I heart Mo Willems
I heard this interview on NPR a while back and forgot about it. I love what he had to say!
Somewhere along the way, we all were artists. Everyone picks up crayons or chalk as toddlers, but at some point, we just stop drawing. Radio cartoonist and children's author Mo Willems says that's a pity.
Willems is obsessed with why adults don't draw — and he wants to do something about it.
"One of the interesting things about cartooning and doodling and drawing," Willems tells Michele Norris, "is that people stop when they decide they're not good at it. Nobody stops playing basketball when they realize they're not going to become a professional. The same thing should apply to cartooning."
Willems says just sitting and drawing a character brings out empathy in people, and that's something the world could use more of right now.
One of the biggest reasons children stop drawing is that they see that adults don't do it, Willems says. When he goes into classrooms, he says, teachers often ask him to get the kids to draw. But when he does, many of the teachers don't participate.
"Well, now the kids realize that this is just a baby activity," he says.
He reminds us that parents are actually cool in kids' eyes — for a while — and kids want to imitate what they do.
"If your kid comes home from school and you say, 'I'll be right with you; I'm just finishing a doodle,' the kid's going to go, 'Dude, I want to do that, too!' "
posted by Becka @ 9:00 AM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
So true. I never really thought about it that way, but it makes SO much sense.
I think the *other* reason that kids stop creating art is that art class in school doesn't allow for creativity. It's all about "we're doing THIS project in THIS way, with very little room for originality". (Yes, I have a 4th grade story that relates to that. It's only because I'm stubborn that I didn't get totally turned off of creating stuff.)
I always loved it when my Ma doodled/drew stuff. It was objectively not great representational stuff, but it had character.
That is an interesting comment. I am an art teacher, not in the same classroom every day, but I work as an artist in residence coming in to do special projects. In a lot of cases is is really difficult to encourage creativity and we do end up doing some "step one, step two, step three" kinds of projects. Many times when I give kids a more open ended project they don't know where to start. These kids don't get the opportunity to make choices very often. Large class sizes and all of the "benchmarks and standards" make very much of the teaching day about "we are doing this project, in this way" just to keep every kid from being "left behind". There is always a right and a wrong answer and everything is checked and evaluated to make sure you have the right answer. They are used to being told what to do next and don't have the experience to "be creative". A lot of art is also about learning skills that will allow you to be creative. You cannot do any creative sewing until you have practiced with the sewing machine enough to know how it works or until you have learned to thread your needle. Same with knowing your alphabet or your multiplications facts. You need some basic skills/information before you can move on to the bigger stuff. I taught a class of adult immigrant women one summer and we had an entire class about how to use scissors. In their culture, the men were the ones who used special tools like scissors and most of my women had never been allowed to use them before. They also had a very hard time with "make a picture of what you want to" and wanted me to tell them what their picture should look like. It is somewhat a catch-22 - in order to be creative, you need opportunities to learn how be creative.
That's a *very* good point. I guess I was coming from a home where I was encouraged to color (albeit within the lines ;) and draw and create from as early as I can remember. I totally get that kids need to learn the skills first -- that makes a lot of sense. But in the 4th grade I was graded *down* on an art project because I chose to do something a little different from the outlined project. (I was finishing it late, while the class was engaged in a different, totally "optional" activity (in which I was pressured to engage and refused), and I didn't want to get up to get water for my paints. So I used some felt scraps instead. The teacher literally said that the project was "to follow directions and not create something new". *sigh*) I guess I'd hope that by that point -- the 4th grade or so -- we'd have enough skills that creativity would start to be really possible.
VERY interesting comment about the immigrant women's class! Given how responsible women in many cultures are for clothing their families, I find it interesting that scissors would be a man's tool.
It sounds like school has changed a lot from when I was a student. I guess I knew that, but didn't have any concrete examples, and since I don't have kids, I don't get exposed to it. I'm not trying to be a suck up here, but really -- THANK YOU for helping kids learn to be creative. We need that ability on so many levels. Thank you for teaching art. :)
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