I do agree with both of you, art and also music, are wonderful ways of learning self expression, especially for children. There are times when you can reach the child who is seemingly difficult to teach and even some who, in the past, were considered slow learners. Having been on both sides of the fence I have much empathy for the child that needs the light of learning switched on and it isn't always in the form of the standard curriculum. Struggling on the standard issue of the time period, Janet and John books, I fell far behind. There were several reasons for this, one I was bored out of my tiny little tree and so concentration levels were slim indeed and another being that I found life outside of the classroom far more interesting. I would stare out of the window, look beyond the window, across the playing area, to the road, to the homes with lovely gardens and finally to the hills, ever wondering what lay beyond. Being in the garden, out in the bush, being at the coast and watching nature in all its glory, fascinated by birds in flight, watching busy insects going about their day, watching a storm where the lightening cracked across the blackened sky was scary but exciting. I always wondered, as a child, what caused such events. A child of a million questions that were seldom answered. Never satisfied with fob off answers such as the thunder was created by clouds banging together.
What do you do with such a child? Let them fall through the cracks? Luckily, a teacher, very much ahead of the thinking of that day, spent the time to get to know this difficult, slow learner. Out with the Janet and John and in with Doctor Seuss. The shutters went up, the lights went on and I was interested. The next introduction was was art in it's various forms. This amazing teacher, using art and music was able to reach the bored and frustrated slow learner.
Years later, as an adult, I found myself warming to children with similar difficulties. One weekend I had a small group for a weekend. On the farm I introduced them to farm life. We drove to the coast - about 20 minutes away - sat on the wharf and they learnt to put bait on hooks and also the dangers of not being careful. All part of learning. Then, how to throw a line safely, without injuring themselves or others. On one particular weekend a storm blew in and the skies went black. We quickly packed up the fishing gear into the car and drove back to the farm. Once there, out with the art gear from the cupboard and I asked them if they could think about the storm, look out of the window and see what was happening, then recreate it for me. These wonderful children, aged from 6 - 11, used black card, crumpled black tissue, glitter to represent lightening and cut out shapes, painted, coloured etc. Then we had a simple, but short chat about storms. Being interested in something yourself shows and children pick that up very quickly.
If any of them had a family birthday we would use my little Acorn computer to create a card. No fancy whizzy programmes like you have on Windows. We used "!Edit" - Acorn always have a ! in front of programme names. In !Edit we created the card then used !Publisher to make it. Part of the creation was writing your own rhyme. Print it, then colour it.
Cathidaw, I can only commend you for doing such a wonderful thing. Those children will remember you for it. You are imparting to them a gift.
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