This is Fine: How Environment Can Make or Break A School Year

This is my Schrodinger’s Blog Post; it is both the easiest and the hardest thing to write. I am looking back at one of my earlier posts about teaching environment and my own classroom setting and thinking about how it has changed so dramatically in the last 2 years. At the time of writing that past blog post I had just finished boxing up my classroom from what is now our “old” high school building, readying to move into the “new” high school building in my current district. The focus of the post you are reading is, like the one I am reflecting on, directed at how environment affects teaching practice and how teaching practice creates an environment. This past school year, indeed the last 2 years, have been a personal case study in exactly this topic. The stress of the last 2 years has been so high that my lifelong ADHD has come back with a vengeance, so much so that I have had to rethink almost everything about how I create and build environments for myself and my students. It is often not just the existence of a space, but how the users of that space interact with it that is most important.

Environmental Concerns

If you didn’t sign up to read a laundry list of environment problems created by poorly completed school from the Garman Miller Architects and Robertson Construction Co., feel free to skip this section and read ahead. I write this to provide context for this year. My environment was not stable at the time of writing that past entry. There were many hesitations about moving into the new building, many changes we did not yet fully understand the scope of, and many uncertainties. As we learned more and more about the construction of our new school, I found myself becoming very discouraged with the new “upgrades” and changes that the district had made in building the new space. While we had a lot of opportunity to provide information and requests to the builders directly, all of our detail notes, diagrams, conversations, needs, and requests were wholly ignored. The idea behind creating much of the new space was to keep classrooms as generic as possible to accommodate changes in room assignments or changing numbers of subject specific classes each year.

This meant that the “generic” package for an art room that our district chose to purchase was much like a bare bones version of a science room, with incredibly minimal attention to the actual needs of a visual art room. Our digital art room initially came with 6 total outlets to provide power to the 28 computers until the issue was raised by every single teacher in that same hallway who taught technology specific classes. Our ceramics program lost an entire room, with the throwing wheels mashed into the same room as the rest of the tables (which take up an entire room on their own). The ventilation for the kiln and ceramic storage room does not have a single fan in the exhaust system, and to this day it still causes frequent fire alarms when clay dust has nowhere to go. My specific drawing and painting classroom was provided a single small drying rack with a total of 50 individual racks, while painting classes exceeded 100 students this past year. There was no large-scale flat file storage anywhere in the new facility, and the only reason we can store the large 32”x40” matboard pieces we brought from the old building was because I made an executive decision against the suggestions of administration to mark our current beat-up large metal free-standing flat file to move from the old building to the new. Every single shelf in the new facility feels incorrectly sized for whatever needs to fit into it. Many of the cabinets are ½ an inch too small for the nearest standardized size of paper or matboard, or an awkward number of inches too large so that it provides just a little too much empty wasted storage space that nothing can comfortably fit into. Some parts of the construction were never done, and others never done correctly. Two years later I still don’t have the cord required to connect my computer to the speakers in the classroom, and I never received the secondary monitor on plug-in hub that was supposed to be in my room to run the tech in the space. I kept the old desktop I still had in my classroom from the old building and use that to run the tech because the district provided laptops were never meant to run that many periphery devices for 8 hours a day, every day, for 180 days a year in addition to being used at home for planning and grading. The contractors had severely damaged the floors in the art rooms with deep gouges in the polished concrete from their equipment and a dumpster (the art rooms were the last to be finished in the school, and thus became the lunch/garbage/prep room for all other construction), and never repaired it because they were not told the directions we had explicitly provided to not add the laminate floor covering in the art rooms. Their plan was to just ruin the concrete and hide it with laminate. Public schools in Ohio must take the lowest bid on construction contracts and it really, truly shows in this building. It’s pretty, but it’s all smoke and mirrors.

Stress Testing the System

My personal teaching philosophy hinges on ideas of space and where we fit into the larger whole. When the current world stops making sense or working efficiently, I believe it is time to reinvent it so that it does. I build systems, artworks, spaces, and curriculum out of a design to make something better than what was before. This manifesto of mine has never been put to a stress test like what this past school year provided. In the “old” school I had a system in place for easy supply distribution and work storage, a clearly defined course structure that ensured that I knew what students did and did not know prior to coming into the classroom, and a program built to cultivate high quality work and student learning. I could go home only slightly after contract time, had time to spend with my wife, and could run in the morning before school and work out after. Everything worked the way I needed it to. Covid didn’t really show any immediate damage to the systems I experienced daily. In some cases, it even improved things. While I would never speak highly of a global pandemic, I can appreciate that our administrators provided time and training to complete our asynchronous videos, provided constant support when there was pushback against covid protocols, and showed almost daily appreciation for what we do as teachers in a trying time. That was only the short list. Teachers made time to help each other out, and made more home contacts for both struggling and succeeding students than any other time I’ve taught before. It’s amazing what can be done when there is a unified group of people working together towards a common goal. As a teacher I want my students to understand that point; we all exist in community, and it is both a give and take. The same goes for the subjects in school. There are no silos of subject matter, no true dividers between departments. Everything is interconnected and how we create those connections gives our world meaning.

“Post”-covid teaching provided real challenges. We were “done” with covid protocols, 40% of our students came back from online learning to in-person, my class sizes increased from a standard 28 up to 36, almost all students showed signs of the “learning loss” from covid, my courses were restructured against my better judgement and choice, and we were expected to do everything as “normal” as it used to be. But nothing is “normal” anymore. This idea that you can just put the toothpaste back in the tube is absurd. Everything can’t go back to the way it was once we have changed our world. There is no “ctrl z” in the real world. My sense of where I fit into the teaching profession was challenged daily and I had to rethink everything about how I teach and set up my room. My principal asked me what was different this year during one of our meetings. Everything is different. While much of my teaching philosophy is based around building spaces and communities, I find that this past year I’ve had to gut the space like a fire-damaged house and rebuild from the charred studs. This year I’ve felt that I must do it all alone. I had barely seen another human above the age of 18 at school in a teacher’s lounge, workroom, or hallway unless I physically make the effort to come to their classroom and interrupt their day full of endless tasks. We are often asked as educators to “remember your why” in the misguided manner of toxic positivity to justify keeping going when things are hard. Almost every part of my “why” was taken from me this year. Oddly enough this showed me more of what I need to practice and change to make things better. A stress test of a system like this year had been is very much the kind that will break or bend the strongest system. For better or worse, it provided important data.

What Did I Learn?

As I looked back on my blog post about the “Hmmm Collection” (a list of 10 items present in my working space), I found that much of what I’ve been trying to improve and change has been alterations of these items in my classroom environment to better suit the needs of the participants. Many of the items listed in my “Hmmm Collection” were things that I find myself using as coping mechanisms for my ADHD. In a twist of fate (for better or worse), I noticed this year that much of the issues I’ve seen in my students boil down to a lack of executive function from the “covid lag.” This could be my ADHD bias, or it could be legitimate. I believe the old saying goes “when you are a hammer, every problem is a nail.” Much of the choices I have made to dramatically change my learning environment spring from the background of ADHD executive function coping mechanisms. Much of my interest in my research thus far is focused entirely on building a better classroom environment to make this job achievable. At present it is not sustainable. I need my classroom to reflect a functional way to achieve goals and learn so that my students can pick up some of those very organizational systems that work for them and keep them the rest of their life. I have had so many students this year alone who also have ADHD and I recognize the struggles in them. The space in which I teach must be crafted to suit my needs so that it makes sense to me, but it should also be accommodating to my students with their diverse needs whether they are like my own or not.

This year my environment is everything. It is the successes and the failures. It is the people and the space. It is the systems and the chaos. It is time management. It is technology and all the improvements and problems that come with it. I have put every ounce of my being into making this environment work better. I am burnt out, angry, and exhausted by the place I work. I have fought with this environment for an entire school year that has been wholly new to me and completely unprepared for. I knew it was going to be difficult, but you can’t expect what is unpredictable. We are bound by our own past experience and I have not experienced much like this before. Building a space that I can achieve my goals as an educator has taken so much of my time this semester that I have not been able to complete my research for graduate school and will be pushing back graduation for an entire year. My research has been a constant feedback loop of action, analysis, reevaluation, and action again. There has been little time for much else. This is one of my ADHD hyper-fixations taking hold from a deep need for consistency and efficiency. I need my time back more than anything else. I know as a teacher we are supposed to be focused on the students but the fact remains that you can’t pour from a broken, empty cup.

The 10 Things, and How They Relate to the Current Environment

I think the easiest way to address the changes to my teaching environment would be to reflect on each of the 10 Things that I find present in my working space that I cultivate. I will preface this with the fact that this has been, by far, the worst year I have ever experienced in the teaching profession. Every teacher has had that group of students, that school year, and that schedule. I had all three, all at once. Add this to the covid lag and learning loss that many students are experiencing in addition to what seemed like an exponential growth of additional tasks to keep the classes and school running, and I was faced with the problem of needing to reinvent almost everything that I do or use in the classroom. What follows are my adjustments to the common tools of my working space:

The Organizer – In all my working spaces, I’ve had a need for a tool to collect and organize all of the varieties of information to be dealt with. I’ve used for many years a Google Slideshow for the student’s Daily Directions, which I have altered this year to better accommodate the types of classes I teach. I have color coded the slides by class to help both myself and the students differentiate between them. The Directions also have been split to include a weekly overview for students who have missed days. A side benefit of this organizer is that it will also act as a rough outline of what I need to discuss and present for the classes, and a reminder of the week’s events. I have also created a Google Classroom to hold all of the information that students need for any given project. It acts as a one-stop shop for everything in the course content and notices about assignments. This organization tool I have also adjusted to include picture emojis to further code the content for ease of use. For next school year I intend to create a website for all classes to serve as a more comprehensive information hub for my classes. The intent is to include resources for students who need extension activities, curriculum adjustment resources for students with learning differences, calendars of events, example projects, and PR for the courses. This will act as a companion site for the Google Classroom.

The To-Do List – The Daily Directions Slideshow also acts as the to-do list for students. Sometimes multiple slide per class are needed, but at least one of them will have a detailed list of steps that students should follow to complete the work for the period. The difficulties I and my students have with multi-step processes can be easily corrected if a checklist of steps is provided for us to work our way down the list. This school year the list has felt less than optimally useful given that due to the size of my classroom and number of students it is often difficult for those in the back of the room to read the directions at their largest possible font size. Next year I may be adjusting the Directions sheet to also incorporate the two whiteboards on either side to extend information that doesn’t often change like the weekly calendar and project criteria. I have found this year that constantly updating the whiteboards is a laborious and time-consuming endeavor that I do not wish to complete that often.

The Book – In past years I’ve had students work with a blank sketchbook which we fill with anything and everything that we practice or need to remember for the semester. I always refer to it as a “build-your-own-textbook” for the class. There have been problems with the sketchbook resulting from lack of student engagement and reading directions. Students have been struggling to even find the correct drawings or pages in their sketchbook because they often pick an arbitrary page and doodle very small in the top corner, so they never find the right page when flipping through the bottom of the book. There has been a distinct lack of effort put into organization and the covid lag has hit hard this year, resulting in students developing learned helplessness behaviors that take the shape of an unwillingness to take the initiative to find, create, or utilize resources that have been provided through multiple methods. I began using a bullet journal style paper folder “sketchbook” of sorts to help combat the lack of organization. First semester was a fairly stripped down version that involved some spaces with reference sheets for things like elements of art, some drawing challenge pages, and some handouts with directions. I tried to have them number the pages when we added new things to the sketchbook. This failed tremendously. Because the sketchbook has pockets the result was that many students just stuffed new pages in a completely disorganized manner into the pocket, despite specific step-by-step instructions on adding the pages into the book each time they were received. What was successful was when I gave them a large amount of blank pages and made them number them in advance. This prompted the change for second semester where I constructed the first 40 pages in advance as a reformatted Google Slideshow, prelabeled all the first pages, created an index page, and further organizers to use for the digital portfolio they must also create. The Daily Drawing Challenges I incorporated into the first 40 pages and provided a predetermined 4x6 size for the students to draw into, complete with rubric for grading next to each space. This worked wonderfully. The students needed something to keep them on track to begin the class period, I needed them to take more time to perceive visual imagery, and they needed to practice drawing more. The Daily Drawings solved these problems. It was a huge challenge for me to find work for them to draw each day so I crowdsourced this as an assignment for the students to collect images that they would enjoy drawing. This worked mostly well. Some issues with lack of participation drove down the count of images provided, but there were still enough to pull from to keep interest. This book was a HUGE undertaking this year to create all new content for my courses but I foresee it becoming more of a textbook with instructions in the future. I would like to transition back to regular blank sketchbooks but I don’t think it will be possible for at least 1 more year to get the students back on track.

The Lighting – This part of my classroom has changed mainly due to the new space. In the old building, I had a few rows of track lighting that could be adjusted to illuminate different still life objects or parts of the room. Their dramatic lighting was wonderful for varying light and shadow. The single row of windows on the far wall of my classroom illuminated only part of the room, which further assisted with changing the lighting for use in drawing and painting. In the new building I have 2 very large centrally located windows that I can open as well as close the blinds to. The classroom, like all of the other rooms, has (after a month of corrective action) a working set of switches and lighting situations programed into the wall switch by my desk. I can dim the lights, switch certain light banks on or off, and the typical on/off function. I am disappointed that I can’t direct any lights, and the district has refused to allow any adjustment or addition to the rooms for the first 2, possibly 5+ years citing the building being new and under warranty. I am looking into acquiring individual Chromebook USB lamps that could comprise a full class set, so each student can have their own personal light adjustment for an individual still life. This is still in the planning stage and will need to be approved by our completely new administration team next year if it is to come to fruition.

The “Device” – For myself, I have what I’ll consider a multi-faceted tech “hub.” It includes a (very old) desktop computer that runs most of the resources in my classroom (still can’t connect audio to the room speakers), a district provided laptop for mobile work, a microphone that connects to the classroom speakers, and a CleverTouch board that acts as a secondary monitor as well as a separate, enormous tablet with it’s own “brain.” We have fiber internet, though we do share an access point with a nearby school in the district so the Wi-Fi gets very slow after 9 am. In general we are very fortunate in terms of technology in this school despite the numerous quirks. Our district has also given me my own Chrome cart of 30 Chromebooks that are touchscreen capable that were acquired with a covid technology grant a few years ago. The devices work wonderful for digital drawing, interactive displays, and using the higher quality front facing camera to photograph artwork. The students have a lot of options and opportunities to use technology in their artwork. We used the high speed Wi-Fi and the Chromebooks to access an A.I. program called Gaugan 2 to practice composition and create a reference image for a landscape painting this past semester. The technology presently in use in my room will becoming a more consistent part of my classroom. Post-covid I do have to do a lot more retraining with my students, ironically enough, on how to use technology effectively and appropriately. Due to the learning loss we must spend at least ½ to a full class period a week covering and re-covering how to properly use the technology to accomplish the tasks for the week. I’ll be trying to create some tutorials on how to use the technology this summer to provide to students this coming year for those who are chronically absent, as well as those who need a refresher. I will also be seeking grants or funding to purchase another 6 comparable touchscreen Chromebooks to complete the set I require due to the class sizes going from a manageable 28 to a barely manageable 36. Currently 5 students must use very old traditional Chromebooks and one must use a lesser version of a touchscreen Chromebook. This is essential for these items to work correctly if I am to require some classroom management strategies to avoid students having their cell phones present in the classroom. Next year will have harsher repercussions for unauthorized cell phone use in my classroom to help combat the onslaught of distractions, entitled behaviors, classroom drama, and blatant disrespect that occurred this year.

The Ambiance – Due to the increased natural light and clean wall space in my new classroom I have taken a keener interest in the ambiance of my teaching space. I have included more plants in the classroom to create a calming feel and often I will provide what I refer to as “chill tunes” from a lo-fi YouTube Channel Livestream. The students often ask for something else, but I decline. I may offer the opportunity next year for them to submit a song they like as a YouTube link in a Google Form so that I can create a “class playlist.” I’m still unsure if I will make this happen or if I’m willing to add this struggle to the things that need done. I will say that I will need to cut down on the visual clutter in the classroom for next year. It is overwhelming for me as a person with ADHD trying to navigate the space. The line I’m trying to find is between how many visual cues can I provide to help me and my students remember vs. how much is too much before it becomes background noise. I have color coded and branded the classes with a color and font type that matches their Google Classroom, supply locations, turn-in trays, and handout collection center. The feel of the room has gone from more of a high school specific space to more of an elementary school visual. The issues I had first semester were with students being unable to see or locate things in the classroom so I went overboard on the labeling to make sure they could find it. Still, there are issues with this and I think next year I will have to spend what feels like too much time covering how things are organized and where to find them. The storage situation in this new building leaves so much to be desired that it has become a huge problem of sorting, organizing, containing and repackaging supplies, and redesigning systems of distribution. I am hoping that I can find a way for the ambience to be clean, calm, and efficient next year but I think this is more likely a 2-3 year project.

The Tools – Tool distribution has been a large issue this year. There isn’t enough flat surfaces in the classroom to set up a supply distribution area for the diverse subjects I teach and keeping things in cabinets has come with the problem of labeling everything to the point of visual overstimulation or having things unlabeled but unfindable to the students who frequently miss school (which is much more than all past years I’ve taught). I’m transitioning everything into a kit that is specific to a numbered table spot in the classroom and to the tools and materials needed for the task at hand. The mess that comes with many art activities was compounded this year due to the maturity levels shown in beginner level students so I also transitioned to using a laminated “placemat” that I created to go underneath each student’s workspace. I will be redesigning these to have more functionality as a reference tool as well as placemat for next year. They have worked well for keeping the space cleaner. There is much more to do in terms of organization of supply distribution, however. Over this summer I will be playing around with some supply storage and distribution methods in the classroom to facilitate ease of access.

The WIPs (Works in Progress) – The new room has flat file storage in each table space with the unfortunate exception of the center table. It seems that the builders chose to cut corners and provide a single table out of the 7 needed that is smaller, lower, and missing all storage. I will possibly be finding or building something to add to this table for next year. Other than that unnecessary problem, the flat file storage works well when students are keeping it organized. Advanced Art Studio has had some issues with this because they had to share the classroom with another beginner level course and thus what would be more available storage for them has turned into cramped storage at a single table. I have made it exceptionally clear to administration and guidance that this will never happen again, and next year the class will be getting their own room, time, and storage. The flat file organization will need a recreation of the individual portfolios that existed in the old building, which I will be creating over the summer and laminating to keep things organized and clean. They will be numbered for each table space so students know which one they should use. If the directions are followed properly, if a student is absent, I will know exactly where to locate their work to grade if needed. The issue with storage has come in the system of getting work from the drying racks to the students. I had devised a system this year in which students use a color-coded binder clip for their table that must be added to their artwork before it goes to the drying rack. This clip is used to organize the works by table color so when they are placed in the project storage cabinet, the students can collect their works and bring it back to the correct table. I will be taking no part in the redistribution of the works because it is too time consuming and frankly a waste of my effort. I remove the works from the drying rack, bring them all to the period shelf and add them to the box. So far this has worked fine except for students who refuse to follow the system. After a few weeks of their work not being collected and passed back to them their peers begin to tell them to stop complaining and just add the clip.

The “Pile” – The bane of my existence and the plight of most with ADHD. Much of the visual clutter this school year has come from the pile of objects without homes, undone tasks, unfiled materials, and general tasks that cannot be completed before leaving the school at 6 or 7 pm. The task overload this year has created many difficulties for myself and in turn, for my students. It’s hard sometimes for them to find materials when the relatively small table at the front of the room for this purpose must be partially overtaken by stacks of artwork to grade or mat for the arts festival. Over this summer I need to complete an overhaul of my organizational system to have a place for each and every thing that could come across my desk. The “Pile” will probably never go away completely because you cannot plan for the unpredictable, but I can at least limit it. I have made so many notes and post-its and to-do lists with reminders on how to organize the clutter over this past year. I will be taking time this summer to try to solidify some methods and practices to make these ideas reality.

Looking Forward

I’m trying. I’m really trying. I feel like I’m trying harder than anyone else I know. It may be true or it may not, but at the very least it feels true enough. I am taking the trauma of teaching this year and picking it apart to find a better way forward for next year. This school year did not make any sense to me. I intend to make a new space next year that will. I will be setting more clear boundaries with colleagues, students, and administration for what will work and what will not. The boundaries of my space will be made clear and concise.

I have told my students so often that we learn from our mistakes, and it’s a great thing that we make them daily. I will be taking my own advice for the coming school year. There have been so many mistakes, missed opportunities, and misunderstandings that I should be a genius if I learned from them all. It is hard to see past the wall built of bad experiences this year but there are some good things that came of it.

I saw a need for community when I observed the social/emotional deficits in my students. I saw a need for community when I didn’t see my coworkers in shared work spaces. I saw a need for community when I saw the look of frustration in the face of every single person in that school. I saw a need for community when I read yet another email stating a staffing vacancy for next school year for a position of a colleague I know and will miss. This year I forced community into my classroom. Some days it felt like I dragged the classes kicking and screaming into that community. We made collaborative art, we created murals, installations, and a coloring book. The 2D/3D Design course created woven sculptures that hung in a joint installation to grace the front entryway. The Drawing classes created designs for a coloring book which was printed and offered to the students and staff to use as a stress reliever. The Painting classes created both a painted vinyl text mural with words describing what they enjoy about their community, and acrylic painted sign boards to decorate the classrooms of teachers who have made a difference in their life. I think the act of creating something for someone else has made a small difference in the lives of the students. It changed their paradigms in a not insignificant way. I hope to continue chipping slowly away at the SEL challenges students face in a post-covid world next year with similar projects and assignments that will continue to expand their understand of what art can do for a community.

#Environment