I’ve done a few of my own experiments, posting questions in both locations and seeing how many people respond. Despite having only 10% of the followers there, I’ve been seeing more responses there, and it’s EASIER to read through them because they’re aggregated.

I’m still using Twitter too, but Plurk is clearly a superior application right now.

And no, you wouldn’t remember those lessons - that was only my second year as a full time teacher and, frankly, I was still forming my ideas back then. A lot of what I’d been taught about teaching in college didn’t work, so I was starting from scratch.

I see your point of view - there are some people who just write kids (and teachers) off as “lost causes” for one reason or another. At the same time, however, many of us have so many requirements heaped upon us (*cough*NLCB*cough*) that we have to pick our battles carefully. In my case art often fell by the wayside since the popular opinion is that the “core” subjects are more important.

Do many just give up? Yes.

Could parent involvement with encouraging children make up for what schools don’t have the time or resources for? Of course.

Alas, not every administrator is going to value a well rounded art (or “insert special interest that encourages young minds here”) program, and not every parent is going to have the time, energy, and motivation to encourage their kids.

Here’s hoping that most of the next generation has at least one of those two scenarios going well for them.

BE BRAVE!

Since I teach middle schoolers, I see them not wanting to try something they don’t think they will be good at. I am a teacher half of the time and a cheerleader the other half. All students need to be risk-takers to be the progressive leaders in technology.

At very young ages they’re experiencing things for the first time, still learning the basics of hand-eye coordination, and the like. My contention is that once they’ve reached 6th grade they should at least KNOW these things, whether or not they choose to use them in their artwork.

Art is very much about inspiration and creativity, but at the same time it’s also about observing and knowing the world around you. I have plenty of lessons where creativity is the main goal, but I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t also cover realism to some (age appropriate) degree.

The clouds in the sky, If the paper is white, and you know their are 2 colors to a normal sky, then well, blue is the way to go at least they are putting colors that make sense together. I bet.. if you gave them blue paper.. they would color with white crowns Not to say that your not doing a damn good job in making them think by asking them about the clouds.. and maybe challenging their designs.. I’m not protesting just looking at it a bit differently. Maybe the sky isn’t important in what they are trying to portray in their picture… maybe they are just looking for something to take up space at the top… sure their art may not make sense to us.. but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense to them.. and i mean really how different from that pile of garbage in the middle of an art museum that no one understands are the kids drawings? Hard to understand without asking the artist, ridiculous in nature, and the conclusions they expect you to reach totaly unrealistic.

I wouldn’t call you nitpicky.. not at all but me being a psych grad .. the first thing I want to do is get the kids interpretation of the drawing.. that interests me more then all the doodles in the world.

Cheers!
p.s Sorry about the spelling, I’m poor at it

Lucky for me, the REAL college tech support people were able to bring over a copy of Norton Utilities and recover the majority of his data, including the grades for all of his classes.

I was smart enough to take my glasses off before diving, but I put them back on to take some pictures. It was a full manual SLR camera, so being able to see if things were in focus was kind of important. My problem was after I took some pictures I forgot I had put my glasses back on … at least until after I came up for air.

The replacement pair lasted over 10 years though.