Episode 9. Inspiring Reluctant Artists in your Art Classroom

Art Teachers, in today’s podcast, we’re going to talk about Inspiring your Reluctant Artists or Art Makers.

Encouraging students to make art can sometimes happen easily and other times, it’s a challenge. You bring out, act out, or show your “hook” and BAM! They’re engaged and are wanting to do their best. Depending on the age or the student’s own personal experience with creating art, this is sometimes a challenge and you might even get a complete refusal. As a teacher, it is our job to encourage a student to create. After many years of experience teaching, and having taught art to students from Kindergarten to Grade 12, I have a few tricks up my sleeve in terms of getting ALL your students to create art, even if they really don’t want to.

Before we dive in on looking at different approaches, it is important to know that building a relationship and earning your student’s trust is key for success, not only for the art project you’re working on, but to create an environment where the student always feel safe when making art. A lot of the time, the barriers for not wanting to create are: self-judgement, fear of peer judgment, fear of failure, and lack of exposure to creating art. Remember, that creating art can make a lot of people feel vulnerable. Creative thinking and using new mediums or materials can make people (including students) feel uncomfortable. All of these prevent individuals from wanting to do their best. A lot of times kids act out or are reluctant to try because they fear what their peers might think. And isn’t this true for us as well?

Let’s take a look at some strategies you can try out in your classroom! Make sure you stick to one for a while to ensure that the new habit or pattern makes a difference (1 day is not sufficient).

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EPISODE SHOW NOTES: https://msartastic.com/2021/01/18/inspiring-the-reluctant-artists-or-art-makers-in-your-art-classroom/

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