Normally I wouldn't bother writing about this a second time but something happened that made me quite happy. The idea behind my classes at the community center is to get kids interested in art. We aren't trying to indoctrinate them or anything and the lessons aren't really a honing of their skills because I don't think there is any one right way to do art. The idea is to give the kids the materials and the encouragement to find their inner artist because there is so much untapped potential out there and many people never even try to discover their artistic talents because unlike math or science, it isn't something that is just assumed to be part of your curriculum in education. Art programs are routinely the first thing to have their budgets cut when the going gets tough and that is a real shame.
The reason why this addition to our body of work here at the community center is because the 11 year old boy that made this did it on his own time without being instructed or even asked to do so. He simply enjoyed the concept of it enough that without being prompted by me or his parent, went home and made it in his own spare time.
The fact that any 11 year old wouldn't just switch on their video games in their spare time by default these days is something that makes me happy but it makes me especially happy when it appears as though I am having some sort of impact on the kids' lives. He was so proud of himself when he brought it in to show me and I congratulated him on a job well done. We spent some time talking about the unusual use of coloring as well as the fact that he didn't try to make the human in the picture look realistic. I never specifically instructed anyone to do this, but they were seeds of a sort that was planted by a discussion we had in class. I don't ever instruct students to do things a specific way, we have total freedom in my classes because I believe that "instructional art" is something that actually deters creative capabilities.
So this made me proud and I hope that his parent is as enthusiastic as I am about how much of an interest he is taking in being artistic. He is about to enter the difficult teenage years where hanging onto the arts seems to be particularly difficult because of teenage pressures, so I hope he can be one of the ones that keeps it up.
Well done, son.
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