All the Lies They Told Along the Way

Sometime in my childhood, it was decided that I cannot draw or paint. It was also decided that my handwriting was atrocious. Thus, I hated drawing, painting, or turning in written work. I would never do it unless absolutely necessary. But in the past few years, I've discovered that, as it turns out, I actually like to do these things, as long as no one is judging me. In my non-language classes in college, I was wont to fill entire pages with doodles of little things that make me happy like starfish and hot air balloons. Yet, when my boss' husband asked me in my first few days at school if I drew, my answer was a definitive, "No." The next day, he found me in one of our miniature chairs at our short table drawing elaborately bizarre sketches for stationary. My boss, later on, requested that I paint a dinosaur on the wall of our science corner. While I recognize that it is a caricature of a dinosaur, it's still distinctly dinosaur-y. His name is Steve.

Steve looked lonely, so I painted little Tommy here.


And then I went for the tree. Granted, my branching patterns leave a lot to be desired and my owl might also be a penguin, you can at least tell what I'm going for. And does it matter that my silly paintings aren't perfect? Does it matter that I cannot for the life of me make a face, human or otherwise? If I love painting and drawing, why do I let memories from early childhood still haunt me, still tell me that I shouldn't?

I know it couldn't have been my mother who discouraged my (in)artistic abilities. So, I have to assume it was a teacher in school. It could have been either my second or third grade teacher, both of whom treated my poor handwriting as a sign of my willful disregard for their eyes rather than a sign of delayed development of fine motor skills. Why was I made to feel so guilty for my poor handwriting and my unclear illustrations?

I try to keep these questions and memories in mind as I shape the futures of my own students. It's easy for a teacher to say they encourage every child, but somewhere along the way, children become seriously discouraged. Whatever is going on in my life outside of school, once I enter that door, those kids are the only thing that matter.

Chapter Six: In Which We Analyze Children's Art or God, I Love Seeing What They Will Make

I created a workbook for my kindergarten classes. We had been discussing "where animals live" and I wanted to push them to use "habitat." I thought it would be best if they saw the word a lot, so I created these little workbooks for them. They loved drawing them but not nearly as much as I love looking at them.
Above: The front page implied that you should draw yourself as a zookeeper, but apparently only Dustin understood this. Do you see his key? Amazing! I'm a little confused about his resemblance to Willy Wonka (note the purple top hat). I guess Willy Wonka is a zookeeper of sorts...

This giraffe is the only picture that seems to follow all the "universal" rules I learned in that awful education class about how children draw. Honestly, I may send them over to Topal and see what she thinks about her universal rules now! Apparently, Asia is not part of her universe.

Again, Dustin, really thinking about his drawings. I imagine that his thought process was like this: How can I draw a camel? What is important about a camel? Camel's store water in their humps! YES! Not going to lie, this made me love Dustin more than ever before.


Mike's favorite habitat was the sea, but then he must have decided that a whale is a better habitat. The only possible explanation is that Ashley leaned over and "corrected" him as she is known to do. Ah well. But look at that lion. Is that not the coolest lion you've ever seen? I am thinking about maybe getting it as a tattoo.

But wait, maybe I should get Mike's jaguar instead? I'm impressed with how he conveys movement. Doesn't it look like it's running toward that snake?

Welcome to Anna's zoo, where she is apparently playing a new game based on "duck, duck, goose" called "rabbit, rabbit, cat."

I instructed her that rabbits don't live in the desert and explained what a hare is. I think she got the idea that they have bigger ears than rabbits and I guess that's what counts.

If you're wondering what a winter rabbit is, my best explanation is that it's a strange literal translation from Korean. But that's right, that's an underwater rabbit. I later made her draw a snorkel and goggles on the underwater rabbit, but did not get a picture of this! I apologize, for it was amazing.

"Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, CAT! HAHAHAHA!" Later, she decided, that no, her favorite farm animal was actually... you guessed it, the rabbit. I love Anna. She's brilliant and intense. I always feel like there's so much going on inside her head that no one gets to see. She spends so much time looking closely at things or just quietly thinking. I was probably a lot like her when I was a kid, but less prickly and more shy. I love that she has a sense of a really unique sense of humor.

I love Sally's giraffe. She got the idea that it was tall, at least.

Her camel also has no humps and lives in the forest. So it goes. But aren't her ants precious?

I think these are Eric's. I love that bird! I think some of these show a drawing style that is very different from what I've experienced in children's art at home. I wonder if it has something to do with the culture or something to do with the script used in writing? Ponder away and let me know if you have any explanations!

I'm not sure if the grasshopper ant is a real creature or something from his imagination. Either way, I like it!

I also love how this bird is going to dive-bomb that tree. Drama! Now that's art.

I love Lynn's "star zoo" and that she has a word bubble!

Lastly, a totally badass shark! There were so many good sharks in these books, but most of them came after the next class so I didn't get pictures.

I love looking at their artwork, how about you? Should I continue to make these silly posts or are they not really relevant to my "Korean" experience?