Important: when kids grow up doing projects like the one on the left, they have no idea what to do when presented with projects like the one on the right. They get so used to being given step by step instructions that they develop what’s called learned helplessness - that is, they’ll sit there and say “I can’t do it, I don’t know what to do” until the teacher comes and tells them exactly what to do.
If you’re teaching kids who have developed learned helplessness, you may need to ease them into this with a project somewhere in between where some guidance is given but they have opportunities for creativity.
Keeping on the penguin theme, an in-between activity may be giving them an outline of a penguin and a variety of materials they can use to fill it in - maybe feathers, pom poms, tissue/construction paper, etc.
The goal is the assignment on the right, but we want to support kids as they develop their creativity - especially if public school has already damaged it.
Also, for homeschooling parents - remember that you don’t have to separate subjects. This may be an art project, but it lends itself naturally to a science discussion on why the penguin has black/white/grey feathers and how those colors help the penguin adapt to its environment. (Hint: don’t think about a penguin in the snow, think about a penguin in the water looking for fish while avoiding seals).
In fact, you could have a lesson for each subject centered around penguins.
Kids can read a book on penguins appropriate for their age level which covers both the science aspect and their informational text reading skills, they can write something about penguins (maybe a story or a poem), they can paint or draw penguins, and it’s easy enough to make up math story problems involving penguins and fish, depending on which math skills kids are learning, anywhere from visual adding (penguin has one fish and catches two more) to comparing average swimming velocities of penguins and seals.
Open-ended learning isn’t limited to individual assignments - it can be your educational philosophy from day one.
Story time:
My last year in public education I was asked to teach art as a paraprofessional bc the school I was at (as a special education parapro for preschoolers) had too many students to only offer 2 activities ( PE & Music).
I taught the entire school- Kindergarten-6th grade. This school had never had art before so my students came to me only having done projects like the one above. I knew this going in so we started with the basics for everyone. We started with the most basic element- line, and worked our way through the basic elements of art.
I spent the entire first semester navigating students having mini meltdowns or just flat out refusing to touch a piece of paper with a utensil. They were terrified to not have things prepared and done for them. I worked so hard to help them gain confidence in their abilities and the hardest lesson to learn: its okay to mess up. These kids were terrified of failure.
The education system is failing to teach kids grit and determination. They are completely dependent on their teachers, especially when presented with something new. They aren't encouraged to explore and learn outside of the curriculum and it was evident in my art classroom everyday in every class.
THIS! ALL of this!!
Another story: It’s not just like this with children, it follows people their whole lives.
At one point I was a workshop instructor at a school of art for adults/older students. For my first classes (for instance painting a botanical illustration using real specimen as reference), I was demonstrating the project in front of the class by simultaneously doing it myself to show how to use the materials and tools. But I would also go around each student and instructed them on how they each were doing based on their strengths. I was encouraging them to push in whatever direction they felt naturally interested in, even if it wasn’t exactly like how I was doing, or if the work was more whimsical or abstract, etc. I was basically saying it was important to discover their own way to capture what they saw and to be open-minded about it; to be playful. Every single person had a clear, unique style and direction and I thought it was going extremely well. I could also show the rest of the class what made each piece personal and how to identify your own unique direction.
However I received negative feedback from the school. This was not what was expected. I was supposed to literally just do the entire project step by step and have the students copy me. That’s it. They had to do exactly everything I did. I was gutted and appalled; I wanted to ask why would anybody pay good money to learn ART just to be made into a clone of someone else.
To this day, this remains one of the most profoundly disappointing and frustrating experiences of my life. I started off being so happy to share and teach art but the philosophy was utterly against what I feel art should be. I couldn’t do it.
