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Lesson Plans


Kid's distruction and waste

[ Thread ][ Subject ][ Author ][ Date ]
Lynda Brothers Matthew (brosart)
Tue, 03 Mar 1998 20:06:07 -0800

Hi everyone, and thanks for the replies. I have read the books of "Drawing
With Children", etc, which advocates no erasers and only one side of the
paper, making mistakes into something creative. I understand that idea and
can use it often when I am silk painting in my studio but when I work in my
studio I realize that I use a lot of paper, but little silk, not a lot of
watercolor paper on a block (costs a fortune)and not a lot of silk etc. So
I have decided to give each student one white drawing paper and one yellow
sketch paper to use if they wish. They may either sketch first, or if they
make mistakes on the white paper they can only have the yellow sketch paper
to work on. That seems to work this last few weeks. But the distruction of
a well-worked art work seems to be a low center in the student.

I have found in the last few years that the students that are the lowest in
the basic education areas are often the highest in the arts ability. And I
completely understand that for myself. I am an artist (it's an
artist-in-residence program that I teach) and if you give me a written
discription of how to put a bookcase together I will have a hard time, but
if you display the directions with pictures, I will grasp it totally.

A lot of the students I teach I believe have the same mind-set. I
personnally don't think there is anything wrong with that, some of us are
visual and some of us are abstract, intellectual. But I am finding that the
students that distroy their work have been programed to fail, somehow. I
have worked lately on saving those drawings before the scribbles and
holding them up as examples. Some of you have suggested that, and I agree
it seems to work a bit. But what happens when they get back to their
regular teacher? I only have them for once a week for an hour for 8 weeks.
And some of these kids are GOOD ARTISTS! I really hate to see that talent
squashed. And the ego with it.

Lynda