3 Helpful Ways to Stop Letting the Cuteness Competition Make You Hate Teaching
If you’ve been teaching for any amount of time, then chances are you may have found yourself letting the cuteness competition make you hate teaching. I know about this all too well, which is why I’d like to share a few helpful ways you can navigate this trap and truly enjoy your teaching journey.
3 Helpful Ways to Step Letting the Cuteness Competition Make You Hate Teaching
Make sure you are following the right people on social media and on Pinterest.
You want to follow other educators who are currently working in the field. For instance, you could start a shared board on Pinterest for Authentic Art Projects with other teachers in your district. You also want to follow people who have extensive experience in the field and who have worked in multiple settings with multiple grade levels.
Finally, follow people who are communicating that the process is more important than the product on a regular basis. Follow me and we can be on this journey together because I too am always looking to avoid the cuteness competition. Just like everyone, I want to create work with my students that is visually appealing, but the process comes first!
The bulletin board and hallway displays need to be effective before they are cute.
I see a lot of beautiful posts and beautiful pins depicting bulletin boards teachers have created. Yet, so many of those do not look like a student ever touched anything on it. That makes me wonder who the displays are really for. Are they for the internet? Other teachers? Other adults in general? Or, are they for the students? They should be for the students.
Let the students have a hand in creating those displays. Let them make the posters that have the titles, etc. Even if you don't want them to hand letter those, you can let them choose fonts and resize text and print them out.
Just let them help you. This communicates the right things to the kids. That they matter. That their learning is more important than perfection. This matters a lot, guys. The adults working with students of all ages have to stop breaking their backs to communicate visual perfection because of the internet. That is not what we want our students to learn from us. We already know social media misinforms us about what life is supposed to be like. Why do the same thing with what we display in the hallway? Plus, once you let this go, you will get a break from some of the pressure of teaching.
The job is hard enough anyway, don't make it harder worrying about these hallway displays being cute enough to go viral on social media. Take a look at some of the boards I share on this blog. You will see the kids definitely had a hand in them. You will also see how effective they are at continuing to facilitate the learning process.
Check out this post about hallway displays and this post I wrote for IAS.
Use SMART Thinking to help you sift through the junk on the internet.
There are a lot of things out there that exist solely to be cute. A LOT! I know it is tempting to grab those because we are visual people and want to do the cutesy things, but SMART Thinking will help you avoid that urge if you use it when its time to start planning lessons.
Final Thoughts
Don’t continue to let comparison cause you to lose track of why you became a teacher in the first place. We all have value to add to our students and it’s looking within that will help you stay focused on that. If you’re looking for a unique to display your student’s artwork, check out my Documentation of Student Learning: Pick 3 Menu for Hallways Displays.
I’m Amanda, and I align standards and integrate content to help teachers meet the needs of the Whole Child in art class! I have yet to find a standard that I couldn’t teach through art, and I want to share it all with you.
Not sure where to start with bringing art and content together? This freebie guide is packed with 25 ideas to align your art lessons with math and ELA standards. Your students will be crafting art and practicing algebraic thinking. Win-win!
I want all students to feel successful in the art room, so I created a standards-based Daffodil Collage lesson to do just that! The lesson includes an artist study, student reflection, and more, so push your artists to their full potential.
Follow along on my Instagram page for more tips on teaching the Whole Child in the art room!
Connecting art and content together doesn’t have to be mind-boggling. I’ve made it simple with 25 math and ELA art lesson starters - for free! Plus, I included 15 worksheets for students to reflect on their art-making journey.