Ms. Wednesday

On Monday my students told me that they knew about another Ms. Nancy. "He's a spider, and he plays tricks," they said. It's true. Anansi the spider is a trickster of African folktales. I am sometimes a trickster of art classes, and have been known to teach spiderweb weaving projects. I only have two legs, though.

On Tuesday my students told me my name was Ms. Wednesday. It had never occurred to me how similar that sounds. I kind of like it. It's not as racy as Miss November, or as literary as the new novels about Thursday Next, but it's fun.

On Wednesday a student told me he knew another Ms. Nancy. "She is my French teacher, and she is really old, just like you." Great. You can see why I prefer being Ms. Wednesday! I also like it when a parent nudges his child and says in a stage whisper, "Look! It's Ms. Nancy, the craziest art teacher on the planet!" Boy, that makes my day.

Perhaps inspired by the woman I watched doing Tai Chi exercises on the lawn of the Santa Fe Post Office, I've been teaching line lessons through movements that are a mix of pantomime and modern dance. My goal is to impress on the kids the importance of using one hand to hold their paper on the table while they use the other hand to draw big, strong lines. I'm teaching them that pulled lines are stronger than pushed lines, that little snail lines only need our hands and fingers, but big whale lines need our whole arm and shoulder, and some hip-hop hiccup mountain lines (not to be confused with mountain lions) need us to move us our hips, knees and ankles. My knees and ankles haven't moved this way since I practiced tae kwon do side kicks with my boys when they were pretty little. It's been fun and effective. The kids are all game to mimic that old lady, Ms. Wednesday. They are all getting the idea of holding the paper in place while drawing. I believe occupational therapists call that a bilateral skill--your left hand isn't doing what your right hand is doing. If these little kids can get this skill by mimicking me doing a silly dance, it is worth it. But after Day Three I can barely move! Don't ask me to do the limbo.