That's a mighty happy fish!

One on-going job of an art teacher is helping children learn to respect and enjoy other people's artwork. By the time preschoolers are ready for an art class, they've usually learned to appreciate an object without immediately putting it in their mouths. They've rarely learned to appreciate it without touching or climbing on it, though. As my blog today is about self-control, I will exercise restraint and refrain from making any comparisons to grown men at this time.

We have an ever-changing display of student art at school. Large group collaborations like murals stay on display the longest, since they don't belong to any one student. You saw the seven foot long shark named Larry that we made this summer. Larry swims in the lobby these days, and is in perpetual danger of having his teeth pulled out by children who are at their own wiggly/lost tooth phase.

By happy chance, I was doing a silly cowgirl imitation when I took the new students on a tour of the school last month. At each piece of art I would put my hands on my hips, lean way back, and drawl, "Now that's a mighty fine _______ (shark, camel, jungle mural...)." Pretty soon they were all imitating me, saying, "Why that's a mighty tall beanstalk," or, "Say, that's a mighty colorful zebra," with their hands on their hips. The great thing was, when the kids were mighty-fining, they weren't touching the art. Dang! Why didn't this rodeo clown figure that out a dozen years ago?

My elementary students are collaborating on a treehouse installation. So far our tree is full of squirrels and girls, a ladder, and a bucket on a rope. Soon we will add a tire swing, birdhouses, and birdfeeders. I was very afraid kids would actually try to climb the tree or the ladder made out of toilet paper tubes. Back to teaching a refresher course in mighty-fine!


Seems to me that men should be able to hook their thumbs in their belts, pretend to be Wild Bill Hickok, and drawl the observation, "That's a mighty bodacious female." After all, when we art teachers went to see The Motorcycle Diaries, we were able to put our hands on our cheeks, appreciate Gael Garcia Bernal, and gasp, "That's a mighty superior specimen of a man!," and "That's a mighty lucky hammock!"

http://www.motorcyclediaries.net/