Set Up For Success

I like learning new things. I especially like it when, all of a sudden, I realize that all the observing I have done in my life is paying off. All the staring and analyzing of seemingly unimportant details coming together at the perfect moment in our yellow dining room.

I'm talking about homeschooling. And this particularly awesome self-portrait by Echo.

Don't you love it?

I do.

Pretty early on, once official homeschool started this fall, I realized that it feels good to me when there is a product derived from our learning. I know already that learning is happening all the time. I am completely aware that today in the pool I gave Echo a rundown on the Vietnam War while she dog-paddled around my head. I get it. But I also like it when we read and learn and make things and then get to hang them up later and sigh with pleasure and accomplishment.

And for this you need a good set up. You need to set the child up for a successful product. (Now don't get me wrong, I know great things come from spontaneity too. There's a place for it all.)

I'm congratulating myself for this and for my lifetime of observing because I didn't read about a good set up in the curriculum book, I saw it with my own eyes. My mom is a painter (I almost wrote famous painter because, well, she kinda is.) and as a kid when I got home from school I trudged up the steps to her studio and watched her paint. I sat in a swivel chair and spun and stared. I loved it. And when she wasn't painting her own work she was going to elementary schools and doing art projects with kids of all ages.

I studied those projects too because the work the kids did was really successful- meaning it looked really good. Children are fantastic artists. They let loose and do things those of us that are "trained" have to trick ourselves to do (like painting with our left hands). So it isn't that I am surprised that kid art can be good, I am surprised when an entire class produces appealing work.

Here's a project my mom did with our girls once.

She painted paper with matte black paint. She made a simple outline for the ice cream shapes. She gave the girls a pallette of acrylic paints and told them the background had to be an ugly color. Fantastic set up.

I always keep an eye out for this sort of thing. When Xi's class made a series of paintings that knocked my socks off I asked them what the process was. Almost always in these sorts of successful outcomes the answer is: limitation. The teacher doesn't give the kids every art medium under the sun with the instruction "Go hog wild!", (That can be fun too, but not what I'm talking about here) instead they carefully presented a select set of materials and clear guidelines.

Anyway... Now, suddenly I am a teacher and I have a little art student. I want her to explore her skills and tools, which she does every day using scrap paper and glue and crayons and pens and markers, but on art day I also want her to accomplish something specific, something that surprises her with her own abilities.

Before she arrived to art class I cleaned the watercolor palette- nothing worse than a muddy set. I layed a fresh piece of paper out. I put away clutter. I set up a mirror. And I made a frame that would go over her portrait. After we read that morning she arrived to the table with excitement and wonder. She saw the paints and wrinkled her brow. "Mom I don't like watercolors." I told her I knew that but that I wanted her to give it a go today (being "teacher" for a couple hours each day gives me this new licence to say things like that, whereas the rest of our day I am facilitating an UNschool approach.).

She gave it a go.

After she painted we waited for it to dry. I traced her pencil lines with a thin black pen. Then she carefully glued the frame over top.

My goodness she was proud.

I thought I'd share because the process was so satisfying. She was set up to be successful. Almost any face- painted loosely, then tidied with some carefully traced lines and framed clearly- is going to turn out well. And sometimes it just feels darn good to make something that turns out well.

Comments

[Amy McGregor]

Mmmmm hmmm. Love that girl. She even looks good in watercolor. Jae's starting homeschool starting thanksgiving break... so excited!

[Kae]

I'm congratulating you, too!
Love this post (and I'd love to join your class too, truth be told - sounds really fun!).

[Rachel]

Oh, I just exhaled a deep sigh when I saw that portrait. Amazingly lovely. So cool what you are doing, teaching, and experiencing with your daughter.

[kevin Watkin]

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