. As a high school teacher, I mean, all of our classrooms look like science labs. They’re like gray and great cabinets and boring. We might have some student artwork from the past up that I love to do that when that’s available. But I really do like to have very few items in my room to begin with because to me, I feel like I really want my students to come in and know, and I guess I articulate this to them too.

I was just going to say, that’s a conversation I have. I think I know where you’re going with this, and it’s what I would always do too, where I’d put up organizational systems, like you said, anchor charts, things that are helpful as far as organization instruction. And then I tell the kids, the rest of this space is yours. I want you to fill this with your artwork. I know the art room is supposed to be colorful and bright and fun, but we’re not there yet. But…

Yeah, a hundred percent.

… you are going to get us there and just tell them, these walls are reserved for your artwork, and so as you’re creating things, we’re going to put it up. That’s where the decoration is going to come from.

And they like to see that. They want to see their voice is existing in this space, and it creates that ownership of that environment too.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And I don’t know, I guess when we talk about labeling and organization and anchor charts, I’d love to get your perspective on that too. For me, organization is incredibly important. I feel like the classroom runs more smoothly when everything is organized, everything is labeled. It’s easy to find stuff. It’s easy to clean up and easy to put away. How much of a priority is that for you, how much of a priority do you think it should be for people, and what are the important things to think about when it comes to organization?

Yeah, good grief. I feel like when we talked about organization in another podcast, I was like, “Don’t listen to me.” I’m the least organized person ever. You should just see my studio right now. But yeah, it is important and for me… So first of all, you have to decide how you’re going to be teaching, and again, as a new teacher, you don’t really know all of that yet. I mean, it really took me several years just to kind of feel, “Okay, this is how I present myself,” or “this is how I’m going to work this.” But for me, organized classroom means everything is labeled, like drawers are labeled. I want students to know where items are. I want them to know what they can and cannot use. So I might even label that or have, I guess this goes back to our supply conversation. If I have more expensive items, I want to maybe put that in a space that is not for them, maybe locked up or maybe just a away, and I want them to know what they can and cannot use that way. I want to have spaces for them to store artwork or for it to be a place to dry temporarily and I also want to think about the flow of the classroom, students to move around.

That’s so important. So important.

And it’s exceptionally important when you realize that you have a student who has some special needs, maybe in a wheelchair or maybe has seizures or something like that. You really need to think about that kind of piece too, and you won’t know that until you get your roster and all that. But I mean, I remember sketchbooks, that’s a great topic. Where do you store all of these sketchbooks? If students don’t have drawers, which is very common that there’s not a ton of storage for that in the classroom. Things like crates where students can put them per period in a crate or a couple crates is really helpful. So I think that’s kind of what I’m thinking about as I start the school year.

Yeah, absolutely. And this is the smallest thing ever, but if you can stand sketchbooks up in a crate where you can flip through them like their file folders or something, that’s so much easier than having a pile of 30 sketchbooks because if you’re the 17th one down, how do you even get that out of there without making a giant mess every single day? And so, yeah, it’s just a minor thing to think about, but also important.

Yeah, I mean, I guess that goes too. You think about how they’re accessing their sketchbooks or whatever. They come in and they’re all congregated in this one little spot, and that’s not really great either.

No good for anybody.

No, and you’ll figure that out. I mean, we also did, for a long time, pizza boxes would store artwork. Any flat work would go in these pizza boxes, pull it out, and we’d have a table in the middle of the classroom so kids could come from all areas versus a corner of the classroom. And again, I’m sure I did everything, where it was all in a corner thinking this will be nice and organized, and then it took 20 minutes for class to start. So you figure that stuff out as you go.

Yeah, I was going to say, you just have to be adaptable. And I think that’s the important thing. If you’ll find that things aren’t working and you just need to be able to say to yourself, “This isn’t working, how can we change it?”

Okay, I want to ask, because a lot of teachers have stories, myself included, of coming into an art room and it’s just an absolute disaster. There’s so much there, you don’t even know where to start. What do you think people should do? How do you think they should start with that? Where do you begin if you’re feeling overwhelmed by just the amount of stuff that’s in the classroom?

So me personally, I like to start big picture. Again, your kids don’t know what they don’t know. You don’t know what you don’t know. I just can’t say it enough. Your first day will be fine. You will be great. Just connect with the kids.

You’ll be exhausted but…

Yes.

There is nothing like teacher tired on that first week of school. Oh my gosh. But yeah, I like to start at the big picture and think about more kind of, what do I need right now and where’s this going to go? I can put everything off to the side in the meantime, and I can, well, me personally, I’m constantly organizing my spaces to make it work. I’m working with students, asking their opinions. I’m asking students who are more advanced or upper levels, or even later in the years, so you might be teaching elementary, and you could have a fifth grade class, and you could be like, “Okay, everybody, where does all the paper go?”

And I guarantee the kids will know where these things usually have lived. So I think it’s fine to incorporate them. It’s their studio space too, and they should learn how to do that.

We actually have a great YouTube series coming out or is out now, I think, and it’s all about artfully organized, and it’s all about classroom organization. And it also includes even considering more hazardous or dangerous items, how you’re going to store all of those different things. How do you distribute and collect materials from students? It’s a great series.

So many great tips and tricks in there. And like I said, just little things that you don’t think about. But then once you realize, “Oh, this could actually be important,” it can be incredibly helpful when you learn those things. Okay, Jan-

Go ahead. Go ahead.

Oh, I was just going to say the one last piece of advice or thing to keep in mind is that let’s say you are doing a project and it’s like a hot mess of cleanup, which happens a lot. Maybe you run out of time or you didn’t think through that well enough. I think the key is always to be really reflective and responsive. So instead of beating yourself up about it, like, “Oh my God, that was such a miserable day,” really being just, again, kind to yourself and think about why did that not work and was it my instruction or was it the actual physical organization that got in the way?

That is an important question. Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, I like it.

So I mean, those are the pieces I think that help us figure out as we go and change things as we go.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. I want to shift gears. I want to talk about curriculum and I guess where you start with things. So I’d love to know the first things that you think are worth teaching, kind of your beginning lessons. And I don’t know, I’ve always been a proponent of when you are first getting kids in your classroom, let’s create something. You have an exciting classroom, you have an exciting subject that you’re teaching, let’s make it exciting. Let’s not go over the syllabus and spend forever on the seating chart and rules and expectations. I want to get right into it, and eventually I get working on lessons, projects, something that we do. So what about you? What are the first things that you teach? What are the beginning lessons? Where do you go at the beginning of the year?

Yeah, so I’m with you. I do not go over the syllabus. I mean, the other piece in high school, we go over syllabus. That’s a big piece that you’re expected to do at some point, but I feel like oftentimes kids are coming in and out of your class too. They might be dropping your class, changing their schedule, things like that and it’s just not worth to go over it and then have to go over it again.

The syllabus on day five is not any different than syllabus on day one. You can get to it, really.

Yes. And I also like to put my procedures and that kind of stuff. I like to embed it as we’re working, so it builds that connection. Yeah, because I feel like that first day, if you’re just talking, they’re totally zoned out. They’re just like, “What is this classroom that I’m in?”

So anyway, I also like to do everything hands on. I just feel like they just really… They come to an art room, they want to create, and it just really engages them directly into the culture of your classroom by doing that. Now, that doesn’t mean you necessarily have to jump in to coil vessels on day one. I’m not saying that.

The full acrylic on canvas on the first day.

And I also have to say that a lot of times in those PDs, they tell you to institute days, they give you these ideas of icebreakers and things. I’ll be honest, I do not do any of that kind of stuff either. I like to combine it all together so that it is, again, authentic to art making. So the activities that I like to do, I basically think about things that I want them to learn upfront, but I want to embed it into what they’re doing so it’s fun. So maybe for example, we have Google Classroom, we have Google Slides. I want them to be able to use Google Slides in some capacity. So I’m going to do a really fun collaborative project because I want them to get to know each other, and I want them to start to feel comfortable, and then I want them to create something together, and then I’ll have them post that on a Google Slides.

Son now I don’t have to teach doing that again. It just is part of that, and I think by now, a lot of kids know how to do it, but you never know. And then they have to look through your Google Classroom and find things and I think some of that is just part of the process and they’re still creating. So that’s kind of my plan. I’m actually, my fingers are crossed, I’m planning on sharing a bunch of my starter activities on my Instagram account in the next couple of weeks because I know people were like, “Yes, what do you do? What does this actually look like?”

But I like to do things where they’re interviewing each other and then maybe drawing a portrait of their partner or maybe a medal of honor that describes their partner, something that showcases that. And what’s so great about having them work is A, they’re being social, which is really great and uncomfortable in the beginning.

It’s uncomfortable for a lot of kids.

And you’ll notice which kids know each other right off the bat, you’ll notice which kids don’t like working together. A lot of information happens at, you’ll see, how they create, how think through your prompts, and they’re just like a two-day activity, and you just gain so much information from them. So anytime there’s a scavenger hunt for tools in the room, or maybe do something for photo like that, or in jewelry, I’m planning on doing my paper pair up kind of thing where kids are creating a paper version of jewelry that kind of gives me a sense of their design aesthetic.

Even something as simple as taking a ball of clay, rolling it into a… Clump of clay, rolling it into a ball, pulling it apart, trying to stick it back together without slip and score or score and slip, that is so tactile and engaging for them to do that. And it’s just so easy and they’re just really primed for the next day. So just any of that kind of stuff.

Okay. And so then moving on past that, those are great first day, first week activities. Where do you start when it comes to, and I don’t even want to say projects or lessons necessary because you may not be there yet, but what are the next steps for you?

So for me, I like to have my students make sketchbooks or sketchbook covers if they were pre-purchased. That gives them a lot of space to explore materials. I can teach some very small techniques or concepts, so it could be shading or it could be elements and principles. Even in my jewelry class, we do sketchbooks, and it’s amazing. We hand stitch them, and it’s always amazing to me to see which kids can follow that direction because it’s not that easy.

Not necessarily intuitive.

No, no. But anything that they can really express themselves, it helps get them warmed up, they have ownership over it. And then they also, again, I use sketchbooks. It’s so important because to me, the process of creating is important, and I want them to know that that is an integral part of our curriculum throughout the year,

We will go ahead and end things there for now. As I said in the intro, you can hear the rest of the episode when the “What do new teachers need to know” episodes start rolling out in the next couple of weeks. We’ll have all of the new teacher episodes Janet and I have done in the Art Ed Radio podcast feed, as well as a new episode and some additional content for you alongside all of our regular Art Ed Radio episodes. So look for that in the coming weeks.

Thank you to Janet for all of her ideas and just for that entire discussion. I hope it was worthwhile for you to listen. And going back to that first point that I made today and that point that we discussed, you don’t need to solve all of these problems at once. You don’t have to do all of these things right now. You can prioritize, you can work on things piece by piece. You can solve one problem at a time, and then you can spend time reflecting and thinking about what’s working, what isn’t, and what you can do to help yourself run a great art room. So I hope this episode can help you, and I hope you can reflect on some of those ideas. And all of this can be a good starting point on that journey that we talked about to you becoming an amazing art teacher.

Art Ed Radio is produced by The Art of Education University with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Thank you for listening, and we’ll talk to you next week.