In this episode, join Jen and Abi as they sit down with retired Arizona art teacher Colleen Eckles to learn how she moved from traditional, product-driven projects into a full TAB practice over the course of her 29-year career. Colleen shares the messy middle, “Free Art Fridays,” center set-ups, admin conversations, and high-stakes testing, along with the joy of trusting kids as artists and finding community through TAB books, conferences, and online spaces. Colleen brings a heartfelt encouragement for teachers, both new and folks on the edge of burn out, to start small, find their people, and keep honoring students’ creative agency.

Resources:

Teaching for Artistic Behavior: teachingforartisticbehavior.org

TAB community (Mighty Networks): teaching-for-artistic-behavior-inc.mn.co.

TAB Art Educators Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/178282718971259/

Blocks Paper Scissors Podcast - Clark Fralick and Clyde Gaw https://blockspaperscissors.podbean.com/

Make Artists Podcast - Ian Sands https://open.spotify.com/show/4dLxBE4pANtQ5Iw44gCWMk

Abi’s Dissertation - Teaching for Artistic Behavior: A Definition and Historiography: https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/teaching-artistic-behavior-definition/docview/2817860186/se-2

National Art Education Association (NAEA): ⁠arteducators.org⁠. Here is a link to a lightly edited transcript of this episode. We recognize that there are probably errors and grammatical issues. If anyone with the time or inclination to edit this wants to do so, please email us at storytellers@teachingforartisticbehavior.org.