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Good Creative Morning

You're subscribed to The Breakdown, the newsletter that'll help you build your portfolio and complete college applications in just 5 minutes a day. Here I share the most impactful productivity tips that are proven to work so that they'll rub off on you and keep you from getting grounded.

Educator & Product Manager. Co-Founder of Reading Tree Publishing, and Author of Experiments with Marks, Materials and Meaning​

Monitoring Standardized Tests

Ten years ago, when I was teaching 9-12 art and started this website, we had to complete professional development that led us to monitor standardized tests yearly. We learned things like never sitting down, not being on your computer, and reading a book while students tested. We even saw examples of how to walk around a classroom. These tips may be helpful if you are in your first year, first education course, but not if you’ve already graduated, landed a job, and earned a few more degrees in education.

I am trying to remember if my strong disdain for standardized tests started before or after I had to complete this training.

SATs

I reflected and realized my disdain for standardized tests goes all the way back to when I was a student. I will never forget sitting down and taking my SATs for the second time, and each time I thought that the answer might be “E,” the song E, I, E, I, O would run through my head.

That is not a sign that things are going well.

Wearing Hats Makes You Smarter

Even though I taught art, a subject that is not assessed through standardized tests, I still had the privilege of monitoring and evaluating them based on student scores, but that’s for another day. I walked into my assigned room, scanned the crowd, and knew this would be tough. I knew no students in the room, so we had no relationships. So, I had to convince a room of 30 teenagers to be quiet and try their best for a few hours on a test they didn’t care about.

Easy peasy.

One student located in the front row kept raising his hand and asking questions that I wasn’t allowed to answer, quickly proving that if I found a way to keep him focused and quiet, the rest of the room would follow, and vice versa, if he threw in the towel, so would the rest of the group.

He was wearing a baseball hat, which is not allowed in most schools. We agreed that the baseball hat made him smart; therefore, he could wear his hat as long as he remained quiet and filled in his scantron sheet.

These are the types of compromises that are made with teens.

Negotiations with Teens

We both knew that the hat didn’t make him smarter. We both knew that he didn’t understand the questions on the test. And we both knew he would do anything to save face in front of his peers. Instead of trying and failing, almost all of us will default to failing because we didn’t try.

Unstandardized Standard

The unstandardized standard was born as a way to embrace creativity and creative thought and bring more access to the value of creativity to students of all ages.

Unstandardized: Merriam- Webster

un·​stan·​dard·​ized ˌən-ˈstan-dər-ˌdīzd

: not brought into conformity with a standard : not standardized

unstandardized procedures

Standard:
​something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example : CRITERION

​Reading Tree Publishing​

In 2020, I started a publishing company with my brother, which meant that while I continued to share some on this site, it got less time and attention, and the work I did share focused more on publishing. Reading Tree Publishing remains, and I’m excited about a few of the book projects we have slated for 2024. As well as more ways to bring kids into the publishing process.​

The Breakdown… not to be confused with having a breakdown

In 2024, I want three things:

1. To use all of the paper that I’ve been hoarding for the perfect project or for when I’m 1,000,000% positive that I will love what I create and, therefore, it will be worth using the fancy paper. AKA, make some marks every day. [Hint: there are a lot of benefits to this practice]
2. To create relationships through joyful and surprising experiences.
3. And to teach you how creativity and productivity go hand in hand. The questions that people ask me the most are about planning, how to get things done, how to get other people to get things done, and HOW IN THE WORLD can you be creative and have systems in place to help you get things done.

Welcome to a new column, The Breakdown, which will be a course and maybe even a picture book because I want us all to read more picture books this year.

We will talk about how to get things done the fun way.

​The Breakdown is for creatives, teachers, and parents of creative thinkers who want to stop stressing over missed deadlines, doing EVERYTHING at the last minute, and constantly feeling overwhelmed. It’s for the people who make an image on their scantron answer sheet ( just kidding, I’m not recommending that)

I’m asking for all of your planning problems.

• Have you been trying to finish a project forever but need help to get past step one?
• Do you need to build your portfolio but need help figuring out how to get started? You may not even know what a portfolio is.
• Do you need to write an artist statement and keep writing, hello, my name is…
• Have you always wanted to write a book but need help getting past chapter 1?
• Do you have a list of colleges you want/need to apply to but need to know how to start?
• Do you always feel overwhelmed with too many assignments and too many due dates?

Send me your questions.

You can submit your most overwhelming, confusing, mind-blowing planning problems. I’ll select a few and provide an in-depth response, offering my best advice after 15 years of researching, testing, and implementing productivity systems for people of all ages and situations. Think high school students and multi-million dollar companies.

While I won’t be able to respond personally to all submissions, this new column is an excellent way for us to learn and create more time to do what’s most important.

Email me! Tell me what planning problems you’re having right now.

amber@theunstandardizedstandard.com with subject line: BREAKDOWN

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