Literacy-based Summer Camp: Day 13

Colours and painting evoke a sense of joy and freedom. Until today, I had not engaged children in such an activity. I have always imagined painting to be a free-style process that does not require much accuracy of form or size. However, when I engaged children in painting today, I realised their idea of painting or drawing was vastly different from my own.

Painting for Joy?

I was short of painting brushes for all participating children. Since Sahil was older and often came in early, I requested him to get about 10 paintbrushes from across the street. Over the last few days, I felt like Sahil had started to warm up. We often had conversations after the regular sessions about something random. This included him asking questions about my life or vice versa. This helped both of us develop an ease around each other. However, I also had to be careful to protect my privacy as he would often get carried away. For example, he began to hover over my head as I typed a personal message on my phone.
    In any case, to my surprise, the paint brushes were easily available in the nearby grocery shops, and thanks to Sahil were enough for everyone. Slowly, children began to come in, settling down on benches; as I distributed sheets of paper, pencils, paint and brushes among them. Children continued to ask for things, and I had to continue to remind them to be patient. As hard as it was, the repeated reminder throughout the day had started sinking in, and they were beginning to get used to calm and patience.
    The painting prompt for children was: Draw anything that brought you joy or made you feel happy. As it turned out, the openness of the statement confused them, and children continued to ask for clarifications or specific objects or things they could draw. Another peculiar issue that came to the fore was the use of a scale or eraser. Children absolutely wanted to draw borders around their drawings and could not get themselves to draw without them. Some who wanted to draw the Indian flag or buildings with lines, they continued to demand a ruler to have exact lines on their drawings. In case of mistakes, they could not get themselves to be ok with it. Since I did not have any, I continued to suggest that they draw without it or that it was ok to make mistakes. We could always colour over them. However, this was unacceptable to them.
    I thought perhaps if I drew and painted with them with similar constraints, it might make them feel better. So I did. I am not sure if this helped them in any way, but a few children began to settle in and draw or paint. Some used the paintbrush as a ruler. Others intermittently continued to come to ask for erasers or rulers.
    At some point, I suggested to them that the activity is about making mistakes or free-style painting so that their hand could flow like the water on paper. It was supposed to broaden their ideas of painting or help them feel the joy of free-style painting.
    Things children drew included standard objects like a flag, a mountain, and a triangular house. However, some did paint things that they liked. Like a chess board, or a football ground, a badminton court, devices like a phone, a TV, a watch, a pen or a book. The entire painting session lasted for about two hours. See the children’s drawing below.

 

Brainstorming Weird/Crazy

In the activity conducted on the previous day, "What my teachers, parents and friends think of me”, Sahil, in his reflections, had written feeling weird or that others found him weird. I remember as a kid feeling that way and perhaps this is something every young adult feels growing up. I wanted to address this idea and perhaps just let him know that it was ok to feel that. So I arranged a short activity around it and provided some reading material. This included an example of Einstein and his quirky habits. I wanted to let the children know that even a person as intelligent as he, was weird, and so it hardly mattered in the larger scheme of things.

Like our previous brainstorming word activities, I gathered children around and asked them what they thought being weird was or who decides what or who is weird. If they ever felt that way, and why so?

Children’s responses include, from being “mental”, “stupid”, “someone who did things differently” or that people around them, like “parents”, “teachers” or “adults” decided what was weird. Someone even said that it was about manners or a person’s behaviour. See children’s responses in the image below.

To make them comfortable, I said that I felt weird growing up and that it is not something that lasted all the time. That people in different cultures or countries had different habits, and so it was possible to live differently with different behaviours that are different from those of people around them.

I got children to read the piece on Einstein and the older children to translate or summarise it for younger children. There was a general silence among the children, with a few talking about what they had read. I am not sure the impact this had on the children; however, I only hoped that Sahil felt a little less out of place after it.

                             


Games and Reflection

We ended the day with a few games and recounted all the things that the children did for the day. I reminded them again about the visiting guest for the next two days, and with the hope that they will join us soon.