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. We’ve been talking a lot about the Art of Ed community here. And just over the past few months here, and it’s been an amazing experience to be part of that Art of Ed community, and it’s one of my favorite places to hang out on the internet. And today’s conversation, which will be with Janet Taylor, will be about a great few posts and discussions that have been taking place in the community. I want to continue that conversation. A couple of weeks back and Janet had a series of posts about the challenges that we are all facing, and what we are struggling with. Or specifically what makes us feel like we’re riding the #strugglebus.

And teachers in the community were sharing so many of their own issues, whether it be with organization or assessment or art history or teaching Gen Alpha. But along with sharing our struggles, people are also sharing the ways they solve those problems, and they’re offering help and suggestions and some great stories. So this episode is going to be all about finding solutions and sharing practical advice, not just from us, but from the art teacher community. Art teachers across the country, we’re hearing from them and hoping that what they share can help you feel a little more confident and a little less alone. So we’ll highlight some of those conversations because we’re all dealing with a lot of similar issues. There are those times when we are riding the Struggle Bus. So whether you’re looking for some ways to solve your problems or you just want to commiserate a little bit, this is a discussion that might be worthwhile for you. Let me bring on Janet now. Janet Taylor is joining me now. Janet, welcome back. How are you?

Hey, Tim. I’m okay. How are you?

I’m doing well actually. So things are good. I am literally about to leave on an airplane to go interview Carrie Mae Weems for our Now Conference for the Keynote Presenter, so I could not be more excited about that. So in general, life is good. We’re going to record this podcast.

I was going to say, yeah.

I’m driving straight to the airport, so I’m looking forward to it.

Yes. It’s a great day for you,

And it really is. I’m looking forward to it very much. I need to ask you though, we are having the podcast here related to riding the Struggle Bus, and it is early December. You are teaching high school. Are you on the Struggle Bus right now?

I feel like I’m always on the struggle bus.

Okay, fair. Okay.

Okay. Not really. Not really. That’s not fair to say. That’s not fair. Okay. Yeah, you said it’s December. So here’s the thing. I don’t know how that happened, but it did. It was actually December. And Thanksgiving was late, so that break was late. And then all of a sudden, it was literally December when we came back. And then the way winter break lines up, I literally said to my kids yesterday, I was like, “Hey guys, we have a week and a half of solid work time left, and we still haven’t even done an entire unit. And we have the art show next week.” So yeah, we’re doing great. We’re doing great.

Okay, good. No, it’s wild to come back from Thanksgiving and then all of a sudden you’re like, “Oh, finals week is two weeks away.”.

Yes. Oh my gosh. There’s so cleaning of the studio and prepping, you know what I mean, to close out this semester too.

Yeah. Yes.

We’ll get there.

It’s a lot. But yes, we always do. We always do. Okay, so I talked in the intro about how much I loved reading, just all of the conversations that came along with Struggle Bus Week on the community. And so I wanted to go through all of those with you. And I figured that you and I could talk a little bit about each of the topics and what we struggle with. And then I’d love to share some community ideas too. So if I can just start with the art history one. That may have been the first one posted. It was the one I was most excited about because I always love talking about art history. So let me ask you, Janet, to start, what do you struggle with when it comes to teaching art history?

Everything. Oh my gosh. Okay. So I love art history. I have always been super fascinated by it. I love how it’s like when we were in college, and funny enough, Tim, remember when we were in college together and took classes probably in the same, and Tim and I didn’t even know each other at that time, but we went to school at the same time.

We should tell everybody this. We were both at the University of Iowa at the same time, never knew each other.

Both making art.

But then what, 20 years later, we start working together at the Art of Education and find out that yeah, we actually went to school together. Still can’t place each other in any classes. We were theoretically there at the same time, taking the same classes.

And had same professors. Yeah, weird. But do you remember that intro class that was like, what was it? Western art history of the Western world or whatever that was? Yeah, that survey course where you had to memorize… They’re just like, here’s a slide, here’s a slide, here’s a slide.

Yes. Those slides that you had to memorize. Yeah.

Okay. That is my experience, and that I feel like was my experience in history growing up. Everything was just about names and dates and tying all those things together. Now I’m, as an adult, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this is so cool.” And I still somehow my brain cannot retain that information. It’s like a sieve. It’s a sieve. So I struggle with it. I’m always on the struggle bus. But can I tell you my current issue actually with-

Yes, please do.

Okay. So my current issue that is ongoing for me is that I teach mostly jewelry metals, metalsmithing, and it is very difficult to find contemporary artists or metalsmiths, who do conceptual work. Because when you search in Google or Pinterest or whatever.

Is it all Etsy? Is it just people with Etsy shops come up?

It’s Etsy or it’s mass-produced horrible enamel pins.

Oh goodness.

So it’s very, very difficult for me to connect contemporary artists into my metalsmithing classes. So that’s a real struggle bus for me right now.

Yeah, for sure. I have not even thought about that. But yeah, that seems like just the biggest pain. It needs some alternative avenues. I would say that art history has never really been a struggle for me just because I love it so much, and that’s how my brain works. I can remember this. My brain does a pretty good job of retaining that information. But I would say my struggle is related to what you talked about is how to teach it and how to make it exciting. Yes, I get excited about it, but how do you present it to kids in a way that’s exciting? So they’re not feeling like they have to memorize slides and memorize dates. And you just need to put some thought into how are kids going to connect with this? How would you relate it to what you’re doing in class?

But I think if you put some thought into that, it comes pretty naturally to most of us. So I don’t think that’s too big of a struggle. And then when you get excited about, or there are always new artists that you want to find that you want to share with your students, but then you get into the struggle of if I’m going to put this artist into the rotation of who I teach about, who has to leave? So we’re not just overwhelming them with a giant list. So those can be tough decisions sometimes, but generally I just get excited about new artists and then just out of nowhere, like, “Hey, everybody, have you seen this artist?” And just show them out of nowhere, and that’s fine too.

So whatever works. But a few really good comments from the community I wanted to share and see if anything resonated with you or gave you any thoughts. So Dylan Trumbull said their struggle was which artist to spotlight. Michelle LaRocque said, “Choosing from the unlimited list.” So I feel that for sure. Ashley Hinton, along the same lines said the overwhelming amount of options. And then Jessica Stuver said, “I don’t know if it’s a struggle as much as a constant concern, but I always wanted to make sure I’m teaching art history that shares a lot of diversity.” And I applaud her for thinking about that. I think a lot of us take that perspective as well, just making sure that we show a diverse set of artists. I remember one of the first podcasts we ever did was called No More Dead White Guys, and just talking about getting away from those “Canons of art history.” Because it’s such a broad spectrum of artists that are out there. And there are so many more that you can share. So anyway, Janet, thoughts on any of those comments from the community?

Yeah, totally. And again, as somebody who struggles with retaining all that information, I often will toss out multiple artists per unit that connect with what media or the technique or whatever it is. And really just let the students analyze, compare, contrast, et cetera. But then pull what they want to connect with from that artist. And I think that helps me so that I don’t feel like I have to necessarily focus on an artist. I don’t want my kids copying an artist, but also I’m exposing them without feeling like I’m limiting or constraining that amount as well. So I don’t know, that’s one way that has helped me. And I’ll tell you nother person that has on your, I was going to say on your Struggle Bus, but not your Struggle Bus, your rocket ship or whatever to art history. It was Kyle Wood.

He’s great.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And he talked in the community a little bit about his arts madness, and I always love that, how he approaches that. Yeah.

Very cool way to introduce a lot of artists, but I love that idea of showing a lot of different people and just let the students drive that and let them figure out what they’re interested or what resonates with them. And so giving them those options. All right. Any other thoughts? Are you ready to move on to topic number two?

Well, can I give a quick little teaser about one of our presenters for the Now Conference?

Please do.

Okay. So we have Ruth Byrne coming back for the NOW conference, and I’m super excited. She’s just a brilliant teacher and a lovely person, but she’s actually going to provide us a way to help students connect with and analyze artwork. So if that’s something that you struggle with, with the conversations around the artists or around the artwork, she really makes it really accessible for young, all the way up through high school. I could see it definitely using it in mine too.

Yeah, she gives a great framework that you can work from, and I think it will be a very helpful presentation. So I’m excited for everybody to see that one. Okay. Moving on to conversation or topic number two on the Struggle Bus. And I think this is the one where you excel. Janet, what do you struggle with when it comes to assessment?

Nothing, obviously. No.

I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding.

No, you’re the go-to expert for this podcast when it comes to assessment. So I feel I’m asking [inaudible 00:13:05]. But no, what do you struggle with when it comes to assessment?

No, everything we do is always a challenge. Nothing is easy. But I would say time is always a concern for everybody. It’s a concern for me when everybody’s like, “It takes me so long. How do you do it?” And I was like, “Yeah, me too.: It just is. Things take a while to deal with. So time to grade, timely feedback to get that stuff back to students. I still have some grades I’m still working on. All of that. So I don’t know. Again, maybe, I don’t know if this is really an assessment issue or more of just a general lack of time in the day issue because I feel like everything is treading water. But like I said, I’m on the Struggle Bus. That’s how we started this podcast, so might as well continue on that.

No, for sure. It’s tough. And there’s pressure because we hear all the time about how important it is to give timely feedback. But on the same level with that, when do I have time to give that timely feedback?

Exactly.

Finding the hours in the day is really tough. And I would say that’s my biggest struggle too, is just staying on top of everything. When I taught elementary art, I luckily didn’t have to do much. I just had an overwhelming number of kiddos and people understood. And so we just have end of quarter grades and that’s all we had to do. And that was not bad. But when you’re in secondary and you’re still seeing hundreds of kids and all of these projects, finding the time is always an issue. And I think a lot of people talked about that in the discussion we had.

One thing that I really love doing with my advanced classes is just sitting down for one-on-one conferences with kids in the middle of projects at the end of projects. And just being able to do an assessment via conversation, just face-to-face talking about what’s going well, what’s not, just whatever the rubric may be. And those are incredibly helpful. But you need to have decent classes that allow you to do that. You need to have small enough classes that you have the time to do that. And so I realized that’s not going to work for everyone, but I would just say anytime you can make some time during class to give some feedback or give some assessment, that can be an incredibly helpful.

And I would say when we’re looking at this conversation from the perspective of the community, I think the theme that we saw along the time was the difficulty of dealing with rubrics, especially if you have hundreds of students. So Matt Weidman, Frank Montaz, they mentioned specifically having time to grade or finding time to grade. And I want to highlight a really good comment from Frank. He said, “One thing I learned after almost 10 years was that if I catch myself writing the same thing as part of my feedback, it should be part of my rubric. I rarely write anything anymore, but I highlight and underline a lot. It’s a sign of a well-written rubric if you can just circle where you are in there.” That’s good. And then Frank said, “Finally, I will say that my mid-process check-ins are more beneficial to students than final assessments.” Which is a great point. So a lot to digest there, but anything that you want to comment on?

Yeah, just that’s like a mic drop moment that he said all that. But another thing that I have learned too is that if I can’t give timely feedback back to my students, if I’m doing exit slips or bell ringers or any of that, and I am not getting the information back to them, or it’s not informing my instruction, because I can’t read it fast enough or whatever, then I don’t do it. What is the purpose of that? That’s not fulfilling the purpose that it’s meant to do. So stop putting more work on yourself and focus more on the, you said conferences, but I feel like we are doing individualized feedback and talking to students all the time.

Yeah. For counseling.

Yes. And so that is the feedback loop. That’s assessment right there. And so I think just shifting the focus off of the paperwork end of things and more on the interaction feedback I think is a big way to save time and focus that, like Frank said, your rubric. If you underline, circle, if you put that work up in the front that your rubric is solid, that takes a little bit of time. But in the end, you’re not sitting there writing a ton or having to give all that feedback to the students.

Yeah. No, I appreciate the idea of the mindset shift that you just mentioned, where we need to think about it less as the paperwork and more of this thing that we are consistently doing with our students. And another thing, I feel like we’re off to a whole different podcast here that we could be talking about with all of these topics, but one thing that I’ve learned from you, Janet, when it comes to assessment, is just the importance of those in process, midpoint critiques, midpoint feedback, not only for students like Frank said, but for us as teachers to modify or to supplement what we are teaching. And they are super important, and like I said, not only beneficial for students, but for us as teachers as well. Because they can inform our instruction in so many different ways. And so I think if we worry less about what we’re doing at the end and a little bit more about the consistent interactions, consistent feedback that we are giving and getting, that can really transform how we think about assessment, I think that can be really helpful.

So like you said, a lot of really, really good points there, and we could talk a lot more about that. But let me go ahead and move us on. Our next topic for the week was organization. So what do you struggle with the most when it comes to physical organization? I will give you a second to think about that, because I struggle with all of it. But I want to give a genuine shout-out, Michelle Parvin and Robin Murphy from the community. They’re like the extreme type A people. They have that all figured out. Michelle had a day in the life video with AOEU that shows off her classroom organization. Probably worth watching if you need some inspiration, you need some ideas, we’ll link to that. But yeah, I always admire those people who have all of the organization things figured out because that has been a lifelong struggle for me. So what about you, Jan? Where are you when it comes to organization?

Okay, this is where I am constantly on the struggle bus. Truly. Yeah. So I’m a piler, I pile things, I have sticky notes, I pile the sticky notes. It’s really, really bad. But I have to say, so I walked into my classroom last year. Brand new classroom, beautiful. It just was amazing. And you get in there and you realize even though it looks perfect, not everything always works for you and your students, right?

It’s not always functional for what you need in an art room. Yes.

So I do really actually enjoy coming up with systems and figuring out what’s going to work best for them, seeing what works, what doesn’t. I also really love getting feedback from my students about what is working and what is not. So I changed it up this whole way. I did tool delivery, set up whatever in my classroom, and something didn’t seem quite right. And then my students were like, “Oh, yeah, I didn’t like it this way. I liked it that way.” And I’m like, “Okay, then let’s figure out something in between that’s going to work for both of us.” Or whatever it is.

So I get it. It’s really, really hard and it’s a constant battle, and there’s always so much mess, and there’s always so many pieces of artwork laying all over the place. And oh my gosh, like I said, this is the time of my art show coming up next week. And it’s like I just walk in my classroom and it’s just piles and piles and piles of stuff everywhere. So I don’t know, Tim, are you? I’m a little bit of a hoarder when it comes to materials and things.

I would say at the beginning of my career, I was a hoarder. Just like you never know when these toilet paper rolls are going to come in handy, better keep all of them. Oh, this might be a great project someday. Then as I got into further into my career, like, “Hey, I’ve been here a decade and haven’t used [inaudible 00:22:17]. Probably don’t need to keep them around anymore.” So that helped once I realized that I could get rid of things. And I’ve talked about this ad nauseam on the podcast, but just labeling everything, pictures on everything, helping kids be self-sufficient when it comes to getting materials out, putting them away is probably the biggest game changer for me with organization. I would say just judging by community responses, storage space was a huge one. Jessica Stuber, Jennifer Jasper, Ruth Byrne, they all mentioned finding storage space for 3D projects.

Heather Hacker and Amber Maddock both mentioned supplies, especially when you’re out of space or if you have multiple classes working with different materials. And it’s tough though, because you can’t really give any blanket advice for that because everyone’s room is different. And I was lucky enough to have cabinets with space on top of them, and I could just store everything on top of the cabinets. And I’m tall, I can reach it, whatever. It’s not a problem. But then I realized, “Oh, that doesn’t work for everyone. And everyone has these different spaces, and it is really, really difficult to figure out how everyone can do that. So I would just say, if you’re listening to this and you have any great hacks on storing 3D projects or other in-progress works that you want to share, please head on over to the community and toss that into the chat. We would really appreciate hearing all of those. So Janet, any more thoughts on organization before we move on to our last topic?

No, because like I said, I’m on that Struggle Bus every day.

Can’t give any advice because I’m busy unpiling my sticky notes right now.

Seriously as I’m jotting it down. No, it feels nice that we’re not alone though, doesn’t it? That’s the thing about the struggle bus. It’s not all the time, but also we’re not the only ones. It’s an ongoing issue.

Yes. Absolutely. I said that at the beginning of the episode. Maybe you’re looking for advice in this episode, maybe you just want to commiserate and [inaudible 00:24:24]. This is tough for me too, so I can appreciate that. Our final topic of the week was Gen Alpha. And that is a fun one, so love for you to think about what you struggle with when it comes to teaching Gen Alpha. The first thing, which I think was probably my favorite comment from the community was from Jessica Stewart again, who said “Probably their continued obliteration of the English language.”

Okay, so can I tell you? I was driving with my daughter the other day and her friend. And I said something like, “What’s up with the Skibidi Toilet thing?” And they just started cracking up. And I was like, “I still don’t know where this came from, what it means.” And they just couldn’t answer either.

No, okay, this is my problem with Gen Alpha slang. I could rant about this, but I’m just going to leave it quick. I appreciate Gen Z slang because it makes sense and they can explain it quickly. Gen Alpha is the most nonsense stuff that you’ve ever heard.

It’s like surrealism.

It is.

Data.

Just a terrible use of slang. And then you ask them, where did that even come from? And they have no idea.

They don’t know what it means either. It’s like they don’t know where it came from or-

But it’s fun to say, so go with it.

Hopefully I pronounced that correctly.

I believe Skibidi Toilet was correct. But beyond the slang, what else are you struggling with when it comes to Gen Alpha?

Okay, this is a biggie for me. So these kids are digital natives. That’s all they do is digital. It’s an attachment. An additional appendage is their device. But they don’t know how to type on a keyboard or change the size of an image without it being distorted on a slide. It just blows my mind that they cannot do these very simple basic computer tasks.

Yes, okay. So, oh my goodness, the typing. It’s crazy to me. These kids are on devices all the time. And when it comes to typing, they have to hunt and pack with their two fingers. And it’s fascinating to watch. And I don’t know, my default thought on that is like, “Oh my God, how do they not know?” But at then the same time I realized that we as adults just assume they know because they are digital natives. And I think everyone in their life has just assumed, “Oh, they know how to do that. They’re on devices all the time, but nobody’s ever taught them.”

And so I think it is a weird disconnect between they’re on there all the time, so we assume they know how to do everything, but yet because we assume they have not been taught. And so it’s a weird setup. Again, I feel like that’s another discussion that we could have that could take a while. And I would say one comment that I saw in the community that kind of resonated with me, I don’t teach Gen Alpha, but with volunteering and coaching, the thing that I always see is the constant touching of each other. They always have to have their hands on each other.

Oh my gosh.

I do not get it. And so we’re always having conversations about, “Hey, without permission, you cannot touch people. And you have to give people space.” And you just talk about that constantly. And oh, it’s difficult.

I teach high school. It is a real problem. So I was thinking about this the other day because of course, I was like, “Stop touching, hands to self.” I’m like, “Gosh, what is the problem with? This is seniors.” But okay, so this is my little soapbox theory, whatever you want to call it. I wonder if it’s a pendulum swing from having social distance during COVID where they do not know how to socialize at all. And now they’re socializing, but it’s just, I don’t know. Sometimes I’m like, is this some weird developmental milestone that they missed out on? And so now it’s got to show up before they become adults. So we might have this for a little longer. I don’t know.

There are a lot of teaching moments there, and we probably need to take advantage of those teaching moments. That’s a good point. I do want to highlight, though, beyond the nonsense that we’re talking about, there are actually some really serious points, really good conversation in the community about that. And I would say just the ones that really stood out to me or the themes that stood out to me consistently. Just the of Gen Alpha’s apathy, their work avoidance, a lot of middle school and high school teachers commenting that students never read directions anymore, and they’re almost helpless if you’re not holding their hand every step of the way. And that seemed to be a huge source of frustration for a lot of teachers. Robin Murphy talked about how her resources that used to work so well, all these things that she spent all the time putting together, these teaching resources, basically don’t work at all anymore. Todd Liebman, he put this very succinctly when he said, “Students are spending more energy avoiding the work than it would take to actually complete the work.”

Oh my gosh, yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

No, that was a very, very good point and very well said. Dawn Krueger said that Gen Alpha is struggling with self-regulation in general, volume control in particular. Lee Gorton also said volume and impulse, but then she also said, “I got to say I’m a huge fan of their weirding of the language. And I’m in love with the brain rot, and I’m here for it.” So I appreciate that.

Full circle.

I need to more to that mindset and kind of be entertained by the language rather than annoyed by it. So I appreciate that perspective. And then Deidre Forgione said, “My freshman boys cannot keep their hands off each other. It gets a bit inappropriate at times.” Like we said, with these teaching moments, she said lots of reminders about personal space and consent. So again, it’s annoying to have to remind them constantly about that, but it is something that we need to do. So any of those things that you want to chat about a little bit more, Janet?

I think the not following directions, the apathy, the work avoidance, I feel like yes, those things still kind of wrapping together. And I don’t know, I felt like things were finally getting better. But there’s still, I don’t know, what do you want to say? Snags groups. There’s always a few that is still really stuck in that place. And it’s just a really disheartening part of teaching them right now. You know what I mean? The other stuff, it’s annoying, it’s ridiculous. I can laugh about it and roll my eyes or pull my hair out a little bit, but sometimes I think that just the apathy or that lack of motivation is just the hardest to really manage. Because it’s like I’m doing a tap dance and you’re still not entertained. What else can I do to get you to do the work? And these kids are just not, and this is a generalization. This group of kids that I’m saying that are struggling with this specifically are not motivated by grades or not motivated by credits.

Not to be too flippant, but not motivated by anything. Yeah.

It used to be, okay, I can do these fun things, let’s do it. Whatever. But sometimes I feel like I am working really hard for you to pass my class. And I’m not sure why I’m working so hard for you to not work at all.

Yes. Well, I think that’s the difficulty we all face, because it’s fun to laugh at slang and worry about kids touching each other too much. But those are really on the periphery of what we do. But then when it comes down to why we’re really there, doing the learning, doing the work, putting in the effort, and no matter what we do, you’re not making a lot of headway there. That can get frustrating. That can be a struggle that’s really difficult. And again, we don’t have the answers. This is new to so many of us. And the things that we’ve learned and things we’ve done before are not necessarily working. And so that’s why I appreciate being able to have these conversations, being able to share these ideas and just seeing we obviously don’t have the solutions, but if we’re all putting our heads together, we’re all having conversations within this community, I think it’d be helpful for a lot of people.

Yeah, it’ll be really interesting. Because that kind of stuff is the things that we worry about really I feel like are the long-term implications of that lack of motivation or apathy. What is going to happen when the students are not students anymore? What is the next generation of our workers and people?

Yeah, for sure. And again, that’s another one that we could dive into a ton. But no, it’s something to think about and to reflect on, and I think that’s why a lot of us worry about these things. So I think it’s good to put it out there and to have those conversations, but we can leave it there for the day.

Thanks to Janet for coming on. I hope you enjoyed the conversation, and we hope you enjoyed hearing from the community. And if you are not there yet, we would love for you to join us. It is, like I said, an amazing online space. It’s filled with positivity and professionalism, great conversation, great ideas. I love the discussions are happening. I love the connection. So if you have some time, please come check it out. We’ll link to the community in the show notes, or you can find it at community.theartofeducation.edu. I hope we see you there.

Art Ed Radio was produced by the Art of Education University with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Please be sure to subscribe so we can join you again. And if you love the show, please jump over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen. Give us a five star rating, maybe even leave us a review. We are also taking questions now for the January mailbag. If you have any questions about what to do after break, how to start a new semester, how to reset your classes after break, or anything else that you want advice on, we would love to hear them. Email Timothy Bogatz at theartofeducation.edu or podcasts at theartofeducation.edu with any questions you may have. We are looking forward to reading them.

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.

Last week I talked with Dr. Theresa Haugen about advocacy in the art room and how we can advocate for our programs, for the arts and for the benefit of our students. Today’s conversation will be somewhat adjacent, but we’re coming at it from a different angle. Kyle Wood will be joining me in just a minute to talk about what we can do to give back to the field of art education.

So with Thanksgiving coming next week, I’ve been thinking about all the things that I’m grateful for, and I’m a big believer in how gratefulness can lead to positive action. Because when we express our gratitude and we feel uplifted, but we also feel indebted like we want to pay something back or maybe in this case pay it forward. So that is going to be the framing for our conversation today, what we are grateful for within this community of art educators. And there’s a lot to be grateful for, but also the actions we can take to give back to art ed if we want to pay it forward. So let me bring on Kyle and we can start talking about some of these ideas.

Kyle Wood is back on the show joining me again. Kyle, how are you?

I am doing great. I am well into the fall and just I like this time of year because I feel like kids are getting settled into routines and things are getting smooth, especially with the younger grades.

Yeah. For sure. And I love the fall. Outside of the classroom, I love just the weather. I love stepping on crunchy leaves. However, it’s been very damp lately, so the leaves are not as crunchy. It’s a little bit disappointing, but I am with you on all of the school things, like this is the time where things do start to run smoothly. You feel like you have routines down, you feel like you can really dive into stuff. So glad to hear that’s going well for you. And I don’t know, I guess our whole conversation today is just going to be about gratitude and thankfulness and paying it forward for lack of a better term. But I guess I would love to start before we get into that, of just how things are going for you. I feel like you’re a very regular guest at this point, so I’d love to know just kind of what’s going on with your classroom, what’s new with your teaching, what’s going on or what’s new with your podcast?

Well, I mean, I guess to start with gratitude, I’m thankful that you keep bringing me back because I love having these conversations because as an elementary teacher, I’m the only one in my building, and it’s so nice to have this conversation, this connection where it’s like I can nerd out with a fellow art teacher who gets into this stuff, and I love those opportunities. The art teacher at my children’s school was just texting me about stuff and wanting to get together to do some PD together and planning that out.

I’m really grateful that I’m reaching that point in my career where I am not sitting alone at the conference and I am starting to meet other people and know other people and make those connections and know who I can talk to learn about the things that I don’t know about yet, but I’m curious about and all of that. So I’m in a very happy place with a lot of stuff professionally, and I have the sweetest family in the world. My kids are the greatest human beings that I am so lucky to know, and I want to be just like them when I grow up.

I love it. No, I love hearing all of that. That’s really good. So hopefully, I feel like for 98% of the audience that’s really going to warm their heart and then 2% of the people are going to be like, “This is too cheesy,” and they’ve shut it off already, but that’s okay. We’ll move on with our gratitude and our things that we love and appreciate those things today.

And I guess let’s start, like you said, you’re in a good place professionally, and I feel like you’ve worked hard at that. And I think that’s something that a lot of us should be doing, could be doing more of, is trying to build that art teacher community, trying to build those connections. And like you said, when you’re all alone in your building, that’s very, very difficult. And so any place we can find connections, any place we can find community, I think that’s really helpful. So I would encourage as many people as possible to go out and do that. But just looking at your career, like you and I have both been doing this art education thing for a while, but what are you thankful for when it comes to all of your years in art teaching? What are you thankful for in your career?

Okay. So the thing that really brought me to a different space was actually … He wasn’t officially a mentor, but when I first started teaching in the district that I’m teaching in, I was split between schools and the art teacher who was in the other school had been there for a decade, experienced, knew the ropes, and he showed me a lot of tricks to make lessons better. But then we just got along so well that we started experimenting with stuff. Before Zoom was a thing, we were sending messages back and forth to each other’s classrooms and trying to video conference between classes. And that led to pilot programs that we started doing and then we collaborated on a video project. And just to date myself and how long I’ve been doing this, back during the Obama administration, they had the White House Student Film Festival, and my kids got to go to that because of the work that we were doing.

I don’t think I ever knew that.

They only did it for three years, but the first year they did it, we were an official selection.

That’s awesome.

It was a super cool experience. But what I was getting at there was just being open to make a connection with another art teacher and work collaboratively. And I was starting and new to the district, but before that, if I’m being 100% honest, I had a little bit of an overly inflated sense of my own skill. By third year teaching, I was like, okay, first year I got through it. Second year I feel like I kind of know what I’m doing. Third year, it’s like I got this down. And then having to start over in a new district and seeing what other people were doing was a little bit humbling, but being able to accept that help from another person and accept another person’s insights and viewpoints was a tremendous growth moment for me. And it led to so much growth that I never would’ve thought was possible back when I thought I was good at this job.

Yeah. No, I like that. And I think the willingness to help from the mentors perspective is something I’d like to talk about a little bit more later on. But I think that is something that is vital to keep moving this profession forward. And I think that along those same lines, just the willingness to share, the willingness to help other people who are also facing the same things is something that I appreciate when it comes to art education. It took me a while to realize, hey, I should start going to state conferences. I should start going to national conferences when I can.

But then once I did, I saw how many opportunities were out there to connect, to learn from other people, to just see what other people were doing and allow them to share that with me. And that was, like you said, so incredibly valuable, such a growth moment when you finally realize that there’s so much out there and there’s so many things that people can share. And once you tap into that, it makes everybody better. And so I think that’s something that we should do more of as well. So yeah, I don’t know. Any other thoughts on that? Just the idea of connecting or the idea of sharing out what we have?

Well, I think the other thing that I’ve come to realize is that I was really intimidated when I first started going to those conferences. I didn’t know anybody. And outside of the couple of people in my district, I know obviously, but when I went to the conferences the first time, I think I saw one person that I kind of recognized. And it was very intimidating because the first time I went to those conferences, I was thinking these people are all so much smarter and more experienced than I am. And I think the thing that I realized is just like so many other avenues in life, everybody has something to offer and we need to recognize that and appreciate that in others, but also recognize and appreciate that in ourselves.

And sometimes I feel like we don’t give ourselves that permission to brag a little bit and to recognize that we’re good at this, we have something that can help someone else. And it’s really not even boastful. It’s generous to be sharing your expertise once you’ve learned that, okay, this is how I get a kid to stop throwing the paper towel in the sink. You’re listening, you figured that out, please email me because I need to know.

No, I think that’s right though because we all have good solutions for different problems. We’re all creative people. We teach art, we are creative, and we’re going to come up with creative solutions. And it’s good to share those out. And like you said, it’s not bragging. It’s not saying, “Look how great I am.” It’s saying, “Hey, I might’ve figured this out. It may work for you too.” And just being willing to share that. And like you said, it goes both ways. There are so many things we can learn from from other people, but we also have a few things that we can share ourselves.

And I guess that brings me to my next question, which is just the idea of helping other people out. Because people who feel gratitude, people who are appreciative are more likely to pay it forward. And I’m definitely of that mindset. I like to spend a lot of time appreciating what I have. I like to spend a lot of time thinking about how we can share, how we can pay that forward. So I have a list of ideas, but I’ll put the question to you first. What are some ways or how can we pay it forward professionally? How do we give back to the field of art education?

So I always start by thinking in terms of the smallest sphere and then work our way out as we become more comfortable. So it starts in your classroom and once you feel like you’re comfortable in your classroom, because first year you’re in survival mode and you don’t need to take on that pressure to help other people at the same time.

Absolutely.

Get yourself afloat first and that’s perfectly okay. But I think starting by just making those connections, finding your people, even on a small scale, doing the lesson swap and sharing those hacks and stuff like that, it makes a big difference. Being that person on social media who, if you’ve seen my stuff on social media, you can see how uncomfortable I am in front of the camera. I am not that person who has that bubbly personality and can share stuff, but I’m like, “Okay, here’s how you can rehydrate a brick of clay and it’ll work for you.” It may not be fun to look at, but this’ll work and that’s okay too. Whatever you can put out there that’s going to help someone or put a smile on someone’s face. Sharing the art teacher outfits I see all the time and stuff. Nobody wants to see pictures of my outfits, but it’s nice when I see like, wow, you coordinated really well. And anything that brings a smile to someone, I applaud.

But I suppose we should probably get into the more formal aspects, like taking on that mentorship role. I talked initially about my buddy Chuck, who listeners of my podcast have heard come on so many times because he’s my person who’s always like, “Okay, someone canceled. I need to record an interview in an hour, be ready to talk.” And he’s always there with a yes. That makes such a difference. Taking on those mentor roles when you feel like you know what you’re doing, being able to give that lifeline, give that feedback, and do it for others.

Yeah, I was just going to say, I have loved that role and the opportunities that I’ve had to do that. I remember when I first started teaching, my wife started at the same time. We both had mentors, we were the mentees, and she had somebody in our subject area that they became fast friends. My wife learned everything. They’re still friends 20 some years later, which is amazing. And I had somebody who didn’t know anything about art and barely talked to me, and it felt like a huge missed opportunity. And so when I had the chance after you talked about after I got my feet wet, after I felt like I kind of knew what I was doing. The opportunity came about to mentor someone.

And I feel like that’s just such a valuable thing for both of you because not only are you able to share your knowledge, share your experience, share your ideas. You’re also able to put yourself in their shoes and able to remember what it was like to be a first-year teacher and think about, oh, these are the things you struggle with, and it helps you to reflect on your own teaching and think about why you’re doing what you do. And I think that can be worthwhile for both of you.

And I think along those same lines, I really enjoyed the opportunity to have student teachers in my classroom. And I feel like that’s a great opportunity to, again, impart some knowledge and some experience, but also it’s good for students to hear a different voice and hear a different thought on projects, on creativity, on every aspect of the process. Having those additional voices is something that I think is valuable for everybody. I don’t know. Have you had student teachers before? Have you gotten to experience that? What are your thoughts on having student teachers?

So I haven’t had full-on student teachers. I’ve had the practicum students who are doing observations and teach a couple of lessons. Every time after they do that because in Illinois at least we get certified, maybe it’s changed since I went through the process. I had to do elementary and a high school placement and we had to go to different stuff.

Yes. Same here.

So I haven’t seen someone through the whole process. I’ve had two practicum students do observations, both positive experiences, both very wildly different students personality-wise and different ideas. And the thing I found was I not only felt really good about being able to give some guidance and give some help to someone who’s just trying to figure out this world of education. I also learned a lot from them because of both what you said about being like, you have to be very deliberate and thoughtful in terms of how you explain what you’re doing. And then you start to realize like, oh yeah, maybe I should be doing it this way, the way I’m telling them to do it. But also you have another artist in your room who has new ideas that you have not even considered. And the thing that worries me most is the thing that I’m blind to. I’m already working to correct all the faults that I know about, but there’s so much that it never even would’ve occurred to me. And I love that.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it makes everyone better when you have the chance to really analyze what you’re doing and share those ideas, see new perspectives. I think that’s all really valuable.

Another thing I was thinking about, and something you mentioned as far as PD is just sharing lessons and ideas. I think that’s a great way for us to, again, just pass on that knowledge and that experience. I love to share lessons. I love to share ideas. People may use them, they may not, doesn’t really matter to me, but I really love putting those ideas together and just putting them out there because if that can help even a few people, then I think that’s really valuable. And I think everybody has the opportunity to share.

Obviously not everybody has a podcast where they can do random episodes of their favorite lessons, but everybody has the opportunity to share in their school or in their district or at the state level. Just there are different times in professional development, different connections you have with teachers that you can share your ideas or even if it’s on social media, just passing ideas back and forth. We can add to what each other are doing. We can bring new ideas, we can bring new perspectives. And I think sharing that out can again be helpful for everyone. I guess I just talked for two minutes about it, but Kyle, any other thoughts about sharing ideas, sharing lessons and what that can bring us?

No, I think you’re hitting it. I just want to say I am so thankful to all of you who share your stuff on social media. That’s how I use social media. I’m not good at posting stuff regularly. I’m not good at talking.

So you’re lurking. Are you a lurker?

I use it as a research tool. I generally don’t use it for a lot of happy, relaxing interaction. I use it like I’ve got a class coming in here in an hour, and I hate everything that I have ever done and so I need something new. And then I see a colleague of mine has posted a delightful Jeff Koons inspired balloon dog drawing, and I’m like, yep, that’s what I’m doing next hour. I love seeing that stuff, and I’m so grateful for everyone who puts out a good YouTube channel or the AOE obviously has great YouTube content that I have stolen from. And I love the stuff that, especially videos, I am such a big fan of the videos where I can actually see and understand the process. So thank you to all of us who do that.

Yes, big thank you to everybody who puts anything, any resources like that together. Like I said, we are making each other better. I’ve also thought about paying it forward through advocating just for art ed in general, like going to school board meetings and talking about accomplishments or what your kids are doing. Just any chance you have to brag on your kids. Let’s say they make it into, I don’t know, a White House student film festival. You got to get out there and promote that and advocate that because it helps talk about how the arts are helpful, why they’re so important.

And it doesn’t need to be the school board, but you can even just educate your colleagues in the building about what you do with art, what your kids are accomplishing with art. Take those things to your assistant principal, your principal, anybody else in your district, and kind of talk about the cool things that you were doing, what kids are getting out of your classroom, and just let people share or share with people and help them to understand what we are doing in art and why it’s so valuable. Do you do things like that? What does advocacy look like for you?

Okay. I have talked at school board meetings. Usually not … I’ve been to school board meetings when they’re doing like, okay, a recognition for this or whatever.

Yeah.

But in all honesty, I think in my experience, the most effective advocacy is actually asking for help, is actually asking for stuff. Because you build relationships with people when you’re working together for a common cause, and when you reach out to a local charitable organization, there’s a local educational association that has given me grants for stuff before. And then I take pictures of how I use that grant money, and they can use that at their fundraisers. And they love it because the art stuff that they fund always photographs beautifully so they can bring stuff in. And then there’s happy smiling kids using these things that they bought for the program. And so they become the advocates instead of me talking to the community saying, “Look at this great thing I’m doing.” It’s a trusted organization saying, “Look at this great thing that’s happening because of your support.” And then everybody feels good and invested in it.

And along similar lines, I have found that parent volunteers are the greatest advocates for my program. And so when I was younger, I used to be hesitant to call in volunteers because I thought asking for reinforcements is showing that I can’t handle the job.

Right. I have the same feeling.

And I felt like it signaled a lacking in me. And the thing I realized, especially once I became a parent, is those volunteers are not coming in because they think you can’t handle passing out water dishes. They’re not coming in because they are loving to wipe up slop and spills. They’re coming in because they want that moment where they see their kids smile as they enter the room, and you are giving them that opportunity. You are giving them that warm fuzzy moment and that memory, and they are going to look at whatever you’re doing in the classroom with a very generous eye. And then that creates that positive chatter.

And I have had parent volunteers who have written to my admin saying, “This lesson that Mr. Wood did,” because I only call in the parent volunteers for my home run lessons. It’s not my hardest lesson. It’s the ones that I know will go smoothly and everyone’s going to feel good about. But I’ve had parents right to my admin saying, “This was the coolest experience and I’m so glad.” And that’s the best advocacy when you get other stakeholders to recognize that value. So just bringing in other people as partners and letting them feel like they’re a part of the success, they’re going to want to brag about your program because they’re a part of it then.

Yeah, that is wonderfully said and Kyle, another reason I appreciate always having you on is because you end the episode so very well, I don’t even have to say anything after that. So I appreciate you putting all of those thoughts together and just kind of sharing your perspective on all of these things. Can you stick around for just a bit longer and we’ll play a quick game of This or That?

You know I’ve always got time.

Okay. We are now going to play a quick round of This or That Art History Edition, because Kyle, you have the Who Arted Podcast. So I could not think of a better topic than art history. Are you ready to go?

I am ready. Although I got to say this is the highest pressure I think I’ve ever felt talking to you because I feel like you’re going to … You know my weaknesses, you’re going to expose me for the fraud that I am.

No, no, no judgment here. No judgment here. We’re just running right through these. I need to know who you prefer. Let’s start with Keith Haring or Jean-Michel Basquiat?

Oh, I’m going Keith Haring.

Right.

Honestly, no shade to either, but Keith Haring, I absolutely love because the older I get, the more I just appreciate something that is earnest and positive. And Basquiat, there’s so much good in his work, but there’s also just so much layering to it. And Haring’s is so direct, and I love that. I love the directness and the earnestness, and there’s something I can’t get enough of.

Okay. Self-portraits or landscapes?

To teach or to create?

From art history, would you rather see people’s self-portraits or would you rather see their landscapes?

Oh, this is going to depend on who it is because that’s so much … I’m going to say the self-portrait. At the end of the day, I like something that reveals somebody’s true nature and their character. And whether it’s like a representational or an abstracted, I probably favor the abstracted and more conceptual.

Okay. All right. Manet or Monet?

Oh, Monet. Monet. Monet was my entry point into art. I still, to this day, remember second grade art awareness, seeing Monet’s work, and I went home and I remember saying to my dad, “I know what I want to do. I want to be an artist.” And my dad looking at me and just being like, “You’re going to be poor,” which he is such a good sport about every time I tell that story, because the fuller story is he was just warning me, “Most artists struggle. And for that, I support you in it.”

That’s good. All right. Napoleon leading the army over the Alps, Jacques-Louis David version or Kehinde Wiley version?

Oh, I’m going to go with the Wiley. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. I think Wiley is one of those artists that I am starting to feel like I’ve seen his work too much, and so I’m starting to pull back from it a little bit.

Oh, interesting.

But I do like what he’s doing with a lot of the backdrops that are becoming so much more. There’s a lot of creativity in it that I appreciate, the different way of presenting the subject.

All right. Surrealism or impressionism?

I am still going to go … My heart is always with impressionism. My head starts to go a little bit towards surrealism, but I’m going with impressionism.

All right. I love that we have discovered your one true love in art history, and it’s Claude Monet. This is fantastic. All right, and finally, Frida Kahlo or Diego Rivera?

Ooh, I’m going to go with Frida. Frida’s work is a little bit more interesting to me and Diego, while I appreciate a lot of ideas behind what he was doing, I feel like there’s too much that I’ve read about him as a person-

It’s tough to get over that.

Well, the artist and biography thing, I’ve always looked at a little bit like, okay, is the artist’s biography intertwined with their work? And when I look at the city of industry murals and then I read about how he was treating his workers, it’s hard for me to get past that. Whereas other stuff, I can separate them mentally. And Frida, I mean, obviously you can’t separate her biography from her work because her most famous work was very autobiographical.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Cool. Well, that is all I have for you. No wrong answers on This or That, but somehow you and I agreed on all six of these, so I’m excited that we’re aligned on all those. So, cool. Well, Kyle, thanks for playing.

That is tremendously validating. Thank you.

Well, thank you for playing, thank you for coming on the podcast, sharing all of your ideas. I appreciate all of it as always.

Oh, it’s great. Thank you for having me.

I will go ahead and wrap it up because as always, Kyle and I talk for way too long. But I enjoyed our conversation. I enjoyed playing This or That at the end. And of course, more than anything, I hope we are able to give you some ideas that might work for you somewhere throughout the conversation today. And I hope you can take a minute to be grateful about what art education has given you and what you might want to do if you were to pay it forward.

Art Ed Radio is produced by The Art of Education University with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Thank you as always for listening to the show. We would love for you to share this episode with anybody who might find it worthwhile. And if you’re loving the podcast, please leave us a five star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We appreciate the ratings and the reviews. Now next week is Thanksgiving week. We will revisit an episode from the archives. Then we’ll be back the first week of December with another mailbag episode with Amanda and me. So if you have any questions you want answered, email me at timothybogatz@theartofeducation.edu, or podcasts@theartofeducation.edu. We’ll talk to you then.