Motivating Non-Drawing Students Marvin Bartel, Ed.D © 2001, 2008

Identifying and focusing on the desire to learn
Learning is an instinct. Teachers focus the instinct. Part of the approach is to ask, “Do you wish you were better at drawing?”  Most students wish they could draw better.  Without desire on the part of the student, the teacher's job becomes very difficult. The desire for mastery is a natural instinct common to all of us and all children.

Understanding impediments to motivation
Motivation and passion to practice varies a great deal from case to case.  The same approaches are not effective in every situation. In many families and in many classrooms children are responding in positive and wholesome ways.  In other families and cultural or economic groups, generations of bad habits, attitudes, and poor self-esteem are producing still more generations of "I can't draw" and "I am not creative" comments form the passive and discouraged parents, teachers, and of course their children.  In other cases, families take pride in the artistic achievements. Many students who appear to be talented have a parent, an older friend, or older relative who is skilled or accomplished in art.

Unmotivated students often belong to a social class that believes artists are weird, indolent, or not to be trusted.  Students learn to harbor these negative attitudes. If they do not respect artistic ability, it is hard to find incentive to develop the skill.   Fortunately this is rare in art. 

Unfortunately, among the poverty class and to some extent in the working class, education itself is distrusted.  Educated people are suspected of taking advantage of others.  Hence, their children are unintentionally conditioned to lack incentive to do well in school.  My sociologist friends call this the sociology of self-perpetuating poverty. Homework is not the norm in this culture. Their parents work for eight hours a day and do not take a stack of work home with them like many people in the professions do. Active learning at home is a strange concept in some families. Those of us who are teachers work every waking hour to get everything done. We love our work. Even when we are taking care of other tasks, our minds are thinking about our work. We find negative homework values very hard to understand. Children, on the other hand, tend to normalize the settings in which they live. They do not even know that alternate worlds and value systems exist. Therefore, in nearly every classroom, some will be highly motivated and others will by nature have very little incentive to join the educated rat race of social climbers who may be disdained and distrusted by their caregivers at home. In today's world, those who are brought up to avoid self-initiated learning can not compete economically, socially, and may lack the ability to survive without lots of assistance from others.

Motivation is stronger when we can pick something we like. As teachers, we can use subjects and topics that are important and interesting - things that grow out of their own immediate life experiences. These vary. By giving two or more choices, the students often feel more incentive because they got to choose. I know an art teacher who has 13 and 14 year olds drawing details from a motorcycle on loan to the classroom in winter.  This especially fascinates boys. This teacher always has an animal in his art room.  Few children fail to respond to the animal. He has had two lizards in a terrarium.  He has had a brown and white guinea pig. 

Third grade students enjoying the company of a live rabbit forget their fear of drawing and freely practice blind contour lines with blinders on their pencils. . The teacher encourages them to do many practice lines.  When the rabbit moves, they may allow the pencil to move to the new position and continue the line. . see this link for more about the rabbit lesson

Relevant and interesting subjects
Art is often most interesting and students are most motivated when they can feel that their art is connected to what is important to them. Some of best subject matter and topics for boys may not be the best for girls. The best subjects and topics for one age or developmental level is not the best at another age or developmental level. The interest in Barbie Dolls is stronger in one gender and at certain ages. Preschool children like to make art that includes an image of themselves in it. Their immediate families are very important to them. Older children will take a greater interest in being part of a peer group. The interest in motorcycles may be stronger in one gender than the other, but we should not assume that we know this. We listen to student conversations to get clues about their interests. Identity and school spirit can be included in artwork. Sports equipment and musical instruments are interesting to many students. We can make self portraits combined with something unique about the self in many different art media. Some teachers ask students to bring something from home to include in their drawing.

I believe all children have an instinct to be interested in animals. We are social and we all pay attention to other people. Of course there are individual variations. Some feel that some children with special needs may respond better to animals than to peers. In tribal life in a wide animal environment, any child that lacked the instinct to be motivated by animals would not have lived long enough to have children. Hence, we all have the instinct to pay attention to animals. I find that children always enjoy drawing, painting, and sculpting while using a live animal as the subject. Few subjects or topics provide stronger motivation. Imagine all the possibilities of teaching an art class at a zoo, on a farm, or in a pet store.

We can experiment with topics of social consequence to push our students to think more critically about fairness issues, economic issues, health issues, environmental issues, neighborhood issues, global issues, delinquency concerns, and so on. To have a purpose beyond ourselves can be a very strong reason to practice. Many students already hold strong opinions and it is very motivating to give them permission to express these beliefs in their artwork. Giving students choices about the purpose of the work makes them feel more stongly. They will be more engaged. Those without a strong opinion, can be challenged to present the issue in a more ambivalent way, allowing the viewer to decide which is the right choice.

Methods that get improved results
Good drawing teachers know that careful observation is a key to the development of self-esteem among art students. When students fail to learn to draw, it is because they are more concerned about how the drawings look on their paper than about careful observation.  Once they learn how to learn - how to observe, and they see improvements, they are empowered to become better at it.  If they see that they are mastering a skill, they are more apt to practice on their own. The drawing of a bone below shows the result of observation practice. 

It goes without saying, students are motivated more when they see themselves learning in order to be inspired to work hard, to focus, and make the effort to learn.  I do not use self-deceptive methods that fool the child into thinking they are improving. Too many drawing books and TV personalities show tricks to copy that produce a slick result. These methods do not actually produce much new observation ability. End-product-based activities are counter productive because they do not make it easier to draw things other than the particular thing being produced. Cheating does not develop the crutial portions of the brain.

Real learning comes from drawing from actual objects, animals, or people. Real and careful observations teach us how to see more carefully and we begin to draw better. Regular practice methods can be directed so that any skill level can experience successes. Few accomplishments will measure up to being able to draw when it comes to building self confidence and status with their peers and parents. This page has more on what we need to learn in order to draw well.

Methods that develop neurons in the brain and body
Observing an unfamiliar object like an animal pelvic bone (see drawing below) encourages observation rather than drawing from memory. The brain wants to be efficient. It wants to skip the careful and painful work of actually looking carefully at something. It is faster to just draw from memory without much regard for the thing being observed. Unfortunately, this habit of drawing previously learned shapes and symbols shuts out chanced for new learning.

To develop our visualization and drawing neurons we have to force them to practice by giving them new jobs to do. Drawing teachers know this. They help students learn to find interesting subjects that have not been drawn before in order to train their brains to notice things that would otherwise be overlooked. As this new ability develops, the brain begins to re-look at all the previously memorized ways to draw things. Old ways are revised as new and better seeing ability is acquired.

I avoid things that are too easy or too hard. Something that is a simple rectangle or circle is too easy and will not develop our seeing neurons. A complex house plant is too intimidating. However, asking a child to select a group of three overlapping leaves would require thinking and careful looking, both prior to drawing as well as during the drawing. The brain needs a challenge, but it gives up in despair and reverts back to a memorized simple symbol if the job is too complex.

Ways for Teachers and Parents to be Helpful
To be helpful, a teacher can call attention to the actual thing being observed.  I do not draw in front of the students.  I place a finger on an edge of the object observed and move it slowly.  They can imagine an ant moving along the edge.  Children benefit by tactile practice where they actually handle the object and trace around it with their own finger.

Delay the child. Before marking the paper, use imaginary practice (tactile tracing and air drawing). This teaches the importance of observation as a way to learn. Air drawing practice helps us notice more of what we are looking at. Air drawing can be done with the pointer finger following the edges or the tip of the nose that is pointed at the edge of the object and directed to follow the edge line (contour) around. It goes as fast as an ant could crawl along the edge and it notices little changes in direction. After nose drawing, try pointer air drawing with the finger extended so the eye can make it trace the edge of the object. Add details to make the air drawing more interesting. See endnote about nose drawing.

Blinders (also called drawing helpers) can be placed on pencils to make sure we are not obsessing about the picture on their paper when they should be studying the subject being observed.  Blinders are eight-inch squares of tag board (like file folder materials or poster board) with a hole in the center - see rabbit photo above.  The drawing pencil is placed in the hole so the blinder hides the paper while drawing. 

We give the lines permission to be wrong.  If a line goes around an object and ends up at the point of origin, it probably means the student peaked under the blinder.  Practice means we try it again and again. When we get a good drawing started, we can always use an eraser and fix a few mistakes later.  These lines are not sketchy, but continuous.  When a new line is started, students may peak under the card to locate the best starting place.

Blinders are used to teach blind contour drawing.  Blind drawing consists of drawing the edge of the observed object slowly so that every detail can be noticed.  To avoid disappointment, teachers need to point out that the outlines are not expected to end up at the right place.  We are doing this to see how the line moves (takes on unique shape and character) in order to represent the thing we are looking at. I often present drawing with the blinder as line practice rather than as object drawing.  Then, after all the lines have been practiced, the object may be drawn without the blinder, but while looking at the subject rather than the paper most of the time. The student is asked not to watch the pencil while it is in motion, but otherwise they can look at the paper.

As the teacher, I never demonstrate this because I do not want students to learn to mimic my drawing. For them to assume that that another person's vision is more legitimate than their own will discourage them from developing their own observation neurons.

Teachers can encourage the comparison of shapes, sizes, lengths, directions, textures, tone, and so on.  Teachers can show them how to do sighting by using an outstretched arm and pencil measure to make visual comparisons.  Students can practice viewing through viewfinders (small cardboard frames) to see how to proportion objects and relate them to the edges of the paper. 
 

Here a house plant is being  viewed through a clear plastic  viewfinder with a grid.  . This observation aide can be used to  help see real objects in proportion. . Teachers need to find ways to make the hard stuff easier and the easy stuff harder. Using a similar grid pattern on or under the drawing paper, can make it easier to figure out how to draw something.

When students ask for help, I go to the subject being drawn and use hand motions to point out general orientation of lines and shapes, hold a hand near the line being observed to show the angle, make size comparisons, and so on.  I hold a pencil at the same slant as the line with another pencil held vertical to show an angle. I can point out details. I ask awareness questions, but I try to avoid giving drawing suggestions. Students can build self-confidence by practicing in the air (pointing to the detail and moving in the air to pretend to draw what is observed). Students can practice a difficult passage on extra paper before drawing. This is like learning a hard passage in music by playing the hard part repeatedly until it can be integrated into the whole piece, or it is like breaking the hard part into smaller parts in order to figure it out.  But it is not like music in that the teacher is not playing the piece for the student to copy it.

Even though I do not draw the same thing as the students while in front of the students, I think it is good motivation for a teacher to have an exhibition of her or his own work in the school. Students are inspired by seeing that their teacher is a capable practitioner. However, I agree with those drawing teachers who do not draw for students while teaching because to do so may cause students to try to mimic the teacher's drawing rather than learning how to observing the subject. This is different than teaching music where a teacher may play a hard part in order to help the student hear as well as see the musical notes. Drawing differs from musical performance in that we are acting as both the composer and the performer when we draw. We are not simply interpreting another persons notation. We are creating an original composition and rendition from scratch as we draw. When art teachers draw, they are drawing for themselves, never for their students. Students need to know this as well as learn to do this.

The GESTURE drawing dance---The Opposite Style, but still Observation
Motivation in art is enhanced when we teach opposite approaches and styles. Often a student that is frustrated in one style may excel when using another approach.

Artists know that the ability to draw a camera-like likeness is a useful skill, but by itself, it is not art.  Gesture drawing helps nurture our expressive, intuitive, emotional, and artistic temperament. Gesture drawing is a great change of pace from the careful work of contour drawing.  It must be explained that this is not intended to give the same results as contour drawing, but it can improve the quality of subsequent contour drawings.  Observation is still very central to the activity, but feeling and kinesthetic response to tools, materials, and motion are also rehearsed and artistically and expressively developed. Gesture drawing is the dance of drawing.

Unlike contour drawing, gesture drawing does not start with an outline.  It starts from the center (the core) and moves out to all the joints, the extremities, emphasizing movement and action as it rapidly colors in the figure. Gesture drawing is the opposite of slow and careful contour drawing.  Gesture drawing is from observation, but it is done very fast--not slow and deliberate as contour drawing needs to be. 

Any subject can be used, but people make excellent models for gesture drawing. We are social creatures. Using classmates as models takes the motivational advantage of our instinct to attend to our peers.

In gesture drawing, the whole model (students take turns being models) is drawn in less than a minute or two.  Ask them to try to get the overall pose, the angles, the lengths, and the forms filled in as quickly as possible. Invite the drawing students to mimic the pose for a few moments prior to actually starting to draw so they feel the tension in the pose. Tell them the muscle tension is often seen in gesture drawings.

To help students understand gesture drawing I allow no outlines at all.  Some students miss this instruction the first time it is given because I do not demonstrate it, so we stop.  We put down another paper and start again until every student has understood that we do not include any outlines.  I never reprimand anybody by name, but we continue to start over until everybody remembers not to draw outlines. I do not demonstrate, because when I demonstrate, everybody thinks their drawing is supposed to look like mine. I want them to find their own gestural styles and voices. I do not want clones of my style.

They have to begin in the center and very quickly fill in the drawing of the figure with a rapid coloring motion while looking at the model at least 75 percent of the time.  Sometimes I say, "Oops, somebody is still drawing the outline."  I keep repeating this with new poses until everybody does it without drawing any outline.  Sometime we play a passage of very fast music during the practice to encourage the drawing tool to dance the picture unto the paper. Stop the music to signal the end of each practice piece.

Once, they get the idea of no outlines, students are encouraged to look around between drawings to see how others have solved the problem.  They are instructed to look for the most expressive lines, or group of lines, shapes, and tone areas in each drawing they look at.

A gesture drawing is a recording of arm motions. In gesture drawing the arm dance produces the lines that render the drawing.  The arm dances with a drawing tool that records the sensory input from the eyes, ears, and muscles in the arms and body as you are drawing. I emphasize that they need to feel the tension in their arms and they need to dance it, not just keep doing one thing. If they dance it, the drawing will not be a monotonous repetition of lines, but it will have expressive variety in the rendition. Lines and colored in tone will have a variety in boldness, in length, in direction, in softness, and so on.

Gesture drawing is a physical activity.  Students stand up while drawing.  Paper is taped to drawing boards placed at arms length.  At least 12 x 18 inch paper is good to get lots of arm motion into the work.  Newspapers publishers often give their role ends to schools (a source of free paper).  Crayons, markers, soft dark pencils (6B), graphite sticks, pastels, oil crayons, and charcoal work well.  For a variation, try both black and white on gray paper using dramatic lighting for strong tonal modeling. 

I use various action poses with arms and legs extended for gesture drawings.  Ask the model to pretend to be dancing, skating, stumbling, sliding into home base, and so on.  I pose them on a table in the center of the room with each pose facing a new direction.  Sometimes we add pieces of bright colored tape or paper at structural points (knees, elbows, toes, heels, etc.). Sporting equipment adds interest.  The model can be in act of throwing a ball or swinging a racket. 

Effective gesture drawings are lively and expressive, have strong line character that is not monotonous, and the lines capture the feeling of the action pose.   I suggest that they frequently change length of their lines (some short and some long), the orientation (angle) of their lines, the boldness of their lines (some bold and some faint lines), the kind of lines (some curved, straight, jagged, wavy, etc). 

If the drawings have monotonous lines, I stop and we do a bunch of line warm-ups to learn how to make a large variety of line types.  This is like dance instruction.  I have them change the speed while making a line from slow to fast and from fast to slow.  Instruct them to alternate between smooth and jittery motions.  Play music with different tempos while they draw.  Allow the crayons to bounce, dance, and twirl.  Ask for a full range of tone (changing pressure).  Ask them to try to do these changes in response to what they are looking at, hearing, and feeling.  To avoid deadly monotonous coloring-book lines I might ask them to switch hands every ten seconds during the drawing process.  Like in acting class, students might be asked imagine themselves in a situation that evokes a strong feeling that is being channeled into the drawing. (For other ideas on gesture drawing, also see How to Teach Children to Draw and/or Portrait and Figure Drawing)

GESTURE-CONTOUR Hybrid Drawings
Once gesture drawing is understood.  Experiment freely by combining careful observation contour drawing with fast spontaneous observation gesture drawing in the same drawings. When I see the drawings of Kathie Kolwitz, Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt van Rihn, and many other great artists, much of the expressive power of their work flows from the power of the raw expressive power of the intuitive lines that move through the work. Many drawings get their artistic power when poetic expression expects the viewer to complete the story.

Portfolios and longitudinal assessment
To maintain self-motivation, students must be encouraged to compare with their own earlier work rather than with others who may be more or less experienced and skilled. Motivation depends on seeing self-improvement and growth. Have each student keep a portfolio of dated practice so that they can look at drawings from before practice and compare them with recent work done after practice.

Common Motivational Killers to Avoid when Teaching Drawing.
We should not be tempted to show tricks or formulas from "how to draw" books or videos.  These shortcuts may seem to motivate because they produce some quick slick outcomes. However, they are counterproductive if they teach students to imitate, without learning to observe and without learning to invent and express. The part of the brain that needs to develop is not challenged by being allowed to copy other people’s drawings and formulas.  These are crutches and quick fixes that create easy art products, but also create limitations and dependencies. Imitation is so instinctive that we hardly have to teach for it. Learning to observe and learning to innovate is also instinctive, but instinct to imitate can too easily overcome the healthier instincts that art more experimental and self-instructive.

Even showing the placement of eyes and parts of the face on an oval is a general formula that can result is a lazy approach to observation.  It constitutes a formula that requires less actual sighting, measuring, observation, and decision-making on the part of the student.  Why not ask them to find the placement of the parts of the face using sighting methods such as grids on mirrors?   Have them tilt their face toward the mirror to make one observation and tilt the head back to make another.  Have them look askance at the mirrors.  Have them decide how the eye-line changes.  Real motivation is the result of learning how to learn, not the result of copying and memorizing other people's expertise--as in a spelling class.

Ultimate Goals
The ultimate goal of studio art teaching is always for the student to acquire better learning methods and thinking habits so that they are equipped and motivated to do experimentation and self-instruction.  Once students have the tools and methods to learn on their own, their motivation for good self-instruction follows naturally and instinctively.  They emerge with passion and talent. Many people mistakenly believe these individuals are born with abilities when in fact they have become inspired and learned how to observe, experiment, express, and self-instruct at an early age.

Other Ways, Styles, and Habits of Working
Not all drawing is direct observation.  There are times when we draw memories.  When working from memory, suggestions are of little help, but teachers can ask many detailed questions.  The student answers the questions with drawing.  If a student asks how to draw something, the teacher asks the student to draw it the way they think it should look (or to draw several ideas and then decide).  Allow students to make preliminary experiments on other paper to figure out how to do things.  With young children the teacher can ask the child to show the teacher how to draw it.  The teacher never shows the child how to draw the child's experience. 
 

Even things we see everyday, are not totally memorized. Generally, the visual memory bank in our brains carry a simplified version. The top eye is drawn from memory.  The bottom eye is then drawn by the same person while using a mirror to observe her own eye. We can see a number of changes. The next time she draws an eye from memory, she will have learned more about the parts of her eye. These are drawn by a college student. The same experiment works with other ages, but the level of expertise will vary.

Some drawing is neither observation nor memory. When drawing from imagination, students can be asked to generate the questions as well as the visual answers.  What are the parts of a home of the future?  What will transportation look like in 100 years when all collisions are prevented by proximity sensors and roads are not needed because we all levitate?

Many artist combine contour and gesture drawing in the same work.  Kathe Kollwitz’s self-portraits can an appropriate and fascinating study of art history at the end of a drawing session.

Motivating Unexpectedly
Unexpected positive reinforcement can be much more memorable and powerful than the reliable and predictable rewards and grades that students come to expect. If a reward becomes automatic, deserved, and predictable, it may be fair, but it may soon loose its motivational power. Affirmation needs to be related to a reason for the affirmation. Empty praise can even become annoying and manipulative. Some student resent it.

Teachers who practice an unpredictable reward system (going beyond fairness) are good at "catching" their students doing extra things or doing the right thing. To keep it fair, this has to be seen as extra rewards or apart from the standard grading. These teachers let students know with quiet but enthusiastic comments that they are doing something right or something special. Good coaches have a sixth sense about motivation that keeps the team members working very hard to learn, gain skill, and feel self-worth. These players can never predict exactly what kind of performance will elicit the positive comment from the coach. If it is too predicable, the players loose their creative edge. In the art class, a good teacher not only sees when students listen carefully and follow directions, good teachers are very excited and they give special notice whenever anything unexpected happens in a student's artwork. Even an unintended discovery that accidentally happens in a student's artwork can be an opportunity to make give a positive response. I might say, "Wow, I did not know that you could do this." or "Wow, is this the first time you did this?" or "Did you notice how you got this effect (explain the effect seen). Good job!" We can tell any student that deserves it, "Thanks for working hard today. Your work is getting better."

Good art teachers look for teaching/learning moments. They find specific good things that happen that can also be used to reinforce art learning such as, "The color you used here really helps this part come forward in the picture because of the colors around it. Did notice how it works?" "Wow, this reflected light here in the shadow area really shows that you were looking carefully." Students nearby are bound to perk up their ears and start looking for similar ideas to incorporate into their work.

Demythologizing talent and encouraging passion
It is important to periodically explain that drawing is not "talent".  Teachers use the words "ability" and "skill", not "talent", when describing accomplishment.  Too many people still feel that "talent" is a genetically inherited "gift". There may be some inherited precursor abilities involved, but most of what we think of as drawing ability is most likely the result of copious amounts of self-initiated practice during childhood and later.  Given a passion for practice, there are very few who lack the basic genetic brainpower to learn observation drawing.  Drawing is a kind of physical genius similar to good athletics, good surgery, or good cello playing.  Physical genius comes from lots of practice and critical review of the results of practice.  Of course early practice by the very young can give a head start that often appears to be talent.  Of course children in families of artists tend to practice more because they are imitating the actions of their parents and their parents tend to give them materials and encourage them. However, they build skills, not by imitating the look of their parents artwork as much as by imitating their parents actions and work habits.

In addition to avoiding the term "talent", we can clarify and expand the definition of talent. It may be better for me to describe skills as passions rather than talents. This allows me to say that I have a passion for teaching art, a passion for drawing, and a passion for making pottery on the wheel. Because of these passions, I have practiced. Because of this practice, it looks like I have talent. Because it looks like I have talent, my passion is motivated.

Motivating through mistakes
To those with a passion to improve, mistakes are gifts. Mistakes can identify a previously unknown weakness allowing us to focus on a remedy. The strongest physical genius is likely to develop for practitioners who love to overcome mistakes.  Teachers need to share the stories of their own mistakes explain how much they have learned from their mistakes.  We all love erasers, but confident experienced artists tend to wait to erase until after they have found a better solution.

In art, mistakes often bring the out a new idea that never would have occurred to us otherwise. Teachers who see this happen, can use these events for an unexpected and helpful rewarding comment.

Some families encourage children's drawing practice, but many adults have no notion of what to do that is helpful.  These children have a smaller chance of developing natural skills that are described by many as talent.

Sooner or later every child asks for help.  This is often when the trouble begins.  The help that is given can too easily be destructive rather than helpful.  Well-meaning adults often make totally inappropriate "corrections" and suggestions.  We ruin a child's ability to observe, express, and to be self-sufficient when we draw for them and when we buy them pattern books, drawing instruction books, coloring books, and so on.  Adults that do not want to get informed about how to be helpful should simply provide materials and appropriate places to work. 

By age nine or so, most children seem to have reached a point when they are quite aware of the good "drawers" among their peers.  Sometimes the accomplished ones have a parent or most often an uncle or aunt who is also quite accomplished.  This leads people to assume that they have a special inherited talent.  We suspect the skilled ones have been fortunate to receive inspiration and in some cases even some helpful instruction within their family system.  At least they have the notion that drawing is a valued skill in their family.  This has motivated them to practice.  We see similar family influences in music. 

Understanding Learning Difficulties
The need to focus 
Many students who exhibit inability to learn also exhibit inability to single-mindedly focus on a difficult task.  We hear them mumbling about how hard this is or how stupid it is.  We also hear them discussing many "off topic" concerns as they "work".  This tells us that their mind is very divided between learning and complaining, or between learning and socializing.  Their emotions (motivation) are being divided between trying to learn and self-pity, or between trying to learn and the entertainment of music or social interaction.  Who can learn in such a state?  Very few can.  We observe many underachieving students that are constantly in such a state.  We learn when we are absorbed in a task—not when our attention is divided.  We learn better when we are not too tired. 

When we multitask, we may get more routine chores done, but we probably are not really learning new things.  In order to practice a skill and develop ability, students need to be helped to find a place, time, and routine that minimizes distractions and irrelevant sensory stimulation.  Tutoring and mentoring can give one-on-one supervision of practice to help keep the student on task.

Difficulty level
Sometimes a teacher's assigned task is too hard to understand.  Sometimes the teacher has not provided plans and time for preliminary preparation and practice for a new task.  It creates frustration that expresses itself as confusion and lack of focus.  Giving a few more details or a bit more preparatory practice can help.  Other times our assigned tasks are too easy and students do not focus on them for lack of challenge.  They perceive these tasks as chores to complete.  They will multitask and socialize or listen to music. This takes most of their attention.  For us to be absorbed and focused on a learning task, we need to feel it is challenging and that we are growing, but it must not be so difficult that we have no idea where to start.  Good teachers make the easy stuff harder and the hard stuff easier. Good teachers are constantly on the alert to make these adjustments, to provide appropriate preparation activities for those who need them, and to challenge those who are bored by adding complexity and harder or more profound problems to solve. 

Good teachers find ways to help stronger students become helpful to other students.  We remind helping students not to do too much for those they are helping.  These students need to learn to use questions rather give answers.  They can learn to phrase questions, encourage learning experiments, but not give suggestions when they help.

Responding to Negativism
We should never encourage negativism with a dismissal such as, "That's okay, I know lots of people who can't draw."  Such an answer does not help.  It discourages the student from trying and it devalues the skill itself. 

If a student says, "I am not talented in drawing", we can say something like, "I know how you feel.  There was a time when I was totally stupid about computers, but even though I was terribly discouraged about it at times, I just kept practicing, making mistakes, asking for advice, reading directions, and studying until I got computers to work for me.  Even now I would never say I am talented at using computers. I still keep making mistakes, but I still keep learning from the mistakes.  Drawing is like that.”  We get good at drawing if we are willing to practice, to pay attention, to make lots of mistakes and to learn from our mistakes.  I learn to use computers because it is important and it is fun.  We learn drawing because it is important and it is fun.  We learn drawing because creative people use drawing to figure out their innovative ideas.  We learn drawing because it can be an important means of artistic expression.  We learn drawing because it helps our powers of observation and  being a good observer is an important way to learn.  Learning how to learn is probably the most important reason to learn to draw.
 

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