Yesterday I was doing some substitute teaching for a special ed class at an elementary school. The students were working on a little art project--an advent calendar, of sorts. The object was to make a chain of red and green strips of construction paper and then attaching it to a paper with a picture of a Christmas tree. The written instructions were to remove one strip from the chain each day. When you reach the last link, it's Christmas!
The little boy with whom I was working was getting more glue on the table than on the paper. Instead of making neat, tidy loops, he just squashed the ends of the strips together to form the links. And instead of one single chain, he had two or three going.
He was perfectly happy...and then the art teacher held up the sample of the finished product of what the art project was "supposed" to look like.
The little fellow looked at his project and then at the teacher's. He kind of frowned and I could see that there was going to be trouble. But then I pointed out to him that it was great to do things your own way. Everyone is different and there are different ways of doing things. And that's perfectly fine.
He was good with that, and at the end of class, he was waving his finished creation around like a kite with the rest of the students.
I think we do a disservice to children when we insist on them doing things a certain way--especially when it comes to such areas as art. Sure, we need to follow certain formulas for math and such (but, who knows, maybe there's even a better way in those subjects), but whenever possible let's let children use their ingenuity. Let's let them experience the sweet joy of creativity.
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