Teaching Art to Kids

This week I had the opportunity to teach art to 10 interesting "at risk"children at the Touchdown Camp for 3 days. "At Rick" means children that came from broken homes, poor and unfortunate. You see all kinds of personalities from the quiet, to the boisterous, the mischievous, the mean, the bully, the sweet and those who really wanted to learn. Age range is 6 -12 years old.

I discovered that teaching kids was more of a challenge than adults. My first day was to lecture on lines and shapes that makes everything you see on this planet. The second and third day was to learn about the different styles of different artists; Rambrant, Valeques, Ruben, Vermeer, Monet, Miro, Rivera and Kahlo. Music of different periods and culture.

It is suppose to be simple... and I was going to give a short presentation and let them do the exercise later. However, I notice that their attention span is only 5 minutes and they get really rowdy and disturbed the other children who wanted to learn more. At first I could not identify the ring leader, but then I noticed that one of them will influence a couple of boys to his way of behavior by provoking the other children to a reaction, then fight,  joke and laugh. But I know he was trying to disrupt the class by wanting to do his own thing. I wonder why that is? Maybe a cry for attention! Another boy was also trying to become the other alpha male. This is an amazing discovery. It is the animal kingdom once more.

This is a challenging discovery for me, as this class is not just a simple art class but is also a psychological war game. I realized that some of these kids does not want to be here. One of them is very intelligent and cry out for attention. And another one, just wanted to do his own thing. Maybe they needed to be challenged as were older. I was discovering that when children get bored, they would have already absorbed the learning process or simply want to be disruptive as they are bored.

When I asked a question who would you like to draw this card for... any love ones? The 4 older boys said themselves, which could mean that they see themselves self reliant and maybe discover that they need to love themselves to survive? One of them said their uncle and two said moms. No one said fathers. One boy did not even care what was going on, tore the card up and just sat there the whole time.

Then there are two girls who have potential and the real ability to draw, one who already knows about Frida Kahlo. I think she maybe 9 or 10 years old. She is amazing and she got the gift. The other girl who is quieter has the ability, she does not talk much but she has the skill.

The rest of the kids are still in discovery as they are introverts and needed to be discovered much more.

To get a better learning experience, children with different level of intelligence should be taught at a different capacity to either move up in the learning curve or catch up as compared to the norm.

I believe each of them learn something the past 3 days. It is reflected in the art the next day. They could not let go of Miro's style of drawing. They even remembered the symbols and drew it in their cards. They asked questions about Kahlo's paintings. Some say that that do not like classical period as it is for the old.

What an incredible experience for a 3 day class. One could do so much with more days. I salute all teachers and love them dearly!