BONUS: One Skill Art Teachers Say Matters More Than Technique

In this S5E14  @schoolutionspodcast BONUS,  I unpack  @katedriscoll931 's revolutionary approach to education that prioritizes observation over analysis, pride over perfection, and joy over data. Whether you're teaching art, math, or anything in between, Kate's strategies for classroom belonging, student engagement, and inspiring students will transform how you think about effective teaching.

What if the most important thing we could teach students isn't in any curriculum guide? Art teacher Kate Driscoll, whose video reached 80 million people, believes the answer is simple: teach them to notice.

What You'll Learn:
• Why teaching observation before interpretation changes everything for student participation and attention in class
• How to create conditions for authentic pride (not participation trophies) that boost student motivation
• Kate's assessment philosophy that starts with "What do you like about your work?" – a game-changer for low engagement
• The power of using contemporary, local artists to increase student engagement and create meaningful home-school connection
• 5 concrete strategies you can implement Monday morning for active learning across any subject

Kate sees 400 students for just one hour each week, yet every child leaves her classroom carrying pride and creative confidence. This approach to inclusive teaching and culturally responsive teaching works because it honors the whole child while building student success through real autonomy and choice.

Perfect for teachers, education coaches, school administrators, parents, homeschoolers, teacher mentors, instructional leaders, and anyone committed to education transformation and empowered educators.

Referenced Episode: Season 5, Episode 14 - "Why This Art Teacher is Making Kids Love Creating" with Kate Driscoll

5 Try-It-Tomorrow Strategies:
1. Practice noticing – really seeing without devices
2. Create conditions for pride through real challenges with autonomy
3. Find contemporary, relevant connections to your curriculum
4. Ask "What do you like about your work?" before offering feedback
5. Remember the joy you bring

Weekend Challenge: Take a noticing walk with your students. Count colors in a leaf, observe shadow patterns, really see your environment. Email your observations to schoolutionspodcast@gmail.com.

Chapters
0:00 - Introduction: The 80 Million View Video
1:00 - The Power of Teaching Students to Notice
3:00 - Observation Before Analysis: What Students Are Missing
4:30 - The Radical Skill of Paying Attention
5:30 - Creating Conditions for Pride (Not Trophies)
6:45 - Contemporary Artists: Making Curriculum Relevant
8:00 - Assessment That Starts With Self-Reflection
9:30 - Remember the Joy You Bring
10:30 - 5 Try-It-Tomorrow Strategies
12:00 - Weekend Challenge: Take a Noticing Walk
13:00 - Final Thoughts: Teaching the Extraordinary in the Ordinary

🚀📚 Watch the full S5E14  ⁨@schoolutionspodcast⁩ interview here (https://youtu.be/wWpZsQCFHvI)

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Transcript

What if I told you that one Facebook video about our education has been seen by 80 million people? And what if the teacher behind that video believes the most important thing she teaches isn't how to paint or draw, but simply how to notice the world around us? If you have not listened to my conversation with Kate Driscoll yet it is season 5, episode 14, why This Art Teacher is Making Kids Love Creating.

Pause this bonus. Listen to that episode. It's right below this one, and then come right back. Kate Driscoll said something during our conversation that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. “If there's one thing I want kids to be able to do when they leave me, it's to notice.”

She didn't say to paint like Van Gogh. She didn't say to sculpt like Michelangelo. She said, just to notice, to see [00:01:00] how many colors are actually in a leaf. To recognize patterns in tree bark, to spot the art that's all around us. Today, I'm unpacking why this simple idea might be revolutionary, especially in a world where our middle and high schoolers struggle to describe what they see without immediately jumping to what they think it means.

We've trained ourselves and our students to analyze before we observe, to interpret before we see. Over the next 15 minutes, I'll share why her approach to creative autonomy could transform any classroom and how her assessment philosophy, starting with “What do you like about your work?” might be exactly what our data obsessed education system needs.

Plus, I'll give you five concrete strategies you can use Monday morning, whether you teach art, math, or anything in between, because as Kate reminded us, “The most [00:02:00] important thing that we teach isn't any curriculum guide. It's teaching our students and ourselves how to open our eyes.”

Let's dive in.

This is Schoolutions Teaching Strategies, the podcast that extends education beyond the classroom. A show that isn't just theory, but practical try-it-tomorrow approaches for educators and caregivers to ensure every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive. 

Welcome back to this Friday's bonus episode of Schoolutions Teaching Strategies. I'm Olivia Wahl, and I am still thinking about my conversation with Kate Driscoll that released earlier this week. There are moments in conversations that just stay with you and they shift and push you to see the world differently, and that's what happened when Kate said to me, “Art's all around us. Just open your eyes.”[00:03:00] 

Today, I want to unpack why those words matter so much, not just for art teachers, but for every educator, every parent, and honestly every human being trying to navigate our increasingly fast-paced notification-driven world. 

Let me paint you a picture, and yes, the pun is intended. Let's say I'm sitting in a high school classroom watching students analyze a piece of artwork, and the teacher asks, What do you see? And immediately hands go up. The kids say, I think the artist was depressed, or It represents capitalism, or it's about climate change. And the teacher replies, “Wait, but what do you actually see?”

At that moment, I realized the students couldn't name what was in front of them without jumping to interpretation. They couldn't say, I see the blue hue in the photograph. [00:04:00] Or I see the part of the photograph that's in color, while the rest is in black and white. They'd lost the ability to simply observe before analyzing. And here's Kate Driscoll teaching five-year-olds to count the colors in a leaf, teaching them to notice how branches grow. Teaching them that observation, pure patient observation, might be the most important skill they'll ever learn. So think about it, when was the last time you really looked at something, not glanced at it while scrolling, not photographed it for Instagram, but actually observed it? This isn't just about art, it's about presence.

This is about teaching our children and ourselves to slow down enough to actually see the world we're living in. Because if we can't see what's literally in front of us, how can we see each other? How can we notice when a student is struggling, how can we catch [00:05:00] those micro-moments of joy or confusion or breakthrough?

Kate's students leave her classroom knowing how many colors are in a leaf, but what they're really learning is how to pay attention. And in this day and age, that might be the most radical skill we can teach. 

And there's something else that Kate said that I keep coming back to. She said that she wants every child to leave her art room carrying pride, not just carrying artwork, carrying pride. I've been in hundreds of classrooms and I can tell you the exact moment when a child feels proud, their shoulders go back. Their eyes get brighter. They hold their work a little differently, like it's precious - because it is. 

But here's what struck me about Kate's approach. She's not manufacturing pride through false praise or participation trophies. She's creating conditions where pride grows naturally. And what's [00:06:00] important to remember, Kate has 400 students. 400 students. She sees each child once a week for an hour, one hour to make them feel capable, creative, and proud, and she does it. How many of us with our smaller class sizes, with our daily contact, are we creating those same conditions for pride?

And now I wanna highlight something Kate does that I love when it comes to curriculum design. Kate shared that she focuses on contemporary Australian artists, not Van Gogh for the hundredth time. Not another Starry Night recreation, contemporary Australian artists. And why does this matter so much? Because as she shared that story about her student and the child pointed out that he knew the artist of the mural, Anya Brock, and that he knew her work and he knew how she used those colors in her art.

[00:07:00] Kate empowered that child to become a teacher. That child showed their parent that they possess specialized knowledge about their own community. That child disconnected school to real life in the most organic way possible. Think about this in your own curriculum, how much of it is inherited? How much of it is, we've always done pumpkins in October, and what if instead you found artists, authors, scientists, historians from your own community.

Kate isn't just teaching art, she's teaching relevance, she's teaching connection. She's teaching her students that creativity isn't something that just happens in the past to dead people in far away places. It happens right now in their own neighborhood. 

One of my favorite parts of our conversation was when Kate shared about how she assesses art. She basically said that assessment starts with “What do you like about your work?” [00:08:00] So let's sit with that for a second. In an education system obsessed with standardized metrics, rubrics, and grade levels. Kate starts with self-reflection. “What do you like about your work?” and “What would you do differently? 

And here's the genius part. She's not throwing out all structure when they study an artist. The class creates criteria together. They look at the artist's work and identify patterns. What makes this artist’s style distinctive? What elements appear consistently, then they create their own criteria for success. The students know from the beginning what success looks like because they helped define it.It's on the board the entire time they're working. No gotchas, no mystery rubric that appears at the end. Complete transparency. This is assessment as learning, not assessment of learning. [00:09:00] The students are constantly evaluating their own work against criteria they helped create. They're developing internal standards for quality. 

How many of our students are trained to ask, What do you want? Instead of, what do I want to create? Kate's students ask both. And that balance - meeting external expectations while maintaining personal vision. That is a life skill. 

I want to end this bonus where Kate ended our conversation. Because when I asked her what message she had for demoralized teachers, she got emotional and said, “Just remember the joy that you bring.” So for all of you listening and all the standards and assessments and data meetings and differentiation plans, we cannot forget about joy. Not fun, but joy. That deep satisfaction that comes from creating something that didn't exist [00:10:00] before. The joy of noticing something beautiful. The joy of solving a problem in your own way. The joy of being trusted with real choices. Kate sees 400 students for one hour a week, and she's determined that each of them will experience joy, not because art is easy or fun. Because creation is joyful, discovery is joyful. Being seen and valued for your unique perspective is joyful. 

Here's what I'm taking into next week, and I invite you to join me. Number one, I'm going to practice noticing, really seeing no phone, just observation. Two, I'm going to create conditions for pride by offering real challenges with real autonomy. Three: I'm gonna try to find contemporary relevant connections to whatever I'm teaching or coaching. No more inherited [00:11:00] curricula without questioning why? Four? I'm gonna ask students, what do you like about your work before I offer any feedback? Five, I'm going to remember the joy I bring, because if Kate can bring joy to 400 students in one hour a week, imagine what's possible for the rest of us. 

Thanks for joining me for this bonus episode. Kate reminded me that art isn't just a subject, it's a way of being in the world. It's about noticing the extraordinary and the ordinary. It's about believing that you can create something from nothing. It's about caring, pride in your heart and joy in your step. Keep noticing, keep creating, and keep bringing joy. Take care.

Schoolutions Teaching Strategies is created, produced and edited by me. Olivia Wahl. Thank you to my older son Benjamin, who created the [00:12:00] music playing in the background. You can follow and listen to Schoolutions wherever you get your podcasts or subscribe to never miss an episode and watch on YouTube. 

Here is my weekend challenge.Take a noticing walk. And then take a noticing walk this week with your students. No creating, just observing. Count the colors in a leaf notice shadow patterns. Really see your environment. And then email me at schoolutionspodcast@gmail.com with your noticing observations. Make sure to tune in every Monday for the best research back coaching and teaching strategies you can apply right away to better the lives of the children in your care.

And stay tuned for my bonus episodes every Friday where I'll reflect and share connections to what I learned from the guest that week. I'll leave you with this big idea: Art Education's greatest gift isn't teaching technique. It's teaching children to [00:13:00] notice the extraordinary in the ordinary. It's building the creative confidence to approach any challenge, thinking I could make something with that.

And connecting them to the living, breathing artistic community right in their own neighborhoods. Join my conversation with Sarah Zerwin on Monday. She talks about her book Step Aside and how we can empower our secondary readers and writers to own their learning journey. Until then, remember, our education's greatest gift isn't teaching technique. It's teaching children to notice the extraordinary in the ordinary. It's building the creative confidence to approach any challenge, thinking I could make something with that. And it's connecting our children to the living, breathing, artistic community right in their own neighborhoods. Take [00:14:00] care.