“Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

-         Pablo Picasso

 

 

Several years ago, I had a friend who was taking an art class for elementary teachers.  She used our children as subjects for one of her assignments, which required her to obtain sample drawings from children of various ages.  She provided us with a large drawing tablet, oil pastels, colored pencils, and markers and asked the children to draw a picture of a house.  No other requirements were given. 

 

Amy, who was twelve at the time, set about drawing a picture of her “dream house”.  It was colorful, floral and included modern furniture and a swimming pool.  Maggie, who was six, sat next to Amy as she worked and produced a fanciful, six-year old version of a similar house.  Eleven-year-old Joel took his tablet across the street and went to great lengths to accurately represent our house in structure, color, and details.  He drew bricks, gutters, windows, trim, and garage door handles.  Patrick was nine that summer and he observed his siblings working before he started.  He asked me if he had to complete the project, and I insisted that he do it as a favor to our friend.  After just a few minutes, he handed me his paper, which had only a large, rectangular building with a roof and a few windows.  Written across the top of the drawing were the words, “Death Mansion”. 

 

My friend called to thank us for our help with the project and said that the drawings were the subject of much discussion among her classmates, especially “Death Mansion”.  She said that her art professor told them that many children who have joyfully participated in art activities in the past begin to hate it around age nine, and “Death Mansion” was a fitting illustration of his point.  Patrick’s drawing was a big hit!

 

Several weeks ago, I started reading “The Little Prince” aloud (it’s yours, sister.  I’ll put it right back where I got it- promise!).  Clearly Antoine de Saint-Exupery believes that we, as parents and teachers, are responsible for this decline in artistic activity.  “The grown-ups advised me to put away my drawings of boa constrictors, outside or inside, and apply myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar. That is why I abandoned, at the age of six, a magnificent career as an artist.  I had been discouraged by the failure of my drawing…Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves and it is exhausting for children to have to provide explanations over and over again.”

 

I don’t have an answer to Picasso’s problem, but I am pretty sure that the answer has more to do with adult responses to children’s art than with the art itself.  How can we encourage children to remain artists as they grow older?  I would love to hear about your experiences and ideas, positive or negative, as a child, teacher, or parent.    

Many years ago, I was skiing with a college friend who came from a family of 13 children.  When we stopped in the lodge cafeteria line for a lunch break, he filled his cup at the Cherry Coke dispenser, tipped his head all the way back and chugged until it was empty.  He then shoved the cup back under the fountain, filled it again, and proceeded along in the cafeteria line.  I watched him wide-eyed.  I had never seen anyone do this.  Perhaps the reason he did not think it necessary to excuse his action is that, to him, there was nothing unusual about it.  I did not say a word, but I wondered at the time if the ability to consume with such speed and the drive to do so had anything to do with the number of siblings he had. I do not wonder anymore.  I am certain of the connection.

 

Survival skills in a mid-sized family such as ours are not taught in a formal way and they are never taught by the parents.  In fact, if my children always followed my rules, they know perfectly well that they would suffer for it.  “Just one roll, honey”, I tell them, “you might be too full for a second one.  Wait and see if you still want it later”. The older children know that I am crazy.  They have tried this in the past, to find only crumbs in the bread basket when they decide that they are indeed ready for another. 

 

Life at our house is a continual game of musical chairs. The younger children watch and learn how the game is played.  They learn to take both pieces of pizza just in case.  You can always put one back, but if it’s gone, it’s gone.  They also learn to “call” things.  I am quite sure that I never educated them on proper “calling” etiquette, but they all seem to know the rules.  You can “call” the front seat on the way to the car, but it works best if you get a running start before calling it.  You can call the last popsicle, but you want to make sure that you are close to the freezer before you do it.  Calling does not hold up in court with parents, but it does help when you are being tried by a jury of your peers.

 

Sam is the youngest.  He benefits from watching his siblings and learned the unwritten sibling rulebook earlier than anyone.  The other day, we were shopping at Sam’s Club, just the two of us.  I told him to pick out two roasted chickens for dinner that night.  I am sure he was doing the math in his head.  Two chickens, four legs, five kids.  He picked up the chicken with both hands, and as he leaned over to set it in the cart, with his hands still touching it, he said quickly,“ I call a drumstick”.  I think he’s going to be alright.            

As “Rock Band” plays on in my basement, I can’t stop pouring over the pages of this old children’s poetry book.  A friend of mine recently read some articles on the lack of contact that today’s young children have with nature.  I am still not going to be planting a flower garden anytime soon, but these thoughts and this poem have inspired me.  Does anyone know anything about butterbean tents or any other great, natural outdoor play spaces for children?

The Butterbean Tent (by Elizabeth Madox Roberts)

All through the gardent I went and went,

And I walked in under the butterbean tent.

The poles leaned up like a good tepee

And made a nice little house for me.

I had a hard brown clod for a seat,

And all outside was a cool green street.

A little green worm and a butterfly

And a cricket-like thing that could hop

went by.

Hidden away there were flocks

and flocks

Of bugs that could go like little clocks.

Such a good day it was when I spent

A long,long while in the butterbean tent.

 

 

I spent the past few days at my parents’ house.  Much of my time I spent in the basement going through all the treasures that my mother saved from her kindergarten classroom when she retired.  The rest of the time, I was outside playing with the kids, jumping on the trampoline and “swimming”and frog hunting in the frigid, spring-fed lake on their farm.  I came across this poem in a book mom bought early in her teaching career and it seemed particularly fitting for this weekend.

Toys (by May Richardson)

Reginald-James has lots of toys-

Trains that run on a track,

Automobiles, and an elephant

With a little house on his back!

 

His sister, Marjorie-Eleanor,

Has a doll that really talks,

A doll-house with lights an’ everythining,

And a lion that roars and walks!

 

But they can’t seem to think up make-believes,

When they come to spend the day;

They just stand around and  look at us-

They don’t know how to play!

 

They never made acorn saucers and cups,

Or a boat from a walnut shell;

They never dressed up a peanut-doll

In a hat of a lily bell.

 

They don’t know how to build a dam,

Or climb a rope, hand over hand;

And the willow whistles Billy cuts-

They thought them perfectly grand!

 

So when they’re tired of winding trains

And hearing the lion roar-

Well, I feel sorry for Reginald-James

And Marjorie-Eleanor!

 

I would be misleading you if I did not also tell you that we had to make it home in time to pick up “Rock Band”, since Joel has been counting the days until its realease ever since he pre-paid.  The kids are all downstairs jamming with Boston as I write this .  I’m glad they spent this past week out in the sun…..

 

 

 

 

 

    I mentioned this book in an earlier post.  We read several chapters from this book for my storytelling class and I am now thoroughly enjoying the rest of it.  Vivian Gussin Paley taught kindergarten at the lab school at the University of Chicago for many years and has written many books about her classroom experiences, which are centered around children’s stories.  She sees storytelling as a two-way street.  Of course, telling stories to children is important, but the emphasis she puts on listening to the children’s original stories, writing them down, and allowing children to act them out as a group, is unique. 

I love the way she views herself as a “student” of her students and describes her own growth as a teacher. “In my early teaching years, I was in the wrong forest.  I paid scant attention to the play and did not hear the stories, though once upon a time I must have also imagined such wondrous events”.  I also appreciate the value she gives to the unique culture of every classroom.  “The classroom that does not create its own legends has not traveled beneath the surface to where the living takes place.”

This is only the second book I’ve read by Vivian Gussin Paley (“Wally’s Stories was my first- another winner), but I find that while I am reading her books, I pay much more attention to the “stories” I hear around me.  What are my children saying?  What can I learn from them through their stories?  Life with children is fascinating when you adopt Paley’s mindset.  I’m glad she has written enough books to keep me immersed in her perspective for a while.   

 

 

 

I guess that the second Sunday of June is traditionally children’s day in some circles, although it looks like you could celebrate this day year round if you check out all the different dates it is celebrated around the world.  I just had to post this sometime, so I’ll use this occasion as a good excuse.

 

Come to me, O ye children!
  For I hear you at your play,
And the questions that perplexed me
  Have vanished quite away. 

Ye open the eastern windows,
  That look towards the sun,
Where thoughts are singing swallows
  And the brooks of morning run. 

In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
  In your thoughts the brooklet’s flow,
But in mine is the wind of Autumn
  And the first fall of the snow. 

Ah! what would the world be to us
  If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
  Worse than the dark before. 

What the leaves are to the forest,
  With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
  Have been hardened into wood,– 

That to the world are children;
  Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
  Than reaches the trunks below. 

Come to me, O ye children!
  And whisper in my ear
What the birds and the winds are singing
  In your sunny atmosphere. 

For what are all our contrivings,
  And the wisdom of our books,
When compared with your caresses,
  And the gladness of your looks? 

Ye are better than all the ballads
  That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,
  And all the rest are dead.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

---

 

 

            As I continue to clean up the aftermath of our flood, it occurs to me that I am in the process of accumulating stories that will be safeguarded against water damage.  The following is part of a paper a wrote for my storytelling class I took in the spring.  One of the things that most delights my about being in the preschool classroom again is the chance to share this new hobby with my students.  It’s a little long, so feel free to just skim it, sister.

 

 

 I grew up with a mother who was a kindergarten teacher and a grandmother who lived next door who had also been a teacher.  Both my mother and grandmother loved children’s books.  We had books all over the house and made frequent trips to the library.  While my mother was at school, my grandma was my babysitter, and she would sit with me in her lap and read every day.  We read Charlotte’s Web, The Five Little Peppers and How they Grew, and Pippi Longstocking.  One of my warmest childhood memories is sitting on grandma’s lap while she laughed so hard at that “silly old bear” she couldn’t go on reading Winnie the Pooh!  I learned from these early experiences that there was a special joy to be found in reading books that couldn’t be found in any other way.

            During my early years, I also had a great grandmother who was living nearby.  She was much younger than my great grandfather, who I never knew, and she married into the family after his first wife, my grandpa’s mother, died.  She came to our farm from her home in Canada to work as my great grandpa’s housekeeper and never left.  She loved my sister and me and would often have us come to her home to play cards on Saturday nights. Those evenings always included stories- not books- but stories that she would pull out of her memory and serve to us along with the orange sherbet and “cansino tea” (just warm milk and sugar, that’s why you “can see no tea”).  She told stories about her big family in Nova Scotia, the fights they had, the trouble they caused, the misfortunes that they experienced.  As I try to recall her stories today, it strikes me that few of them were “happy ending stories”.  In fact, many of them were cautionary tales and contained warnings of getting one’s braids too close to the wringer when doing laundry or the dangers of “borrowing” you sister’s fancy church hat on a day when an unexpected thunderstorm occurs.

            Although many of Grandma Anna’s stories lacked a happy ending, I still recall the quiet, contented feeling that would come over me as she would settle into a story.  “Back in those days, babies were not born in the hospital, but we had a woman called a midwife who would come to our house.”  Ahh…I would relax and envision the people, the setting, the events.  I had a picture in my mind of each person and place even though I had never been there or ever met one of her siblings.  I wonder now if her great distance from her family gave Anna more liberty in her storytelling.  No one was around to verify anything that she told us!

            As the years passed, I followed my mother and grandmother in becoming a teacher and a mother.  I passed on the love of books to my children and students as much as I could, reading all my old childhood favorites and searching the library to discover more, but the stories that live outside of the pages of a picture book, the kind that mesmerized me as I sat in Anna’s kitchen?  I forgot about those.

            It was not until four years ago that I began to remember Anna’s stories and to consider the unique power that storytelling could have.  After spending ten years at home with my young family, I returned to teaching in the public schools as a cross categorical special education teacher.  My job required me to lead children in reading groups, time them as they read, keep a “running record” of words missed, and try to assess how much of what they read was comprehended.  Sounds like fun for someone who loves children’s books, doesn’t it?  The problem was that, as a special education teacher, I spent much of my time reading with students who, by third grade, already hated to read.  They hated it because it never “clicked” for them, like it did for their classmates.  They hated it because they felt embarrassed every time they were asked to read.  Most of all, I think they hated it because the books that were written at their reading level were not at their “thinking level”.  These children were bright.  They had many interesting thoughts and experiences, but their reading and writing ability could not keep up with their interests, curiosity, and desire to communicate.

            I didn’t plan to tell the children stories.  There was hardly enough time to get through all the required components of reading group as it was.  Storytelling was something that just began to happen and I didn’t really know why I was doing it.  I simply had the urge to tell stories, an inclination that I understand much better now than I did then.  I started with “Sam” stories.  At the time, my son was two years old and full of both humor and challenges.  Several days in a row, I told about his antics at the park or the grocery store, and before long, every reading group began with a question from the kids: “Ms. Shea, what did Sammy do last night?”

 After a while, I had to expand my material to supply the daily demand.  I told the kids about my parents’ farm and my last trip to my favorite restaurant, and some incidents I remembered from when I was in third grade.  Eventually, I started to feel guilty about all the time I was “wasting” on stories.  After all, we had to start getting serious about IEP goals and ISAT preparation!  I cut out the stories for a few days, hoping that I could get ahead.  The omission did not go unnoticed.  One of my students asked me in a sad voice, “How come you never, like, talk to us anymore?”  That’s all it took.  I knew then that I had to tell stories and that I was going to do it, even if I couldn’t explain why.

            The more I told stories to my class, the more I told them at home.  I found that they came in handy in a pinch, like when we were stuck in traffic with nothing to do or when I had to keep a group of little dancers calm backstage before a performance.  When I returned to graduate school in education, my program allowed me to take one elective. I didn’t have to peruse the course catalog to decide what to take.  I had heard that there was an excellent storytelling class offered, and I took it as soon as I could.  In the course readings and discussions, I found the answer not only to the why question, but also gained some tips on how to best use story telling in the classroom.

            This is my “storytelling story”, and you will notice that it is missing an important component:  an ending.  I am only beginning to discover the power of storytelling in the home and classroom and to build up a repertoire that will sustain me through a school year.   

Yesterday I woke up to discover ankle-deep water all over downstairs.  I spent the day hauling piles of water-logged junk out to the dumpster.  Most of the damaged goods didn’t have much value, but the some of the soggy picture books made me a little teary. 

One particularly special book was “Asleep, Asleep” by Nancy Tafuri.  We discovered this book on one of our first trips to the Urbana Library when we first moved here and I bought Amy her own copy as a gift when her new baby brother arrived.  We have a picure of us reading it together on Joel’s first night at home.  Sometimes at bedtime, I still ask the question that is repeated throughout the book, “Are the children asleep?”  and they answer in hushed tones, “asleep, asleep”.

Another favorite book was a gift from Aunt Molly. “Philipok”,  by Leo Tolstoy, is a beautifully illustrated story of a little boy who is told he is too young to go to school, but sneaks out while his grandmother is sleeping and proves to the teacher that he is ready to learn.  Our favorite line from this book sometimes comes up as we joke with each other, “I’m really very clever, you see”. 

When I dropped the stack of books into the dumpster, I turned my face away, not wanting to watch them go in. As I walked back inside, I remembered something I recently read in “Wally’s Stories” by Vivain Gussin Paley.   She says that the stories we share shape our culture and develop our shared language.  These books were precious to me because we read them together.  I’m so glad we did.        

Last week, Sam graduated from Mother’s Morning Out preschool.  Here is the letter I gave to the director at graduation.  As I venture back into the preschool classroom as a teacher instead of a parent next year, I want to contribute to this kind of warm, caring atmosphere that has meant so much to me as a parent over the years.

 

 

 

Dear Mimi and everyone at MMO,

                                                     

            It is hard to believe that at the end of this month, the Shea family will have graduated from MMO after 11 years of continuous attendance.  I like to tell the story of how I was overwhelmed after my second baby was born, looking for some kind of escape from the pressures of motherhood.  Since I had been a teacher before our first child was born, I checked the want ads for teaching jobs.  I saw an opening at a place called Mother’s Morning Out, and soon after inquiring about the position, I visited the school for an interview.  I could hardly believe how good it all sounded.  I had never heard of a preschool where I could drop off my infant as well, any morning I felt the need, and pay only for the hours that I used.  I inquired as to how that could possibly work, when the school had no idea who would show up when.  “We don’t know how it works”, I was told, “but it always does”. 

            When I received a phone call asking if I was interested in the job, I replied that my husband and I had decided that a job was not exactly what I needed right now. “But…” I sheepishly asked, “Could you send me and application to register my kids?”

The following fall, when it was time for Amy and Joel to begin to attend the 3’s and Toddlers, I had just been put on bed rest with my third baby.  Although we had only planned for the children to attend twice a week, we used MMO every day until Patrick arrived.  When I recovered and made an appearance at school, I remember feeling warmed by the concern of the staff for all of us, even though we had just met.

            In the years that followed, as our family grew to include Maggie and Sam, MMO has been there for us through all the challenges that family life has presented.  As a stay-at-home mom, I sometimes missed having colleagues to share daily news and concerns with me.  I looked forward to picking up the children because I knew that there would be some adult contact and friendly conversation about what was going on in our lives. 

            Recently, a doctoral student at the U of I sent home a questionnaire on how we chose our preschool.  She provided a list of priorities and asked parents to put them in order of importance to us.  There were many items on the list that I rated as important.  I want the children to be safe, to be challenged, and to be taught in a way that is appropriate for their developmental stages.  The item that I rated as most important, however, was the teacher’s happiness at her job.  Over the years, I have had more than a few of my children’s MMO teachers tell me that they loved their work and report that this was a “dream job”.  There is a positive and supportive atmosphere around the school that always made me feel good about entrusting my children to all of you.

            I feel a little sad that this spring brings us to “the end of an era”.  Perhaps one of the reasons I waited an extra year to send Sam to kindergarten was that I wasn’t ready to say good-bye!  I feel strongly that early influences in a child’s life have a lasting impact in the years to come.  Our MMO alumni are now thriving in high school, middle school, and elementary school, and in this sense, MMO will always be a part of our family. 

 

Many Thanks to all of you for all you do,

 

Katie Shea (for Mike, Amy, Joel, Patrick, Maggie, and Sam)        

Because my classes are over and my new job has not started yet and the kids are still in school, I am enjoying a season of time to myself at home.  One day recently, I attempted to tackle the playroom and sorted through the dress-up basket.  I came across the stuffed parrot that Sam used for his pirate costume last Halloween.  It was missing an eye, and I know that the Fly Lady would have tossed it, but I shoved it back in the basket.

 

The next day, my eleven-year-old son, Patrick, did a presentation with his fifth grade class.  Each student was given an American president to speak about and props were required. Patrick didn’t mention that he was to talk about Ronald Reagan and needed a bag of Jelly Bellies until just before he left for school that morning.  I quickly picked up the Jelly Bellies after getting Sam from preschool and raced over to see the presentation with about ten minutes to spare.

 

 While I was waiting, I chatted with another mom whose son had just told her that he needed broccoli (George H.W. Bush, of course) that morning, but when she offered to get it for him just before the show began, he said, “No, I don’t need the broccoli anymore.  What I need now is a stuffed parrot.” I don’t remember now which president had a pet parrot, but it suddenly became clear to the children that this was essential.  As she told me, laughing about the absurdity of such a request with ten minutes until show time, my face lit up, “I have one!”  I said, and I raced home, put my hands right on it, and ran victoriously into the school gym.

 

I cannot tell you how deeply satisfied I was at being able to produce the right thing at the right time.  I am sure that the presentation would have been fine without it.  But I still catch myself grinning every time I think about it.