The November Mailbag: Staying Hands-On, Critiquing Social Media, and Calmer Classrooms

Our first question is from Lauren in Vermont.

And Lauren says, I teach pre-K through fifth and I'm receiving a lot of pressure from my principal and assistant principal to do more digital art and more projects on devices with my kids.

I understand that digital art can be important, but kids are on their screens all day.

I want to have kids in the art room working with their hands and tactile materials and observing the world around them.

Advice on pushing back or responding to the pressure in a professional way.

I really want to prioritize the kind of art making I think my kids need.

Great question, Amanda.

What are your thoughts here?

This is a great question.

The first time I read this, I was wondering where the pressure is coming from.

Yes.

Is it truly what they want or are they getting pressure from the district? Or from

parents.

Or from parents.

I

thought that too.

Yeah.

I feel like there might be some sort of data point tied to usage that's used to like rationalize the expense or something.

Okay.

Yeah.

So regardless, I'm a huge fan of advocating for not using the devices, but I think approaching it with that curiosity might help you in your approach.

So why do they want students to create art on their

device?

This is so weird to me because I feel like many administrators don't have an intimate knowledge of what goes on in the art room anyway.

And so I don't my guess is that they can't really articulate the artistic reason for wanting them to do that.