Last semester we had the Color Wheel Group and the Baked Potato Group. That's because everybody can draw a potato. Even the preschoolers who say, "I can't...," or, "it's too hard," agree that a potato is easy to draw.
When you break things down to the simplest part, the baked potato, drawing gets easier. That's my philosophy of life--find the baked potato, then take the decisions as butter or sour cream instead of life and death. It's warm, satisfying, simple, and sure takes away fear of failure.
Now it is time for new groups and symbols. Shirts and Skins won't do! Neither will Curly Fries and Hash Browns.
My dad told a memorable tale of his Pierce Congregational Sunday School class back in the late-1920s. His group was named "God's Little Lights" as opposed to "God's Little Lambs". Of course, the kids referred to themselves as "God's Little Lice". This story was recalled when the first President Bush used the slogan, "a thousand points of light." Now I remember "God's Little Lice" every time we have a case of head lice at school.
"Head lice" are two words teachers dread even more than "pink eye". Head lice are equal opportunity vermin, and no school is spared. By the time every child's scalp is inspected, most teachers feel itchy all over! I've been having waves of psychosomatic itchiness at a thousand points of lice for several days now. Oh, the power of suggestion!
No, no, no. We can't name the art groups The Head Lice and The Pink Eyes! That will never do. How about calling them the Birds and the Squirrels?
And so, I have out my copy of Everyday Doings At Home this evening, looking at Mother, Bobby, and Bettie Squirrel. My schoolteacher great-auntie Em used this book to teach courtesy on weekdays to the same kids who were "God's Little Lice" on Sundays. Kids haven't changed all that much in the past eighty years. I bet Auntie Em had her occasional thousand points of itchiness, too!
© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder
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