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My students get choose to among media based stations at the beginning of every art class. My curriculum fosters exploration, creativity and artistic communication. I have created an environment in which my students are invested in and responsible for the outcomes, which means they take care of the space, the materials, are committed to learning and to helping each other. I often ask for their feedback on our structure, procedures, and expectations to ensure I am providing them with the best experience possible. Some of my best management tools started as student ideas. This project comes from a conversation with students about how to balance being excited about our work and respectful of those working around us. I didn't want to tamper my students' excitement over their artistic discoveries, but I also wanted to maintain a quiet, distraction-free environment for students in flow. After a few discussions one student raised their hand and suggested headphones. The rest of the students immediately chimed in their support of the idea. I knew a few teachers who had a small number of headphones in their rooms, so I got busy coordinating a classroom set to borrow. The next week we rolled out the headphones, and they were a huge success. Students have never been more focused. An unexpected outcome was the improved retention of art lessons. By reducing the background noise students were able to better apply my lessons, such as how to incorporate texture to increase realism, or how to use space to create drama in a picture. My students reported feeling less stressed in the art room and more proud of their work. After the test run, I told my students I would begin fundraising to get our own classroom set of headphones for them to use.
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