As an art trainer, I get numerous opportunities to visit various kindergartens, primary and secondary schools. I teach visual arts, and I provide my children with learning experiences – primarily to explore, to experiment, to create, to destroy, to reflect and conclude. It is a fun job, but a little part of me dies every single time. Why?
“I don’t know how to do. I scared wrong”. Or “I don’t want to do, later my hands dirty”.
For the 22 years in my life, I have never been to the toilet as often as some of these kids have, in one lesson. I am not kidding. I have spent more time responding (more like rejecting) to requests for them to go to the toilet to wash their hands, than actually creating something in class.
The disgust on their face when a little bit of paint gets onto their fingers. The frustration they feel when things get stuck to their sticky fingers while gluing their artwork. Worst, when they make an irreversible mistake on their work. The devastating look on their face makes me wonder at times, if they see me as the devil who is out to ruin their lives. However, I do get my fair share of blames from ‘The blame game’ – “teacher I told you I cannot do it, you ask me to try. See what happens. Now it is ruined”.
True enough, I did ask them to try, but what I expected in the end of a failed attempt was for them to figure a way out, or experiment to see if another method works, but they give up. They simply give up.
It puzzles me to know that these beautiful intellectual beings are afraid to try something new, or try something different. They are just… Afraid.
It irks me even more to know that the only texture they are willing to touch or lay their finger on, is the screen of their phone or Ipad.What a waste.
Don’t get me wrong. Not every child is like that, and I did not say that it is wrong to be a fastest fingers first. You can be a genius with technology, but your ziggity zag fingers that got your through Temple Run, will not get you through a Visual Arts lesson, especially when you’re supposed to create with your hands - on paper, on batik, with wires, clay, paint, etc.
I am not the ‘cleanest dish in the sink’ either; I am not the finest example in the early childhood or education industry, so I will not cite famous quotations from great philosophers on what is good or bad for kids. However, what I do know is that if I were to ever take care of kids, or be blessed with kids of my own, I will make sure that these kids get to feel what it is like to have gooey, sticky, messy, muddy, or to what others deem as “gross” things on their hands, feet, body, and heck even their faces.
There will be days where they will scavenge for their little toy soldiers that are trapped in huge ice blocks, and there will be days were they will pretend to have crime scenes and chalk silhouettes outside. They will have coloured bomb baths, after wriggling their feet in mud puddles, or after running across oobleck. They will read books about plants, and they might even pick up gardening after that. They’ll meet insects that help their plants, and they’ll keep pet caterpillars and butterflies. They’ll have puppet shows on rainy days with their felt and paper mache-made puppets, or they could play with shadows and lights when there is a storm.
They will explore, experiment, present, create and destroy. Most importantly, they will have fun.
Technology? Oh they will get to go on the web. That is, when they are fine tuning their ‘blueprints’ so that we can make cardboard go-karts to race round the park.
Now who’s with me?
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