the Painting Activist

My first day with the students at the Paducah camp was a bit of a whirlwind experience to say the least. To all of the middle and high school teachers out there, you are a phenomenal breed of human beings! Attention spans are like butterflies and trying to hold onto those short attention spans feels similar to grabbing for a fist full of air. Nonetheless, we started the “mural week” off to a strong start.

After playing “Ky Remembers Win, Lose or Draw,” we warmed up with an exercise intended to get the students adjusted to working on a large scale, over the fear of “making a mistake,” prepared to work collaboratively, and to simply get them to laugh. I had each student pick a piece of paper out of a hat that had a type of animal written on it. Then, they were given a sheet of butcher paper which had either “top,” “middle,” or “bottom” written in the corner.

They were to draw the portion of the animal that was given on their sheet of paper. So, for example, if my animal were a monkey, and my paper said “bottom,” I would draw monkey legs and a tail. We reconvened and pieced together our Frankenstein creatures. The outcome was quite comical, but I’ll have to share pictures of the final products with you later since I didn’t have a chance to take any at the time.

The staff, who have been with the students for weeks and worked with the last camp, tell me today was a success and we’re on the right path. Whew!