Difficult?

One thing that I hear all too often from my teachers is “難しい！！” which means “This is too difficult!” At first, I thought that maybe I was dreaming too big with my students. But then I realized something.

My kids are just as bright as the kids back home.

Which brought it down to one thing: My teachers were afraid of looking like they didn’t understand. As someone who lives every day having to battle having the vocabulary and reading ability of about a 5 year old, I can understand how scary the feeling of looking like you don’t know is. But at the same time, this makes it really clear to me that sometimes, a little insisting is what we all need. Otherwise, I’d have never come to Japan in the first place.

So, the project was to do some Ted Harrison style art. Ted Harrison, for those not familiar, is a famous Canadian artist, and his style is replicated quite often in classrooms, because they show the Canadian north, and use strong lines and bright colours. I wanted to see what my students could come up with. But, I was faced with so many problems. I was told they might not understand the point, they didn’t have time, or, the strangest, they couldn’t put the glue on right. (seriously? telling me a bunch of 7 year olds can’t glue? Now we’re stretching…)

Anyways, after insisting that they could, because kids the same age as them in Canada did the same project, we tried out the project with the second graders, telling them to draw what they thought about Canada or Japan.

Here is an example of actual works by Ted Harrison.

This is what my students came up with:

I think they more than understood the idea.