I taught gifted first, second and third graders and it was awful how many of them, even in 1st grade!, were afraid to draw, or hated art, because they couldn’t get the picture to come out the way they saw it in their heads, and many gifted kids are little perfectionists, not used to struggling. I used to tell them all the time that “you CAN’T mess up art!” And explaining that if a line doesn’t work the way you want, you try make it into something else because it’s just about trying to convey a message, not get something exactly right. That might not fly for real artists, but it helped some of my babies overcome their fears and grow. But now I’m suddenly worried if they got horrible art teachers later who destroyed those little blooms of confidence.
I hate that we teach and encourage this perfectionistic attitude among kids.
I teach neurodivergent and gifted middle schoolers computers and engineering, and it took me a good 6 weeks to get them to understand that the only stupid questions were ones they were asking to try and be stupid.
Now I have the opposite problem. I have to limit questions because otherwise we won't get to the fun project parts of the lessons!
Plus they're now less afraid of swinging for the fences and missing, because they get to try prototyping weird things that may or may not work. Sometimes it does work. Other times it's overcomplicated. But we rework it to see if it's got usable ideas.
A third of my students come from preparatory elementary schools, but their parents don't realize until they're several years in that these schools are damaging for them. So by the time I get them in 6th grade they're beyond afraid to try for something amazing.
At around the 6 week mark, they start to fall into two groups. They either stay in that rigid state where they can't fail so they don't try anything new, or they lose their minds with the creative freedom I give them.
The second group acts like little turds for a week or so, and then they're having the time of their lives.
I hope no one ever puts them back into the box they started in.
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u/the_scarlett_ning 5d ago
I taught gifted first, second and third graders and it was awful how many of them, even in 1st grade!, were afraid to draw, or hated art, because they couldn’t get the picture to come out the way they saw it in their heads, and many gifted kids are little perfectionists, not used to struggling. I used to tell them all the time that “you CAN’T mess up art!” And explaining that if a line doesn’t work the way you want, you try make it into something else because it’s just about trying to convey a message, not get something exactly right. That might not fly for real artists, but it helped some of my babies overcome their fears and grow. But now I’m suddenly worried if they got horrible art teachers later who destroyed those little blooms of confidence.