I've always liked a good turn of phrase. I like reading them, I enjoy hearing them, and I like using them. One such phrase is the courage of one's convictions. You can replace one's with a multitude of pronouns, that is, after all, what pronouns do best. The phrase means having the fortitude to have your walk match your talk.
A few years ago, I did a couple of turns of replacing the art teacher at my wife's school until they obtained a permanent replacement. The first time was only for a few weeks, but when the new teacher moved out of state, I was the long-term art sub from August to the following January. The first time I just taught the lessons that the elementary art team provided for me. The second go-round I prepared my own lessons based on the suggested curriculum.
I had been teaching primarily K through 5 at this course of my subbing and had noticed that most students coming into kindergarten loved art and were very confident in their abilities but by the time they were in upper elementary many students had taken to saying I'm bad at art. I would tell my students that art was fun and that anybody could be good at art.
The first two lessons I worked on with my 3rd through 5th graders involved drawing a shirt. I used the exact same piece of paper for each assignment, a picture of a t-shirt with many compartments that could be filled in. The first assignment was your typical first week of school, tell us about yourself, assignment. The only difference was that people were drawing about themselves, putting different pictures that told the story of who they were in each compartment.
For the second assignment, I taught a lesson on different kinds of lines and then handed out the shirt template again. The classes then spent time doing different samples of line drawings in pencil, and in a subsequent class, they filled in the line drawings with chalk pastels.
The courage of my convictions comes in because I'm not an artist. I believe that I was a good long-term elementary art sub. I'm creative, I have passion, and I love encouraging students. However, I am not talented at art. If I was telling students that anyone could be good at art, I needed to buckle up and get some skin in the game. So, once every two or three assignments, I would do the project myself and show it to the kids.
This picture is my shirt design from the second assignment. I posted it here earlier this week on my Wordless Wednesday post.
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