25 little things to cultivate a creative art room culture

It can happen.  If you set up the culture of your classroom just right and if you make sure all of the kids needs are being met, you CAN keep a class full of 30+ middle schoolers with a variety of needs fully engaged and excited about learning and creating.  A must see visual featuring five levels of engagement put out by educationaltechnology.com has been floating around facebook this week.  If you haven't seen it yet, click on the link above.  I thought I would spend a little time this week writing about the everyday little things I do that add up to create a creative HIGHLY ENGAGED culture in my middle level classroom.

1. Create and post everywhere a stress-free classroom motto like, "You are not here to prove yourself, you're here to improve yourself." Talk about it.
2. Tell your students, "Only you know the right answer". Make them discover their own solutions to problems. Have them use you as a coach and not the "end all be all" source of knowledge.
3. Have your students free write often to sort out ideas, but do not require them to show you everything that they write.  Respect their confidentiality and soon they will feel safe to share on their own.
4. Model creative behaviors. Share the creative ideas of others. Tell your students when and how they have inspired you!
5. Don't sit behind your desk. Get up and circulate, talk about the weekend, tell a funny story, be a real person to your students.
6. Help your students find their own passion. Share your passions with them.
7. Offer lots of opportunities for students to work collaboratively or independently as they choose.
8. Say "Yes!  How can I help you get started?" when students approach you about doing something different as an alternative to the assignment. If they are seeking alternatives, that means they are thinking! I have never been let down by a student who wanted to take something in their own direction. It's about letting go of some control.
9. Do your best to remove barriers to creativity. In the middle grades especially, the fear of not being able to make something look right can really deter some great ideas.  Students (and adults) will often choose an easier or less creative idea if it means they don't have to struggle with making something look exactly right. Occasionally allow students to skip over technical skill development in order to achieve creative meaning in their work. (Collage is one method, I'll write about others in a future post.)
10. Encourage wierdness, silliness, play good music that everyone likes, dance and sing and make a fool of yourself from time to time.  Creativity dies in a sterile environment.
11. Give your students "tools" to work with. Doing something without care is meaningless. Let them choose which tools they need for each job.  Occasionally, pull a student aside and give them the "special" drawing pencil or "super expensive" :)  drawing paper and see what they do with it.
12. Give them informal opportunities to become experts with a particular media and allow them to teach you or another student something they discovered.
13. Even if you don't feel the most confident with technology, offer technological options for your assignments. I learn so much from my students this way and they love showing me new things.
14. Don't ask or tell your students to do their work, invite them to experience.
15. Consider what personally engages and excites you as an artist or creative person. Think of ways this can translate into your classroom.  Don't put your kids through those boring foundations lessons you suffered through in your undergrad program.  Find better ways to teach boring things. If it's not enjoyable, why do it?
16. Require students to respond differently from each other.
17. Tie everything you can into their everyday experience and provide new experiences for them too. Ask them how their work relates to their life.
18. Everyone likes to learn, our brains are hardwired for it. The trick is to make sure that you are teaching something that is new.  How many times do you think a middle school kid has made an artwork about "line" since they started school?  They get it, "a line can be straight, jagged, curvy or implied".  So what?  What have you learned that's new to you?  If it's new to you, you are likely to be inspired, share that with them instead. I bet they end up using "line" in their work.
19. Be funny, truly care for each child, look for opportunities for growth, put in the extra time whenever possible and most importantly, you must love your (work?).
20. Begin each class with a creative warm up that encourages off beat thinking and is not skill based. Offer opportunities to share the silly responses daily on the projector. It helps build class community. (watch for prompts in a future post)
21. Challenge your students to know more than you know. It's ok not to know everything. Consider yourself a student in the presence of many teachers.
22. Introduce your students to new ways of thinking by asking good questions, with starters like "What if..., When can..., How might...., Why doesn't..., Who does... ?"
23. Provide opportunities for students to share and respond to each others work constructively both formally and informally. You should model appropriate comments as a guide.
24. Keep working on an idea until you are excited about every part that you will teach. If you are not excited, how can you expect your students to be?
25. Have high expectations for yourself and your students, you will all rise to meet them. 

Please share more ideas in the comments section of this post!  Have a great week!