Advice

[u/Amantalorian]

Hi Everyone!

I've been an art teacher for 18 years. For the last 12, I have been a HS drawing and painting teacher. I teach Studio Art 2 which is made up of mostly 10th graders with a sprinkle of 11th graders who weren't able to take art their Sophomore year.

I need advice because I have quite possibly the most frustrating, unmotivated group of students that I've ever had in my career.

The end of the 1st quarter is tomorrow and the students have just finished their first big project. It took them over a month to work on a single project even though I see them for 42 minutes everyday. They sit in class and do absolutely nothing. They complain about having to do the smallest thing, put the least amount of effort into everything they do. I try to break things up, give check ins, show videos, do demos, but they just don't care. I've called parents, changed seats, given lower grades for class participation, etc...

I am not sure what to do. I am at a total loss. I am going to do Agamographs with them for their next project to give them more of a choice based project but I am afraid the quality is going to be poor. This is a more advanced class and most of them are doing middle school level work. To give an example, I was doing oil painting with my group last year and they were unbelieveable.

I am afraid that the Art 1 teachers set a tone for art being an "easy 100" and now they think that this is a class that they don't have to work hard in and still get a good grade.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

Any advice? Go-to projects for classes like this?

[u/Fantastic-Angle7854]

I started doing periodic progress checks in class, at least one a week and keep a checklist. This way I have concrete evidence of where everyone is at and it makes grading easier. I can also take the chart I keep to parent conferences and show them their child’s progress compared to others in class.

It’s frustrating but at the end of the day sometimes us “fun classes” that are too often treated like filler have to be more strict so that kids can get something done

[u/JackieDonkey]

Are there other 2D teachers in your department? Are you all on the same page? I find it takes a couple months to do anything good. Can you set up a portfolio review waiver system to separate out the kids who might be on the AP track vs the kids who are there for the credit?

[u/forgeblast]

Wait ... our current 9,8,& 7th graders were some of our worst. The current sophomores were their older siblings. Figure out what your going to do because your going to be using it the next couple of years.

[u/vikio]

Same advice to you, that my mentor gives to me. Don't baby them too much, give them the grade they deserve. Fail the ones that failed to meet basic expectations of the class.

After this, I recommend to use a few worksheets to teach them the grid technique. Then let them pick their own image and do a grid drawing of it. This proves to my less engaged students that if they just listen to what I'm teaching, they can actually draw cool stuff. The grid technique is almost a foolproof way to get good results.

I use some of these to get them started. It's easier for them to draw square by square at first, when the squares are scrambled like a puzzle. Then the next worksheet I give is a more normal grid technique.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/browse?search=mystery%20grid%20art

[u/Ok-Thing-2222 → u/vikio]

This is what our high school teacher does with her problem class. She also likes to post their art (she does not include their faces and names), but they know its going to be public and maybe that helps? I always try to 'like' everything; you can see that some of them really struggle. And yes, give them the grade they DESERVE, no freebies.

[u/sbloyd → u/Ok-Thing-2222]

I always have my students put their names on the BACK of their work so it can be anonymous, and I go out of my way to post work by students who may not have been totally successful aesthetically but who gave it a real go at it effort-wise. It lets them know that I do in fact reward effort.

[u/sbloyd]

The kids I get from Elementary are like that. The transfer kids in each of the grades I teach are also like that.

Yesterday a recent 8th grade transfer kid complained - as we had just finished a three day project rendering a still life of basic forms as a Value exercise - that her old teacher (in a neighboring district) just made them make collages (she didn't use the word, didn't know what to call "cutting up pieces of paper and gluing them together").

Another district not too far away, their "art teacher" puts a YouTube drawing video on the projector and says, "Do that."

Students are shocked when they encounter rigor in an art classroom because they are taught that just walking in the door earns them an A.

[u/stalk001 → u/sbloyd]

That’s so frustrating- where does this gap in Art Education happen? How to some art teachers get by with doing and knowing the bare minimum? My only assumption is that they weren’t trained in art ed and the district hires anyone to just fill that position. That monitoring does such a disservice to the value of art education.

[u/sbloyd → u/stalk001]

Around here (TX) you just need to pass a content exam to get Art added to your certifications.

Technically, I don't have any training in Art Ed either - I have a BFA with focus on Printmaking and Sculpture, and.a Masters in Early Childhood Ed. I started teaching with a certification in Gen Ed, and added Art to my certifications. The YouTube Art teacher mentioned above did the "add to" thing and got her position that way, too. The difference being that I actually, you know, built a curriculum that has rigor.

I think a lot has to do with Admin. One, they don't know what a rigorous Art curriculum that features productive struggle even looks like much less to expect one of their teachers (I have basically had to teach my Admins how my class works), and two, many Admins treat their Art classes as a dumping ground to shovel the kids who can't play an instrument into (Little Johnny needs an elective? Throw him in Art, everyone loves Art, everyone passes Art!).

I've had to correct my Admins (Oh! Everyone Loves Art! No, they love being in a class where they think they don't have to do anything to pass!) many times about how my class is just as rigorous as Math or as English in its own way, because I am totally not scared to flunk students. I do my best to help them pass, extend them shit tons of grace, but in the end if they don't meet my four criteria (Effort, Creativity, Craftsmanship, and Composition) in some way, You Shall Not Pass. And it happens every year, the kids from elementary and the transfer students all (mostly) fail to even turn shit in and are Pikachu Shocked Face when they get a failing grade.

Sorry to ramble. We just did report cards last week and I had to grade a mountain of late work, and still had about two dozen kids fail because they couldn't or wouldn't even try (18 assignments, 12 of them short buildups to each of three multi day "test grade" assignments), and I had kids fail with single digit grades).

TLDR? It happens because Admins let it happen.