headspace-hotel:

I’m four weeks into teaching y art class (the students are like 5-10) and here are some things that have happened 

• a girl said, in a very very small voice, “im so glad you’re my art teacher.” my heart almost exploded
• a boy followed me up the stairs with flippers on his hands (i have no idea at all where he got them) slapping them together and saying, “THIS IS THE SOUND OF WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN TO YOU.” I was very concerned. 
• the same boy also chased me with a toy skeleton whose hands and feet he had removed, saying, “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY HANDS???” Why am I being blamed for the poor toy’s mutilation? 
• A girl painted two paintings as gifts for me and my helper, respectively. On opposite sides of the same piece of paper. 
• Girl: (incoherent screaming) Girl’s sister: Why are you screaming?? Girl: BECAUSE I LOVE ART 
• A boy dipped his nose in his paint and asked if he could nose-paint. I normally encourage experimentation, but I told him no. 
• A girl made a really lovely abstract piece and then in the last 5 minutes of class dumped so much paint onto it it turned into a literal puddle of gray sludge, which she had to literally pour into the trash. 
• A girl, seeing my handwriting on my notes: “You did that? I thought one of the kids must have done it,” I know my handwriting was bad but I need some ice for that burn. 
• In general, kids give the sickest and most unforgiving burns. They don’t even have to try. 
• I told the kids at one point that they should say kind things about themselves. Around 8 or 9 they start to develop self critical attitudes. All throughout that class, whenever someone said something critical of their art, another kid would say, “Say kind things about yourself!” 
• I showed the kids an abstract art piece I’d made and asked them what they thought they saw in it. Some saw stars, some fireflies, others “beans falling out of the sky.” The swirls were variously interpreted as waves, galaxies, or squirrel tails. 
• I mistakenly described a painting (two-dimensional surface) as “2-D.” This was similar enough to “doody” to set the kids screaming with laughter. Oops.. 
• Boy: I want to paint DEATH! *paints a face with X eyes and red streaks then declares himself done* 
• Me: No killing in art class! 
• Kids have surprisingly sophisticated ideas about what their favorite colors are. Almost always multiple colors, and almost always more complex descriptions than just “blue” or something. 
• I’ve had to convince at least one kid that the paint should not be eaten. It was surprisingly difficult. 
• Me, buying brushes: I hope these last (cut to kid viciously stabbing his paper with a brush, crushing the bristles into a matted mess)
• A girl hugged me earlier today and i swear she physically returned my soul to my body 
• I asked the class if they could define abstract art and a girl said it was “art made out of feelings.” 
• Girl: My brother threw up yesterday. Twice. Me: Good to know. 
• Girl: When I’m sixteen, I’m going to marry (celebrity I don’t know) 
• The same girl was very fond of dabbing. 
• Some kid had written “I am Butt” on the chalkboard before I arrived. I don’t know who, but my students found it hilarious. 
• some favorite artworks: an angry bird’s nest (not a nest that belongs to an angry bird but anger represented by a bird’s nest, I think), a tic-tac-toe cat, rainbow-colored bison, a very lovely galaxy, a chubby horse, a train getting caught in a tornado, a fight between dinosaurs with a volcano in the background that i thought very well done, lots of beautiful abstract paintings, some enhanced by splattering techniques, a chubby tiger much chubbier than the chubby horse, a cow that the artist insisted was “bad” but that absolutely was not.