Wednesday, November 21, 2012

A Subtle Act of Creative Defiance

Today I volunteered at Kaio's school helping with a kindergarten art activity.  As the teacher's aid explained the task to me I couldn't imagine the kids actually doing it.  She wanted the kids to draw symbols on a paper bag vest and write the words for the symbols below.  This was to teach them that Indians wrote using pictures instead of alphabet.  She had a poster with about thirty symbols to choose from, like a teepee, a tree, a girl, a boy, etc.  The task seemed really complicated to me because the kids would have to look at the picture and copy it, along with spelling a word.

I asked, "But what if the kids don't want to draw that and they start drawing something else?"

"Oh they wont do that.  This is the task and it's not free draw what you want time, they need to draw these symbols only.  They'll do it."

She seemed confident the kids had been trained to follow directions.

In came five kids, including Kaio, to work with me on this task.  I was imagining total anarchy breaking loose.  Kids scribbling all over the page and not understanding the task.  My expectations were pretty low you could say.

Kaio walked in with a smile bright as the sunshine, beaming all over his little face.  He sat right next to me, petting my arm, feeling my hand as if I was barely real.  As if I might be an illusion.  As if I was his sweet long lost love.

Kaio whispered and chatted instead of looking at the teacher while she explained the task...   I braced for needing to repeat the instructions all over again.  I worried about how I'd help five kids all at once.

But, then he proceeded to complete the task exactly as she had instructed.  It blew me away.  At home, he would never do anything of the sort.  At home, he draws what he wants when he wants, don't even waste your breath asking him to do a worksheet or draw something specific.  It would just result in a backlash of, "No! you do it."

I had no idea he could write words other than "Spiderman, and Lego".  I had no idea he could follow directions without continual prompting.  I had no idea he was even paying attention when people talked around him.

So seeing him siting peacefully in the chair, keeping on task, just knocked my socks off.

Then he asked if he could add a door to the teepee.  The teacher had left the room so I said, "ok."  Then he added a tongue to the snake.  Then, in the very last line on the vest - the last spot for a symbol, he drew something that wasn't one of the 'approved images.'

 He didn't ask for permission this time.  I could see it was too late for that.  The creativity inside him begged to escape.  The ideas flowing through his head, visions bursting through the little muscles of his hand, pleading to bleed onto that paper vest.  He'd proven he could complete the task, he'd repressed the desire to cover the vest with symbols for ninjas, monster trucks and angry birds.  Now, at the bottom of the back of the vest, cleverly shaded and camouflaged by the perfectly conformist copies of teacher produced symbols, in a subtle act of creative defiance, he drew a simple stick figure dog.  And under it wrote the word, "DOG"








3 comments:

  1. Absolutly love it! Totally Good Job.
    Ted

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  2. The little boy went first day of school
    He got some crayons and started to draw
    He put colors all over the paper
    For colors was what he saw
    And the teacher said.. What you doin' young man
    I'm paintin' flowers he said
    She said... It's not the time for art young man
    And anyway flowers are green and red
    There's a time for everything young man
    And a way it should be done
    You've got to show concern for everyone else
    For you're not the only one

    And she said...
    Flowers are red young man
    Green leaves are green
    There's no need to see flowers any other way
    Than the way they always have been seen

    But the little boy said...
    There are so many colors in the rainbow
    So many colors in the morning sun
    So many colors in the flower and I see every one

    Well the teacher said.. You're sassy
    There's ways that things should be
    And you'll paint flowers the way they are
    So repeat after me.....

    And she said...
    Flowers are red young man
    Green leaves are green
    There's no need to see flowers any other way
    Than the way they always have been seen

    But the little boy said...
    There are so many colors in the rainbow
    So many colors in the morning sun
    So many colors in the flower and I see every one

    The teacher put him in a corner
    She said.. It's for your own good..
    And you won't come out 'til you get it right
    And all responding like you should
    Well finally he got lonely
    Frightened thoughts filled his head
    And he went up to the teacher
    And this is what he said.. and he said

    Flowers are red, green leaves are green
    There's no need to see flowers any other way
    Than the way they always have been seen

    Time went by like it always does
    And they moved to another town
    And the little boy went to another school
    And this is what he found
    The teacher there was smilin'
    She said...Painting should be fun
    And there are so many colors in a flower
    So let's use every one

    But that little boy painted flowers
    In neat rows of green and red
    And when the teacher asked him why
    This is what he said.. and he said

    Flowers are red, green leaves are green
    There's no need to see flowers any other way
    Than the way they always have been seen.

    -- Flowers Are Red, Harry Chapin

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