What happens when we ask kids to teach
I recently received a poignant post from a teacher, Jessica Lura. She mentioned that teachers who do not feel like they are creative often struggle to support student creativity. I’m intrigued by the ways she is helping teachers to build their own creative confidence and wonder if there might be a role for kids to help adults to build this important skill! I’ve found that the kids in our DIY community have been pretty gracious teachers whenever I’ve tried to learning something new. Better yet, they haven’t required perfection and have patiently provided me a safe harbor to flail.
Fostering Creative Confidence
During October I did Jake Parker’s Inktober drawing-a-day challenge. For context, I have taken a total of one art class my entire life and that was a solid 20 years ago. Suffice it to say my skills are rather basic.
There are a ton of kids at DIY who have phenomenal drawing skills yet they were totally encouraging when viewing my own nascent illustrations. Some of our most talented drawers swooped in immediately to provide me with feedback. Their cheers inspired me to continue despite how awkward the whole thing felt.
It makes me wonder how kids in any learning community would fare as teachers to adults. I predict they’d be awesome.
Building Physical Skills
During October I also attempted to learn the double stag after being inspired by one of our DIY members, GEFtravel, who routinely posts pictures of herself in the pose.
For context, I’m 48 and it’s been a long time since I’ve done a handstand. In addition, I’ve never tried a double stag so when I attempted to emulate her I could not get the leg movement right. Luckily GEFtravel visited our office last week and spent some time helping me to figure it out.
GEFtravel had to try a number of techniques to help me understand what to do. She tried verbally explaining how to position my legs. She tried demonstrating the maneuver. She got me down on the floor and had me put my legs in the right position. I then somewhat lamely had to pause for a moment because I pulled a muscle. She waited. Then I switched to a headstand where I felt a bit more steady while she steered my right leg into the correct place. I finally got it and felt victorious!
My recent experiences learning to draw and do a double stag parallel the journey Jessica observed when her teachers are trying new activities.
“…often the teachers are taking a risk to do the activity, often they struggle (with lots of laughing), and are always proud of themselves when they persevere. They reconnect with how their students might feel when trying something new and start to think of themselves as makers, designers, and creators. They go from “oh, I am not an artist” to jumping into the activity and embracing the strengths they do have.
It’s humbling work to take a risk and be vulnerable. No matter how much we all conceptually agree with the importance of “failure” it honestly feels horrendous at first compared to the comforts of staying within your own expertise. I wonder if my own experience with kids being gracious guides through this process would work elsewhere? In particular, I wonder if kids might be effective at helping teachers to learn creative confidence. Your thoughts?
