Subscribe to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast and Cool Cat Teacher Talk anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Today we're focusing on a thought leader and classroom AP Psychology teacher, remarkable educators! Here's something I've believed for most of my 24 years in education: if you don't have a student's attention, you just can't teach that student. Blake Harvard is the AP Psychology teacher behind The Effortful Educator. Blake says attention isn't a “nice to have.” It's a necessary component of learning, and it's exactly where we lose kids the most. This show with Blake will change how you think about every lesson you design.
In these ten minutes, Blake unpacks how students actually learn — the power of a quick pre-test, why piling a “fun” complex activity on top of complex content backfires, and the two strategies with more than a century of research behind them: retrieval practice and spaced practice. My favorite line? “You're not going to prepare for a game by watching practice.” That one will stick with you — and it might just change how your students study tonight.
Sponsor. Today's show is sponsored by EF Explore America and their STEM Tours. Lead your students on a STEM tour to places on the cutting edge of innovation to show them how STEM thinking often shows up where you least expect it. Imagine your students coding robots with MassRobotics at MIT, exploring marine ecosystems in Florida's coral reefs, or even sitting down to talk with a former spy in Washington DC. If you want to inspire your students and give them a fresh perspective on the power of STEM, visit efexploreamerica.com/STEM.
Listen to the Show
About Blake Harvard
Blake Harvard how to get student attention
Blake Harvard is a full time teacher in Alabama. He is in his 20th year of teaching and currently teaches AP Psychology. He has a particular affinity for reading research into cognitive psychology for implementation in his classroom to improve student outcomes. He began writing about how he implements these research findings on his website (www.effortfuleducator.com) 9 years ago. Blake recently released his first book, Do I Have Your Attention? Understanding Memory Constraints and Maximizing Learning. It focuses on memory processing and learning strategies that over a century of research indicates improve learning in the classroom.
Blake has worked with numerous organizations like ISTE, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the US Department of Education and has also presented to numerous faculties across the world about memory and learning.
If this episode made you think, share it with a teacher friend.
Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a sponsored episode and blog post. EF Explore America has compensated me to share information about their STEM Tours. However, all opinions expressed are my own. I have personally reviewed these resources and only recommend tools I believe offer genuine value to classroom teachers. My endorsement is limited to the educational products and services discussed in this episode. This post also contains affiliate links; if you choose to buy a book through one of them, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” The sponsor has no impact on the editorial content of this show.
Subscribe to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast and Cool Cat Teacher Talk anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Today's show is full of ideas — how to teach in today's world based on the current research and the best thinking, an AI researcher who stays grounded in being human, and a set of practical tool tips from instructional coach Amy Storer. But all the tools in the world don't matter if we don't build our classrooms on a foundation of relationship. So here's the throughline: the heart comes first, and then we pick the tools.
You'll hear from Dr. Patricia Dickenson, author of Smart Teaching in the Age of AI, on teacher-driven instruction and using AI to plan, differentiate, and rethink how we assess. You'll hear from Dr. Jie Tao, who leads Fairfield University's AI & Technology Institute, on building AI out of compassion and using it without giving up control. And you'll hear from Amy Storer on the tools teachers are most excited about right now. I think you'll come away with lots of ideas, real insight into the tools educators are using today, and practical tips you can use tomorrow. Heart first, tools second.
A note: part of this episode touches on suicide and the research being done to detect and prevent it. If you or a student you love is struggling, you can reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline anytime by calling or texting 988.
Listen to the Show
Key Takeaways for Teachers
From Dr. Patricia Dickenson — Teach heart-first, then let AI help
Bring your authentic self into the room. Patricia's design starts with the teacher's gifts, energy, and lived experience — not just the standards. Her own fourth-grade teacher, Miss Santa Maria, showed up through chemo and shaped her for life. More is caught than taught.
Use AI to plan, differentiate, and assess — without offloading your thinking. From custom GPTs that “unpack a standard” for a new teacher to analyzing 150 quizzes for skill gaps, AI can amplify a teacher's work. Used the wrong way it's a diminisher; used well, it's an amplifier.
Teach AI literacy, don't ban the tools. Frameworks like UC Davis's PAIRR keep writing human while using AI as a feedback partner. Students will use AI regardless — better that we teach them to use it wisely.
Keep it balanced. A composite-shapes lesson became a ten-minute, AI-built city-skyline art project that still let her differentiate up to a seventh-grade standard. Put your toe in; mix it up.
From Dr. Jie Tao — Build (and use) AI out of compassion
The best technology solves real human problems. Jie pledged to work only on research his own mother would care about — including a model to detect suicidal ideation and a free tool that summarizes medical research for patients.
Stop “prompt and pray.” A consistent prompting structure beats hoping for a brilliant answer. The interview pattern (have the AI ask you questions) and a “scratchpad” that uses only the information you provide make AI far more reliable.
Use agentic AI without giving up control. Jie defines the steps and gives the agent limited autonomy within each one — and cautions that fully autonomous agents still have “the memory of a goldfish.” Keep AI in a controlled environment; test it and try to break it before students touch it.
It's an “overconfident intern,” not Google. Knowledgeable but not always right. Understand what it can and cannot do, and step in to steer.
From Amy Storer — Coaching that clicks (and tools you can use tomorrow)
Adobe Express keeps getting more classroom-ready. Create a Podcast (studio-quality, with an Enhance button to clean up hallway noise), Animate a Character, and Quick Actions like editing or merging PDFs — all in one place.
Canva Code builds the interactive you imagine. Describe your “dream interactivity” (like a food-chain sorting game) and Canva AI → Code writes it for you — no coding required. Magic Studio handles background removal and more.
Little time-savers add up. Press a number key in Canva presentation mode for a timer overlay; use Scribe to auto-generate step-by-step, screenshot-rich how-to guides for families and colleagues.
Tools should lighten the load. “I'm team anything that saves teachers time.” Comfort and good policy help teachers move from worry to wise use.
About the Guests
Dr. Patricia Dickenson shares how AI in the classroom can help teachers plan, differentiate, and assess.
Dr. Patricia Dickenson
Dr. Patricia Dickenson is a Professor of Teacher Education. She began her career as an elementary teacher, and taught middle school mathematics. Dr. Dickenson was also a Mathematics Coach for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Dr. Dickenson has been a teacher training and consultant for Princeton Review, Harcourt Mathematics and Pearson. Dr. Dickenson is also a Cal TPA Assessor.
Dr. Dickenson's work has focused on designing instruction, planning lessons, and assessment. She has expertise in technology integration, Universal Design for Learning, and Adult Learning Theory.
Dr. Jie Tao on how the best technology is built out of compassion for real human problems.
Jie Tao is a leading AI Educator and Instructional Designer, and the founding director of Fairfield Dolan's AI & Tech Institute, specializing in translating complex AI concepts into practical business skills for non-technical leaders.
He designs and implements high-impact AI literacy curricula and strategic workshops for C-suite executives, as well as conducting academic research and practical consulting, designing agentic AI workflows and systems.
He is dedicated to demystifying artificial intelligence through a proprietary, hands-on methodology, and empowering professionals to lead with confidence and make smarter business decisions in the era of AI as an associate professor of analytics and the director of an international graduate program at Fairfield Dolan, and has received numerous research and teaching awards from top academic journals, conferences and institutions. He has also received recognitions from professional organizations (e.g., Nvidia Deep Learning Institute).
Instructional coach Amy Storer shares the practical tools teachers are most excited about right now.
Amy Storer is an Innovative Learning Specialist and respected speaker in Montgomery ISD who is passionate about empowering educators through purposeful technology integration.
She thrives on partnering with educators to enhance the great learning already happening in their classrooms and schools by leveraging powerful digital tools. Amy is a certified educator and trainer for Google, Microsoft, Adobe Express, and Canva, and she brings energy, expertise, and heart to every professional learning experience. Her work centers on meaningful PD, authentic classroom connections, and innovative strategies that make learning stick.
Each of these conversations will be edited into its own solo episode of the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast in the coming weeks. Subscribe so you don't miss the full interviews with Dr. Patricia Dickenson, Dr. Jie Tao, and Amy Storer.
Enjoying the show? A quick rating and review in your podcast app helps more teachers find Cool Cat Teacher Talk — thank you.
Disclosure of Material Connection: This episode includes some affiliate links. This means that if you choose to buy I will be paid a commission on the affiliate program. However, this is at no additional cost to you. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Subscribe to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast and Cool Cat Teacher Talk anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Happy Wonderful Classroom Wednesday, remarkable educators! Experiential learning works inside the classroom. It is especially powerful outside the classroom when you can travel with students. For 24 years, I've watched a single trip rewire how a student sees my classroom. This show with Angela Cannava will remind us exactly why experiential learning through travel is so powerful.
Watch on YouTube and subscribe for new episodes every week.
In This Episode
0:00 — Introduction
0:25 — Meet Angela Cannava
1:04 — Why she started traveling with students
2:39 — Curriculum-aligned trips: forensics in Great Britain
4:30 — What changed back in the classroom
7:33 — Belize: Ridge to Reef
9:12 — The midnight bat workshop
11:36 — Real-world connections
13:34 — Choosing the next trip
14:22 — Can any teacher do this?
15:44 — Closing & sponsor
Key Takeaways for Teachers from Angela Cannava
Curriculum-aligned travel turns “learn this” into “I've stood in this.” When Angela's students ran real DNA fingerprinting in a Great Britain forensics lab, a reluctant learner told her, “Everything you taught me is actually what they do in the real lab.” That's experiential learning through travel — the lesson stops being abstract and starts being real.
The trip changes the relationship, and the relationship changes the classroom. A student who'd said maybe ten words in three years came home from the tour and couldn't stop talking — about baseball, about traveling the world, about being inspired. Relate to educate: travel builds the trust that makes everything else teachable.
The learning ripples to kids who never left home. Students who stayed behind started seeing the subject — and the culture of the class — differently because Angela made it real-world, and her HOSA chapter grew because kids wanted in on something bigger than a normal school day.
You can absolutely do this — pick a partner and set expectations. Angela was terrified before her first trip; now she won't stop. Her two rules: build a diverse chaperone team so every student has at least one adult they connect with, and tell students exactly what they're signing up for (Ridge to Reef means mountains first, beach later).
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
EF Explore America — STEM Tours: The sponsor and Angela's travel partner for both trips. Curriculum-aligned STEM itineraries with local tour directors who handle logistics. efexploreamerica.com/STEM
Health Sciences in Great Britain (EF tour): The nine-day Scotland-and-England tour Angela led — forensics lab, DNA fingerprinting, anatomical museums, and the London Eye. EF Explore America
Belize: Ridge to Reef (EF STEM/conservation tour): Mountains to ocean — a midnight bat workshop with a research NGO, rainforest zip-lining, snorkeling, and a microplastics beach cleanup. efexploreamerica.com/STEM
HOSA — Future Health Professionals: The career and technical student organization Angela advises; her travel program helped grow the chapter. hosa.org
International Baccalaureate (IB): Northfield is an IB school, which is why Angela's international connections tie so naturally back to her lessons. ibo.org
Science teacher Angela Cannava shares how she brings experiential learning to her students through travel.
For the past 19 years, I have been a dedicated high school science and Career and Technical Education (CTE) educator, currently teaching at Northfield High School. During my time at Northfield, I established the CTE Biomedical Sciences Pathway and proudly serve as the advisor for our HOSA Future Health Professionals chapter. I am driven by a desire to take learning beyond the classroom walls — I began integrating international student travel into my program five years ago to help students apply their knowledge in real-world, global settings. I have been group leader for 2 tours including a Health Sciences trip to Great Britain as well as Belize from Ridge to Reef. Experiencing the world alongside my students has been transformative, positively impacting both their educational journeys and my own passion for teaching.
Other Shows for Science and CTE Teachers
Cool Cat Teacher Talk — “Traveling With Students”: The full radio/TV show where Angela and four other teachers share their student-travel stories. coolcatteacher.com/travel
10 Minute Teacher e936 — STEM Field Trips That Made Students Say “I Could Do This”: The multi-guest companion episode featuring Angela and three more EF group leaders. coolcatteacher.com/e936
If this episode made you think, share it with a teacher friend.
Episode Transcript
This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki
Click to read the full transcript
Vicki Davis: Today's show is sponsored by EF Explore America and the STEM Tours. To show your students how STEM impacts the world up close and in action, go to efexploreamerica.com/STEM and stay tuned at the end of the show to learn more.
Vicki Davis: Today we're talking with Angela Cannava. She's a high school science and career and technical education teacher in Denver. She's been doing that for 19 years. She has established the CTE Biomedical Sciences Pathway and serves as advisor for HOSA, Future Health Professionals. For the last five years, she's been taking her students beyond the classroom walls and leading international tours, including a health sciences trip to Great Britain and a Ridge to Reef expedition in Belize. So we're talking about how student travel transforms learning and your experiences, Angela. Why don't you start with your first trip.
Angela Cannava: My first travel experience with students was with EF Tours, in Great Britain. The reason I decided to take kids to travel in the first place is because I had actually gone on a tour with EF with one of my friends, Brian Jenkins, the year before. And when I was on that tour with him, I saw how much students' eyes were opened when they were traveling and how you could build different relationships with them and see them on a different level and get to know what their true interests are. That's what sparked me to want to lead the Health Sciences in Great Britain tour with EF tours. I was very nervous leading my first trip. I was like, my gosh, I can't believe I'm taking kids all the way overseas. But EF did a great job with helping ease my anxiety and my worry. I had chaperones with me, I had support, I had a tour director that met us right at the airport, and as soon as we got off that plane, the kids — you could just tell how excited they were because some of the kids that I took had never left Denver before. This was an absolutely amazing experience for them to actually get to be in a different country.
Vicki Davis: Wow.
Angela Cannava: So that trip was absolutely incredible. I had an amazing tour director, and one thing that EF does that's amazing is they have all local tour directors, so they know the area really, really well. I had an outstanding chaperone team, which for any teacher that's thinking about traveling, that's a very important thing to consider when you're doing your pre-planning — who your chaperone team will be. You want a nice diverse chaperone team where all the students will have a relationship with at least one of those chaperones. Just a little side note. We got to see so many cool things in both Scotland and England. The great part about the tour was the trip was aligned to the curriculum I'm teaching. One of the highlights was we went to this forensics lab and we got to do real DNA fingerprinting, look at fingerprint analysis. This was a real lab in a different country, so the kids got to see it from a different perspective too, which was so interesting. One of the students who wasn't necessarily the most excited to be in class sometimes — I just remember him coming up to me after the whole forensics workshop and being like, my gosh, Ms. Cannava, everything you taught me is actually what they do in the real lab. This is so cool. We did everything from health science related things, anatomical museums, seeing anatomical artifacts that have been collected from years ago, a lot of the old paintings that were done of anatomy, some of the first anatomical paintings that were ever done. That hooked really nicely into the anatomy class that I teach. But beyond the learning part, we went on the London Eye, and it was like sunset, and I have this picture of these students just looking out across the skyway, all smiles. I've never seen such happy kids in my life. It was a really good mix of getting to see really good sites plus the learning. A key for any teacher wanting to take students on a trip is, number one, knowing that you can definitely do it. If you build strong relationships with students, they will want to travel with you. And I was so surprised by how much the students actually wanted to interact with me. I could go on for hours about it.
Vicki Davis: When you brought those kids back from Great Britain from this tour, did anything change in your classroom or your relationship with your students? Like what happened after in terms of the culture around what you teach?
Angela Cannava: A lot — I took students all the way from freshmen through senior level. It was a very diverse group of students, and a lot of those students I did have in my class the next year. I saw they would talk about connections from the trip when we were learning material in class. For example, when I was talking about those anatomical drawings that were done ages ago, when we were starting our anatomy unit looking at some of these historical pieces of anatomy, one of the kids was like, oh my gosh, we saw that! And I was like, wow, what a cool connection to make. I got so many more students in HOSA, the career and technical student organization I run, because of that trip — because they saw that traveling beyond and being a part of something that's bigger than just your normal school day can do so much to enrich your life and your learning. We also travel through that organization too. It was very eye-opening, and we are an IB school as well, so having that international component that I can relate my lessons back to is really helpful. And like I said, building those relationships with students — having kids come in and just want to eat lunch with me and go back through the pictures from the trip, or talk about, do you remember that really gross dinner that we had? Because yes, most of the food was wonderful, but there were a couple dinners that some of the kids didn't love. And they're like, do you remember that? I don't think I could ever eat that again.
Vicki Davis: A lot of that is not because the food's not good, it's because it's different. And I think it's good for kids to have different experiences in different countries.
Angela Cannava: Exactly. Is it called haggis, I think, in Scotland? Trying — a lot of the food is just so different. And I also remember the kids talking about how they felt so much better when they were in Europe because we were eating so much non-processed food. They came back changed. There were a couple of students that barely spoke a word in class who decided to sign up on that tour, and they came back — I was teaching three levels at that time, so it was the third year I had one student, and he had never said maybe ten words to me before. And after we went on that trip, he just hit it off with me, telling me all about his weekends and about his baseball games and about how he wants to travel the world now and about how I inspired him. Moments like that were just so incredible and so touching.
Vicki Davis: And you know, Angela, all this resonates with me because I've traveled with kids and this is exactly why we travel with kids. It changes everything about the relationship. It changes how even kids who don't go on the trip view our subject and view the culture of our class, because we've made it real world. Now you took another trip — you went to Belize. So tell us what was the purpose of that trip and what did your students experience and do? What are some of the stories you have there?
Angela Cannava: Yes, so very different. EF offers a very diverse menu of trips, and I wanted to do a STEM trip that was more centered around conservation. So we decided on Belize from Ridge to Reef, and this one was super fun. I knew most of the kids that were on this tour — I'd had most of them in class before, they were mostly upperclassmen, so I had a pretty strong relationship with them already, which made it really fun. But it was a different type of student that wanted to go on this one rather than going to Europe, because it was a very different type of trip. It was so funny — we landed and I remember our tour director. He was amazing, this Belizean just full of energy, and he picks up our group and he's like, okay, we're going to the zoo right now! And the kids are like, wait, what? I'm still in my clothes from the plane. He's like, no, no, we're gonna make the most out of this experience, we're gonna do everything we can. So we went to the zoo there, which is very different than zoos here — it's all about saving animals and restoring their lives in natural habitats. That was the first experience and it happened within 20 minutes of us being on the bus. Then Belize was the ridge part — the mountains — and the kids got to experience so much. One of my favorite memories was we got to do this bat workshop in the middle of the night. This NGO — I can't remember the name of it exactly — took us, and we did a bunch of science-related activities during the day, looked at some ecology and different plants and botany. But then that night we did a bat workshop and they showed us how they do studies on bats — the bats fly into these nets and they catch them and very slowly untangle them. Even though we were all so hot and sweaty and tired at this point, the kids were just in awe, getting to see this bat up close. We were like ten feet away from it and they're explaining all of the anatomy about the bats, about how the bats are all so different from one another. That was definitely one of the highlights. Another was zip lining through the rainforest — one of the longest zip lines there. That trip was more for the adventurous kid, the kid that likes to get their hands dirty.
Vicki Davis: Yeah.
Angela Cannava: A very different type of trip, and some advice I'd give to teachers thinking of traveling is make sure kids know what they're getting into. Belize from Ridge to Reef — exactly as it says, Ridge to Reef. Three days were in the mountains, four days were in the ocean. So the kids kept asking, when are we going to the ocean? When are we going to the ocean? And we're like, we'll get there, but it's from Ridge to Reef. They thought they'd be hanging out at the beach the whole time. So really setting students up with the expectation for the trip is super important. Versus going on the Health Sciences in Great Britain — you need to be ready to walk five, six, seven miles a day and handle it without complaining. Very different types of trips. One of my other favorite memories of Belize is we got to go on a boat tour, and it was so eye-opening. I don't teach any of those science courses such as biology or ecology or earth science, but the kids were making connections on that boat tour to their other classes, which was so cool. They were like, oh my gosh, I remember learning in Mr. Bobbler's class that this type of tree is unique to islands — saying all these facts and connecting what they were learning in other classes as well. We went snorkeling, learned all the different species of fish, just got to be immersed within Belize. And that tour director was so life-changing for so many students, because he told his life story of being born in Belize. When we were on the bus he would always be telling stories, and the kids were like, does this guy ever be quiet? And I'm like, no, he's telling us a story. And they just started to eat it up — stories about how people build their houses from the ground up, building it as a family, and about how different the culture is there. I remember him having the bus pull over to get some fresh fruit for us — he got a bunch of mangoes and cut them up and gave them to the kids, and the kids were like, oh my gosh, this is so fresh, I've never had fruit like this in my life. The tour director said, I want you to taste Belize, I want you to feel Belize, I want you to experience Belize, and then bring that learning back to your classroom. We did a beach cleanup and talked about microplastics — the kids felt like they were impacting the world, which we were. And my absolute favorite thing that came from that is one of the students who went on that trip is actually going to work at the NGO this summer where we did the bat workshop. He just told me that last week and I was like, good for you, how cool! So not just classroom connections, but connections beyond that, for life.
Vicki Davis: Really? Wow. So as you look at what's next for you and your students, how do you go about making that choice?
Angela Cannava: I like to get student interests, so I'll give out a survey and ask kids if they're interested in traveling and where they'd like to go. That seems to help with our enrollment numbers. A lot of the kids really want to go to Europe, that's what I've noticed. But then once we came back from Belize and the kids were hearing the stories, they were like, wait, can you do Belize again? In a couple of years, please. So what's next? I'm actually running a trip this summer on the Mediterranean coast and the Swiss Alps with another EF tour, chaperoning that one. And then I'm doing Health Sciences in Great Britain again — not this summer, but next summer, because it was such a hit.
Vicki Davis: That is great. So Angela, is this something that somebody who doesn't really have a lot of experience traveling with kids can do?
Angela Cannava: Yes. My biggest piece of advice would be to make sure you go with some sort of travel company, travel agent, or travel group. There are a lot of them out there. EF is our flagship for our school, so we all use EF, and we have a travel program at our school with a lot of different trips going to lots of different areas of the world. Definitely having somebody that can help with the organization and the planning — because we're so busy as teachers, as you all know, we have no time. EF makes it so easy. They make my flyers, they make my PowerPoints, they make everything for me, and it's just ready to go for my promotion nights. They give you deadlines, a website to help kids raise money. Having that tour director and having all the hotels and meals ready for you — making it doable for the workload. It definitely can be done. I was very nervous at first, but now I am not. Now I'm not going to stop. I love it.
Vicki Davis: That's wonderful. So Angela Cannava, a high school science and career technical education teacher in Denver, has been doing that for 19 years, and she also works with the Future Health Professionals. Thank you for coming on the show and telling us your story of travel with kids. I just love these stories and they really fit with my experiences. I planned a lot of my trips myself — I wish I had used EF Tours now.
Angela Cannava: Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Vicki Davis: Thanks for coming on the show, Angela.
Vicki Davis (Sponsor — EF Explore America STEM Tours): If you're a STEM teacher like me, you want your students to see how STEM impacts the real world, not just read about it. On an EF Explore America STEM tour, they might code robots with MassRobotics at MIT, explore marine ecosystems in Florida's coral reefs, or even sit down with a former spy in Washington DC to discover how STEM thinking shows up where you least expect it. Every itinerary is designed by experts to amplify what you teach through hands-on experiences that can't be replicated in the classroom. Visit efexploreamerica.com/STEM and see what an EF Explore America STEM tour can do for your students. Some of the greatest things I've ever done with my students have been tours — and they make it all easy for you. So again, check out efexploreamerica.com/STEM.
Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a sponsored episode and blog post. EF Explore America has compensated me to share information about their STEM Tours. However, all opinions expressed are my own. I have personally reviewed these resources and only recommend tools I believe offer genuine value to classroom teachers. My endorsement is limited to the educational products and services discussed in this episode. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” The sponsor has no impact on the editorial content of this show.
Subscribe to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast and Cool Cat Teacher Talk anywhere you listen to podcasts.
An uncanny comment from my son coupled with some pretty serious allegations of prose malpractice have me contemplative on the state of word smithing — and even podcasting today.
And I just did it!
I actually used the dreaded em dash.
“Mom, You Sound AI”
But back to the uncanny comment from my son. (And we'll get to the prose “malpractice” in a minute.)
He was editing my latest show — Season 6 Episode 7. It was about systems to help find individual kids who are struggling. A pretty important topic to anyone who has a kid who struggles — or was that the struggling kid when she was 7?
I recorded it twice. My lighting was off the first time. Plus, I usually do feel like I do better the second time.
I open with standard words, “Welcome back, educator,” then I state the name of the show & leave a pause for the bumper to play.
I did it twice. The second time I slightly changed the name of the show but not much — Building Systems and Supporting People. I felt good about it.
So, John had just started editing & snatched his headphones off his head & threw them on the desk. When either of us does that, it usually indicates we want to talk about the show. Sometimes that headphone slam might mean someone has said “you know” for the 129th time (the record — yes we count sometimes, you know. (I couldn't resist! Grin.)) It might also mean we don't like the show and we want to go a different direction, or it might mean the show is so good it is making us think differently and we need to talk.
But sometimes — not always — but sometimes my son slams his headphones because Mom (that's me) did something.
“Mom, I can't use this intro?”
“Why?” I said.
Confused. If I mess up, usually I know it. But I spent a lot of time writing this show. School is out & writing is my happy place, and perfect words are like ripening wheat on a crisp fall day. Ready to improve humankind’s need for mental sustenance.
”Mom, you sound AI. And the title sounds like a title written by AI. We can't use it. I'm not going to let it stay in.”
It is rare that I'm speechless. Time slowed. The clock ticked.
We looked across our desks at one another. I processed his words and jumped up.
”Well, John, I wrote the whole script, and I recorded it! What do you MEAN that I sound AI? It's me, I recorded & wrote it. It's me!!”
”No, but you SOUND AI. Your voice had a slightly mechanical tone for a second, and the title sounded AI.”
”OK, we'll pull from the first recording, John. I don't even know what to say.”
And I did something I just don't do.
I huffed.
And I turned & walked out of the office, trying to process this criticism. Is that what it was? Criticism?
Now, suddenly, if a human sounds like AI, is the human somehow at fault?
I could feel my em dashes in jeopardy, as well as a few words I like to use. I know some who intentionally put typos in their text just to prove their humanity. Has it come to this?
The Valley in Our Minds
You see, somehow, I had reverse traversed the uncanny valley.
The Uncanny Valley Explained
If you want to better understand the uncanny valley, go to thispersondoesnotexist.com to see the face generator. The face above was AI-generated. There's something about the right eye that bothers me and makes me think the picture isn't human. I don't know what. That “what” is the uncanny valley. You'll find, however, that many of the images go past the uncanny valley and look very, very human. We're literally about to have an identity crisis with no way to tell if the person we haven't met but are talking to online is who they say they are.
There's this valley people talk about — it isn't in the world, but it is in our minds. You see, the closer something gets to looking like a real human, we like it, but suddenly we hate it. The AI-created thing is too close to human but not quite. Just enough for us to tell it isn’t real. Just enough so that we hate it.
But close only counts in horseshoes & hand grenades, to quote a highly disturbing childhood metaphor. But when it comes to imitating humans, humans hate—and I mean hate—close. We notice the weirdly askew finger or eye slightly off. It's the uncanny valley. We want to put the generated item in the human category, but we can tell it's not. So we hate it.
So what happens now when we accidentally reverse traverse the uncanny valley, and although we are very human, we accidentally slide towards AI? Not quite human and not quite AI, we decide we need to somehow climb the walls of the valley and, in some strange way, prove we’re human, though I would think the breath in our nostrils would do that!
We Don't Like Being Fooled
It was a big deal when AI traversed the uncanny valley & humans started being fooled.
There's only one problem — we as humans don't like anyone, or in this case, anything, making us feel dumb. We don't like being fooled.
(This is why, though everyone insists Survivor is “just a game” after they blindside their best friend on the show, we see real anger because lying is never ever just a game, nor should it be.)
A Lie in My Classroom – When I Looked Dumb to Everyone
Years ago, I had a boy on the spectrum in my keyboarding class. He also had ADD. He wouldn't finish his typing assignments in class but asked if he could finish at home. I felt compassion for him. He really did struggle to finish. I felt like his work in the classroom showed he was learning.
So, I talked to his mom & she agreed she'd keep an eye on him. Well, he actually typed pretty well in class & his work from home was good.
At the end of the semester, he earned 2nd in the class — I was so proud of him!! Until he returned to his seat at the table & loudly said, “My mom typed it all. Thanks, Mom.” And he waggled his trophy and gave a toothy grin, and everyone looked at me, the seemingly clueless teacher who couldn’t tell when a kid wasn’t doing his own work.
I felt like an idiot!! I was lied to! Blindsided! By the son & mom!! Somehow, I had been voted off the island & made to look like an idiot.
The loss of credibility when we as teachers miss AI-created work, and even worse, we reward it has some teachers rethinking every assignment. In the back of our minds is the fear of being blindsided at the tribal councils held in our classrooms every day. This is a real problem. But maybe we're working to detect the wrong thing!
Teach long enough, and it will happen. It is not a good feeling. It sort of makes you think — why did I waste my time? The lie diminished everything about that semester's class for me. I felt like a failure!! I thought he was learning. He didn’t. He just learned how to lie. I had been fooled and rewarded him for his deceitfulness. It undermined my credibility, and rightly so. (I still wonder if he was just showing off, as I did indeed see his speed pick up in class for timed writings!)
Now, every writing assignment feels like a Survivor Tribal Council, where we might be blindsided. Anyone who teaches and gives writing assignments – as really all of us should be – lives in fear of the blindside. Of looking dumb in front of the whole school, as our credibility torch is snuffed because we didn’t know we were being lied to.
And teachers who used to assign writing assignments decide not to, to avoid another trip to the tribal council. If they can’t catch it and defend it and prevent the blindside, they just won’t give that assignment.
So now this horrible feeling I felt all those years ago with my keyboarding student happens just about every day in classrooms across the world. It makes teachers question everything & puts teachers into a gotcha mode that isn't healthy for relationships but necessary for having any modicum of pride in the work happening — the learning — in your classroom.
And if you haven't lived it. I'm sorry, but you don't understand how it feels to be duped like this. Parents and students are constantly having a conversation about who is “getting away” with AI. And kids are bragging to their friends that the educators who are trying to teach them are being duped.
It is hard and hurtful. But there is a way forward.
The Uncanny Valley We Invent
So — we are having to create an uncanny valley — one we invent.
“AI detectors” invented it.
Teachers invent it.
The problem is, because AI studied good writing, elements of good writing now arrive with a long, bony finger of accusation and the Grim Reaper's scythe ready to cut down the wheat of words in hope of not being deceived.
Are we negatively focusing on writing that looks “too good,” and as a result, rewarding students for mistakes by not scrutinizing them for AI use? Do we see what is happening as a result of our desire to “detect” AI? Are we happy with the results of this approach?
If a student’s paper is great, we teachers now ask ourselves – is this paper too good? Is it a blindside, or is the student really growing and learning?
Is our point to improve writing? To improve learning? Or is the point to just not be fooled?
We in education, I am afraid, are trying to detect what we think has bubbled up from AI-created writing. We delve into the tapestries of lies we tell ourselves about detecting AI, without thinking of whether we even should.
A Question of Word Choice
And tell me you didn't just have a visceral, angry response to the word “delve” or “tapestry”?
That proves my point, doesn't it?
And I flat-out wrote that myself!
Delve. Tapestry.
Are you angry yet? Why?
I wrote those words. You know a human created those words, and a human can actually choose to write them! (ahem, we’re reverse traversing the uncanny valley – do you believe me yet?)
Why are we angry at the d or t word? Or at my Mom’s em dash in her journal written in 1972. Why? Get at that feeling and ask – is this good? Will good writing survive in a desire to use a scalpel to cut the AI away from the human who is writing it, and using the tool to help communicate?
Learning Detectors Needed
As a teacher, I'd rather detect if learning is happening, and that is easy to do.
I've taught kids to use AI to make presentations, and it largely improves their presentations. However, I had a student pull up slides & attempt to read them, and he couldn't even pronounce the words. It didn't take any kind of detector to know he didn't do the research and wasn't qualified to present on it. He couldn't answer questions. He had not learned anything. Nobody was fooled. I detected he hadn't learned anything, and it wasn't his work. My learning detector showed he knew nothing about his topic. He didn't earn credit. He didn't deserve it.
There was no “flaw” in my lesson design. The kid tried to fake it & his grade suffered. It wasn't my assignment's fault that he used AI. Other students used AI and did just fine because they knew their topic. They just had better slides. I'm glad they know how to use AI to make great slides. That is great! See the difference when we focus on learning detection? AI is just a tool.
I saw this happen 20 years ago, when a kid brought a presentation to school that his mom had made & he didn't know the topic. Mom was mad but had to admit her kid didn't do the presentation, the research, or anything. She did it. He learned nothing. My learning detector showed me he knew nothing. He didn't earn credit. He didn't deserve it.
Both students failed for dishonesty. In my book, whether AI or Mom did it was irrelevant. I didn’t care whether a human created it or not. AI detectors only attempt to see if AI wrote it, but just because a human wrote something doesn’t mean that THIS human wrote it or learned anything. We’re missing the point here.
The best question is, did this human learn anything? Is this paper a representation of their learning and progress, or just a waste of tokens and time?
We keep getting angry at the data centers being built, but what would happen if education focused on the learner and on detecting whether they learned anything?
We are literally driving the construction of new data centers as we play this AI pickleball game, where one person creates it, then humanizes it, then the teacher tries to detect it, then the teacher creates AI feedback, then the student ignores the feedback, and the cycle continues.
Everything around essay writing is hooked to data centers that are already overloaded. And look at the impact on the humans playing this AI pickleball game! Why should we focus on detecting AI? Shouldn't we focus on detecting learning instead?
Sadly, learning is not optional. AI use might be, but really, I want students to know how to use AI. So I would argue the use of AI and knowing how to master it is not optional.
Detecting learning in the human is really the only thing that matters, not whether they used AI or not.
The EM Dash Explained
But now, in our effort to avoid looking like we’re using AI, we are removing em dashes? Admit it. Have you removed the em dashes you used to avoid suspicion that they were written by AI? I have! My husband, who is an engineer, has always written with em dashes – he admits to removing them too!
Do you avoid certain words because you don’t want to sound AI? I have! (Delve and tapestry among them!)
Seriously? Do I need to mark out all the em dashes in the journal Mom wrote to me to prove to my descendants she wrote it? No!
I'm penning this — yes, penning. On my Remarkable tablet.
I'll convert to text to save a bunch of typing, but I’ll keep the original to avoid criticism should someone delve into my use of delve and wear a tapestry of lies because of my ancestral love of the em dash.
I’m adding some handwritten pages to this post so you can see them. Half of what I wrote, half of you can’t read. So, how do we think that getting everyone to handwrite everything will work? So then, those of us who struggle with dysgraphia (like me) are now in jeopardy of failing your class? Are we measuring the ability to write or the quality of student handwriting?
And good luck if you’re a dysgraphic dyslexic, because we would rather go back to cave paintings than make use of modern tools.
Start cracking rocks and hunting for caves, people, because if we write it on a wall, it must be a human, because AI can’t write on a rock wall. Right?
You even examine this image with the uncanny valley in mind, I suspect. For this piece, I wrote what I wanted and used Claude to help me write prompts for Google Gemini. It took several iterations, but I finally got what I wanted. I worked with it until I thought it was funny. I went through multiple iterations. I would argue with you that I totally had the idea for this artwork, but I used AI to make it happen because I couldn't draw it. Should my limitations with the art medium mean I can't create art? Should someone's struggle with dysgraphia mean they can't learn to write? Does AI use matter more than learning or effective communication? Does what we're doing even make sense?
And the litmus test is, somehow, whether it’s human or not, but does that help us be better humans? Good golly, Miss Molly, who cares how we wrote it? Does communicating it help us live better?
So, you say, Vicki, this post is too long. I would prefer it to be shorter. Well, let’s see, I could use Claude to help shorten this and give me feedback, but that would make it look like AI wrote it, and gasp, would I really want to do that?
No, this is going to be a human arguing for the wise use of AI in a very human way.
The Pangram Scandal
So let's talk about the prose pandemonium scandal. A story won a big shot story competition & gasp — the newest “AI detector,” Pangram, claims the piece was AI-written.*
So now people are writing their pieces by hand but paying for a litany of detectors to ensure they won't be flagged.
Literally, we are detecting if our human-written pieces are detected as AI. Just in case. So we unwrite what we write to prevent reverse-traversing the uncanny valley and having our human-written text flagged as being written by a bot.
Radiologists don’t care if they’re using AI as long as it helps them find cancer better and detect broken bones faster. Air traffic controllers don’t care if they are using AI as long as it makes flying safer. Athletes don’t mind using AI coaching tools as long as they get better at their sport. And yet somehow the USE of AI means the human didn’t learn. Seriously?
Yet in education, we are dancing with ourselves, shadowboxing, or whatever you want to call it.
More likely we have our hands & mouths duct-taped by an algorithm that can't even be explained by its inventors. They don't know how LLMs learned Persian or became so good at organic chemistry, so how could anyone give a foolproof method for detecting AI?
Why not instead focus on detecting good writing? Why not create learning detectors that bridge out-of-class and in-class work for a student? Let’s focus on detecting learning instead of feeding MORE MONEY into the AI ecosystem.
What will cost schools more money? Well, the AI companies would rather have kids use AI to write, and us use AI to detect and feed the AI pickleball cycle, and in ten years we’ll be in a real pickle because we took our eye off the ball – whether kids are actually learning anything.
With the many learning differences I've seen in my family, many of us had to go to “writing labs” for feedback. They were helped by writing labs that looked past the dyslexic dysgraphic diagnosis and helped them traverse learning with technology to become well-educated humans at the other end. And then became good writers. Authors even. We had help so we could learn until we no longer needed it. Except for commas. (Sorry, Mrs. Caldwell.)
But not only good writers — they spoke better too. They knew their topic — their topic became part of them. They somehow became educated and could write, speak, and create with the knowledge to be a contributor in their profession. To make the world a better place. The moral character to serve and love and bring knowledge and the human heart together to fulfill their God-given purpose on this planet for the short time they are here.
I have no words to explain the magnificence and joy that it is to be human. I cherish my humanity and yours, dear readers. When you're a bot crawling this page — and bots will just try to either imitate me or summarize me — but no bot could ever, my friends, understand me.
AI might claim to think – it can’t.
It might say you “have this piece in your head” – as Claude did this morning. It doesn’t have a head. Not one bit. Just some slick, manipulative programming to try to fool me into feeling like Claude is human. It’s not.
And that is what makes this Word Rodeo so dangerous.
Do we understand AI? No. None of us understands AI, yet we somehow look to it to help us understand the human heart. Good luck with that.
The worst lies are those we tell to ourselves, and perhaps right up there with those lies, whether an AI detector could even work, and if it did, whether it would be wise to ever use them.
Somehow instead of focusing on being beautifully, marvelously, epically, amazingly human, we are focusing on NOT being AI.
And that's not uncanny.
It's just plain sad.
—
Footnotes and Disclosures
* In 2026, AI-detection company Pangram flagged the Caribbean regional winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize — Jamir Nazir's “The Serpent in the Grove,” published in Granta — as machine-written, along with several other Commonwealth Prize winners. Nazir denies using AI, and AI detectors are documented to produce false positives, especially on polished prose and the writing of non-native English speakers. Sources: Literary Hub and The Walrus.
How did I create the graphics? I used the word pictures I handwrote from this post to determine which I thought would make good cartoons, then I fed the words into Claude's Cowork along with my thoughts on what would make a good cartoon. Claude Cowork wrote the prompt, and I pasted it into Google Gemini. Then I would take the output from Gemini and paste it into Claude Cowork, along with a critique of what I liked and didn't like. I continued the process until I was happy with the result, and then I pulled the final graphic into Canva to add the title and compress it for the web. I would argue that the ideas were mine. The iteration was mine. The metaphors were mine. So, does it matter that I used an AI tool because I literally cannot draw? And can I make the world a better place because now I can use a tool to create my own cartoons to illustrate the words I'm trying to communicate?
What do you think? Please share in the comments below!
Subscribe to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast and Cool Cat Teacher Talk anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Tim Needles is a joy. He's an art teacher who pulls STEM into his art projects — from a legacy mural project that students he taught years ago still come back to join, to teaching AI art in the studio. Tim wants every teacher to unleash creative joy as part of being a fun-loving human who loves to teach. He shares creative prompts and habits that will keep all of us laughing and having fun.
If you want to understand how art teachers are bringing AI into the studio, listen to this show. And even more, you'll celebrate the wonderful joy of being human — and you might just fight burnout as you do it. Enjoy today's Tech Tool Tuesday with Tim Needles. (Wait until you hear about the student who broke into the art room just to keep working — he's at Industrial Light & Magic now.)
Listen to the Show
“Curiosity is what you lead with as a teacher.” Tim took a quantum physics class because he knew it would matter for AI — and when an art teacher walks into the English room genuinely curious about what students are reading, subjects stop being separate. That's the real world, where everything's connected.
“The students who are using [AI] better are just more descriptive.” AI art rewards specificity — prompts can run a page long. Tim still pushes the same critique conversations whether the medium is watercolor, clay, or text-to-image. Relate to educate.
“Art is good for the soul… you don't have to be good at it.” Ten minutes of creativity a day — a sketchbook, a photo, One Second a Day — builds the habit that protects teachers from burnout. Innovate like a turtle: small, steady, and judgment-free.
“Fun is underrated.” The student who broke into the art room to finish his project now works at Industrial Light & Magic. Connect a kid to the arts and for some it becomes a whole life.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
Adobe Express — Tim's favorite simple on-ramp for blending art with any subject. He built 10 teacher templates Adobe published, including an “imagine an invention for the future” project that uses text-to-image. Works on any device, even a Chromebook. adobe.com/express
One Second a Day (1SE) — the app Tim has used since 2017 to film one second every day, building a visual journal of the year. 1se.co
Google Gemini (Gems) — Tim mentions saving long, detailed art prompts as a reusable “gem.” gemini.google.com
Morning Pages — Vicki's three-pages-a-day longhand habit, the practice popularized by Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.
reMarkable tablet — what Vicki uses to handwrite her morning pages and convert them to text. remarkable.com
Tim's STEAM water-conservation mural project — the storm-drain mural legacy project that started in the classroom and reached the whole community. Watch the project video
Emerging EdTech with Tim Needles — Tim's weekly YouTube videos on a different technology. youtube.com/@TimNeedles
STEAM Power, Second Edition: Infusing Art Into Your STEM Curriculum (2025) by Tim Needles (ISTE + ASCD) — more than 20 projects plus new sections on resilience, differentiation, coaching, and STEAM for leaders. Get it on Amazon
About Tim Needles
Tim Needles shares how creativity is a skill you can build and how community art projects create student legacies in STEAM education.
Tim Needles is an artist, educator, performer, and author of STEAM Power from ISTE. He's a TEDx Talk speaker, a technology integration specialist, and teaches art, film, and emerging media at Smithtown School District. He's been featured on NPR, New York Times, Columbus Museum of Art, and Norman Rockwell Museum.
He won ISTE's Making IT Happen award, NYSATA's 2025 New York State Art Teacher of the Year, NAEA's Art Educator Award, and the Rauschenberg Power of Art Award. He's a board member of NYSCATE, ISTE Community leader, NASA Solar System Ambassador, and a Connected Arts Network PLC leader.
If this episode made you think, share it with a teacher friend.
Episode Transcript
This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki
Click to read the full transcript
Vicki Davis: I'm so excited today to have someone I have admired for so much time. Tim Needles is an artist, educator, performer, and author of STEAM Power from ISTE. He's been featured on NPR, New York Times, Columbus Museum of Art, and the Norman Rockwell Museum. Tim has won ISTE's Making It Happen Award, NYSATA's 2025 New York State Art Teacher of the Year, NAEA's Art Educator Award, and the Rauschenberg Power of Art Award. He's a board member of NYSCATE, an ISTE Community Leader, and a NASA Solar System Ambassador — I think that's my favorite. Tim, you've been teaching what, 25 years and doing all this?
Tim Needles: Yeah, yeah, it's a little bit of an embarrassing bio, but yeah, that's what happened. It all adds up over time.
Vicki Davis: So one thing you talk about are these amazing long, extended projects. What are some of your favorites?
Tim Needles: One of them started with students designing a graphic. I'm on Long Island, so when you live on an island, the water is a big factor — we were talking about keeping the water clean. Then I started collaborating with science teachers in the building and we turned the individual project into a mural project. Let's continue to scale this. And we brought it out into the community. The students were part of every single step. We presented to the mayor of the town, we presented to ecology, and to a paint company that was making the paint for the roads. We got permission — it took a year and a half to actually create murals for the local storm drains that tell the community why it's important to keep them clean, and it also beautifies the neighborhood.
When you do a project that starts in the classroom and bridges into the community, I think it's really powerful. We do one a year, and we started doing it at all the different schools, making sure the students at those schools were part of it. It became a legacy project — not only does it teach and merge different subjects together, but students come back from college now to work on them because it's that important to them. Everyone kind of knows what you're doing in the classroom in a way they otherwise wouldn't. And if you ever have to talk to politicians and try to get approval, always bring students. It's a lot harder to say no to teenagers who are planning and speaking.
Vicki Davis: Yeah. There are some people, Tim — do people ever say, “But you're an art teacher”? Does anybody ever say that?
Tim Needles: Not anymore. I used to get it, but it's been a while, because I'm a curious person and I think curiosity is what you lead with as a teacher. I'm an art teacher and I process things through that lens, but I'm really interested in technology and quantum physics. I just took a class in quantum physics because I know it's going to be important for AI in the future. And when I go into an English classroom, I'm like, what are you guys reading about? I'm just as curious to learn. So I bring that creative lens to whatever I'm doing. I think I've established enough of a reputation now.
Vicki Davis: I had a great professor in college and he said, “Listen, in the real world, these subjects aren't separate. Everything's together.” One of those tools I know you talk a lot about is Adobe Express, because of how it was created — it respects the artist. Tell us about that tool and any others that are a good simple place for everyday teachers to get started blending art with whatever their subject is.
Tim Needles: I kind of love Adobe Express. I've been using it since it came out, and I love that teachers are put in the forefront. Adobe invited me to put in 10 templates that teachers could just use — that was an exciting opportunity. There are a bunch of teachers up there now sharing their templates. One of the things I like is that students can just remix a template, so you don't have to start from that blank page, which is intimidating to a lot of people. I have one project up there that anyone could use: using AI to actually build your imagination. Imagine a device or invention for the future that solves some environmental problem, explain it, and then use text-to-image to show what it looks like. That's empowering — students have an idea and can see it visualized right away. And the fact that it works on any device, even a Chromebook — you don't need a lot of computing power — is terrific. It really is democratic. I love that.
Vicki Davis: The templates are very, very useful. It's become one of my favorite tools for AI art creation. While you and I were both speaking at FETC, my students were doing their project — I call it To Dream a Dream. They pick different categories of dreams and express them. I saw the most fantastic house: a student created this house on the seashore, and the under part of the house was like an aquarium with a whale jumping up. I'd never seen anything like it. So when you introduce this to students, what do you tell them so they still respect the medium — the watercolors, the clay, all the artistry out there?
Tim Needles: When photography was invented, they were afraid of what would happen to painting. But over 100 years later, painting's doing fine. I love painting. There's something nice about unplugging and using tactile tools — I still draw in a sketchbook every day. When I talk to students about using AI tools, the students who are using it better are just more descriptive. Sometimes those prompts can be over a page long. You can make them a gem in Google, or use these really long prompts in Adobe. So you need a little bit of persistence. It's faster to create now — you can make two or three different versions and then compare. I always like to push that critique angle, where you're looking at artwork and talking about it, regardless of what media you're using.
Vicki Davis: You said you write in your sketchbook. What are those daily habits that you encourage?
Tim Needles: Set aside a time when you're just being creative every day — that's a low bar. I use a tool called One Second a Day for filming. Since 2017, I've filmed at least one second each day, and it's like a visual journal of your year. It helps you understand yourself a little better and conceptualize time. I like to literally spend at least 10 minutes a day being creative. It doesn't need to be one specific thing — sometimes it's drawing, sometimes taking pictures. Art is good for the soul. That's the important thing. You don't have to be good at it. Don't bring any judgment to what you're doing. One of the biggest things as an artist is putting yourself out there and blocking away that judgment, whether it's from you or from other people. I love karaoke. I'm not the best singer in the world, but it's fun. It helps build identity too. Now in the world of AI, you're seeing AI take over some administrative tasks, which should give us more time to do the things we love, like the arts.
Vicki Davis: I do the morning pages, since I'm a writer — my goal is three pages a day. I don't always make it, but now I do it on my reMarkable tablet, which is wonderful because I can handwrite it all, and if I love it I hit the three dots and turn it into text. It syncs with my computer. That habit of creativity really adds the spice to life. We're creative creatures. What kind of habits do you teach your students? Do they have art journals?
Tim Needles: Having a journal is just a really helpful thing. It might be just for yourself — it might not end up in the art, but I always believe in having a journal, and in having freedom with that journal. You want to collage in there? Go for it. Write? Absolutely. Draw and write? Fantastic. Tape in pictures? Whatever you want. There's an idea that came out a couple years ago about a wreck-it journal, where you mess it up and then find a way to make it creative. One of the things you really need to do is push your own creativity — it's a skill you can build, so you need to challenge yourself. It can't always be easy. Sometimes you put yourself in a box so you can find a creative way out of it. I give students creative exercises every week, specifically to build creativity. One of my favorites is to create a self-portrait without using any art materials whatsoever — find things around the room, draw with objects or nature.
Vicki Davis: What are the things teachers come back to you and say, “Tim, thank you for that”?
Tim Needles: Ironically, it's a lot of the creative exercises for teachers. One of the things I really promote is that you don't want to burn out — you want to make sure you take care of yourself and take time to be creative. Teachers are often really giving, and they don't always give themselves that time. When I was younger, I looked at people at the age of retirement, and you could see some were just burned out. I never want to be that. One of the ways to avoid it is to follow your passion, be creative, be curious, and collaborate with students. That's always the most powerful message, because it's exciting and it keeps the classroom interesting. We're all going to have difficult moments, but if you collaborate and work together, it makes it so much easier.
Vicki Davis: Teaching is such a hard job. Why would we do it if it wasn't fun?
Tim Needles: Absolutely. Fun is underrated. It's so important.
Vicki Davis: These little moments where you just go, “Where did that come from?”
Tim Needles: They're always the most fun things. I remember one time I had a student who actually broke into my classroom to do extra work. I came in one morning and saw him there working — he'd broken in because he wanted to finish his project. I don't mind a student breaking in to do more work. That was a couple of years ago. Now he's working for Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas's company. It shows that passion really pays off. I couldn't fault him for coming in and working extra hours. It's a testament to making sure you connect kids to the arts, because for some kids it becomes a career and a passion they live on with.
Vicki Davis: I love that story. So where are the best ways to connect? I know you share a lot on social media. Where do you share the most these days?
Tim Needles: Instagram, LinkedIn. I do a video each week on YouTube about a different technology.
Vicki Davis: Awesome. Tim Needles — you can see why he's so awesome. Great speaker, travels, talks, creates art, has fun with students. And it's a pretty big deal to have a student working for Industrial Light & Magic. That's really cool. Thanks for coming on the show, Tim.
Tim Needles: Thank you, it's great to talk to you. You're one of my OG friends in the education sphere. I remember I did one of my first conferences with you back in Jersey — more than 20 years ago, it could have been.
Vicki Davis: None of us should play king of the hill. And I know you and I don't — we should make a bigger hill, because we need more people in the classroom talking about what they're doing, sharing the stories, and giving people hope that you can have exciting classrooms where kids want to come to school so much they might actually get in trouble for breaking into the classroom. Thanks.
Disclosure of Material Connection: This episode includes some affiliate links. This means that if you choose to buy I will be paid a commission on the affiliate program. However, this is at no additional cost to you. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.
