Crayon 1 The early years.

I posted this story over at Irish-Girl's
in response to one of her always entertaining rambles of wit.

I thought I would re-publish it here as well...as for the 2nd crayon story I allude to...I will try to get to that this weekend.

Here it is.................................................

I have 2 great crayon stories. One is too long to put here, so if you are interested, keep an eye out on my site and I'll try to get it told in the next few days.

The other one is as follows...(this is according to both my memory of this event, and the story as told by my mom.)

My mother was called by my 1st grade teacher to come down to the school to discuss a "very serious problem". I remember this event very clearly, as Mrs. Ozga had me scared to death and sitting after school by myself. She kept saying, "Your mother is on her way to straighten you out" eeeek....

Mom shows up and asks what's wrong. Mrs, Ozga goes into this rant about how I was disobeying her. I refused to color just inside the lines. It seems, I liked drawing objects that were not in the pre-outlined pictures. She showed my mom a number of pictures that had outlines for flowers and grass. I had added to the drawings by putting extra flowers or leaves where there were none and I also would draw rocket ships and butterflies and other things. (not well mind you, cause in truth I suck at drawing. But that was not the point.) She also was quite concerned because I simply refused to use the "right" colors for things no matter how many times she told me I was using the wrong colors.

Mrs. Ozga said, "Everyone knows grass is green and the sun is yellow, and look here, he has made every leaf on this tree a different color...that is just wrong! ..he just refuses to do things the right way...I am quite concerned about his inability to follow instructions and his willfullness against me..... you must nip this in the bud and tell him he needs to do things as I or other teachers instruct him to... we are here to teach the right way.

Mom sat there for a second, then got up, motioned for me to come over, put her arm on my shoulder and looked at me smiled and then turned to my teacher and then they had this exchange. "Is he disruptive??" .."no"..."Is he disrespectful??" .."no never".... "And this is for art class?" .."arts and crafts, yes"....

Just so I am clear on this, you brought me down here to tell me that in an art class, an ART class, in 1ST GRADE, my son is not only creative and thinking outside the lines, but he is also secure enough in himself that he was willing to go on drawing what he wanted to, including things that were not part of the orginal assignment, even after you told him not to, and that his ART was wrong????? And you want me to punish him for doing so????? Is that what you are saying???

Mrs Ozga, clearly aware things were not going the way she expected, said "Yes... but he draws red grass and we need to teach the children to follow the rules and conform with...mom interrupted her and said "Are you kidding me??????? In ART??? You want to teach kids to conform..in art? (My mom taught music and so did my dad who also played trumpet in the Minneapolis Symphony so this subject was a hot button for her)

I now see where the problem is...and it is NOT with Jack. Here is how we are going to handle this. If Jack misbehaves or becomes unruly or refuses to do assignments, please call me and I will come down immediately and we will straighten things out. HOWEVER, if Jack ever comes home and says you so much as hinted to him that something he is doing in ART is WRONG, I will come down here and we will be having a very loud, very angry discussion that will include the principal, and a refresher on not discouraging creativity. w will also talk about the importance of encouraging free expression and thinking...

Are we very clear on this??

Good!..Good afternoon!!!

It never came up with Mrs. Ozga again.(Although I learned many years later that my parents actually did go down to the school and had a rather lengthy meeting with the principal and Mrs. Ozga to "clarify" things.

My mom rocks.

P.S. I still suck at drawing, but I also still draw outside the lines with my red crayon.

Posted by Jack at February 27, 2003 11:16 PM