Managing the Art Room: Communication for Success

Middle school is an important time for students to experience success. As educators, it is critical for us to create classroom cultures that encourage student achievement.
The art room is a place where student success is even more essential, whether the student is interested in art or a self-identified non-artist. Experiencing success in the art room will allow both of them to see themselves as capable students.

I have found that being intentional about communication is one way to create a classroom culture that sets all students up for success.

Foster Connections
Relationships are essential for student comfort and success. To foster great relationships, we need to invest time in communicating with each other. We are great at setting aside time during the first week of school to engage students in relationship-building activities, but what are we doing throughout the school year to continue to learn about our students’ lives?

Build in time each week to connect with your students’ lives outside of school. Not only will you continue to learn about their interests and foster a deeper connection, but youʼll learn about what their home life is like, allowing you to incorporate their home culture into the classroom culture. This can be as simple as a warmup question or as in-depth as a community circle.

Utilize Community Circles
Community circles are often discussed in the context of restorative justice and used to assist students in breaking down and communicating their issues. But community circles are most effective when they aren’t an isolated occurrence. When circles are part of the classroom culture, they are more effective in mitigating an issue, and they create a line of open communication in the classroom.

I use community circles at least once a week for both social and academic purposes. On Mondays, we use the circles to share a highlight from the weekend, and on Fridays, we share something weʼre looking forward to. Sometimes we use community circles to share takeaways from that day’s lesson.

Clarify Expectations
Middle-schoolers are known for their strong sense of justice, which can become fervent at times. Most of the time when a conflict arises, it has something to do with the student’s sense of justice being compromised. Students need to feel that their environment is fair in order to be comfortable and accessible to learning. As a result, our routines and expectations need to be clear, concise, and justified.

Whenever I have a conflict with a student in my class, it usually stems from a lapse in communication about expectations or an “unfair” consequence. It is important to reflect on the expectations you have in class, the timing of those expectations, and how you are communicating them to students.

Letʼs consider the expectation that all students must be seated. Is it necessary for all students to be seated all the time? I rarely sit when Iʼm creating art, so why do I expect my students to sit while they create art? When is it appropriate for students to be out of their seats? While it may be best for some students to work standing, there are times where it is necessary for students to be seated, such as during direct instruction. How are we communicating this to students? We need to be clear about what, when, and how.

Give Students Time
I divide my class into five parts: warmup, debrief, studio, closure, and cleanup. The expectations for each part of class are posted, reviewed, modeled, and repeated every day. During debrief, students are expected to be seated, quiet, and attentive because that is when I deliver direct instruction and essential information for the day. I communicate and justify this to students, explaining why they need to be seated quietly and attentively. I also give students appropriate time to transition from what they are doing into this expectation by counting down slowly and repeating the expectation as I count. Allowing time to meet the expectation appeals to their sense of justice because it gives them time to hear, process, and respond to the request before they might be called out for not meeting it.

Conclusion
Creating space for connection and implementing clear communication strategies creates an environment where students feel respected and valued as individuals, ultimately setting them up for success.