School of. . . Geisha?

So yesterday I had the dangerous opportunity to wield my influence on six classes of unsuspecting 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. Has anyone seen School of Rock? Though not as handsome or talented as Jack Black (see picture above) but similarly unaccredited and lacking in Cizzy (?) Cash, I put my best art skills to the test to teach the children of Carden Memorial a thing or two about art. It turns out that both of my parents are professional artists, each with national distribution and ya-dee ya-dee yada, and my sweet mother turned the reins of her precious private-school classroom over to me. What was she thinking???

As I was contemplating what great wisdom I could impart, I concluded that the Make -a -wicked -awesome -turkey -by -tracing -your -hand -and -coloring -your -fingers activity would be appropriate. When I ran the lesson plan by my mom, she retorted, "yeah, um, I've been teaching these kids for five years and they're a little beyond that." Translation: "You're an idiot."

So instead, I decided to make myself look smart by spending the first fifteen minutes of class teaching the children the physiology of the brain - you know, right brain-left brain neuroscience jargon. Once I was sure everyone was cognizant of my intellectual supremacy and wit, I had all of the students draw an upside down picture of an upside down Geisha scene, allowing the right brain to judge lines, curves, proportions, and spacing. Yup, we nipped that lame left-brained drawing nonsense in the bud.

Well, some of the kids did, anyway. Other's succumbed to frustration and wrote "Kolton sucks" or "I Love Cora" with negative pencil shading while others drew the Geisha and then added such desirable features as mustaches, sun glasses, guns, smoking cigarettes, monkeys in the bamboo, etc. Still others were self-proclaimed "cartoonists" and drew Homer Simpson versions of a Geisha. Sweet.

Seriously, it was a pretty fun day with all of these kids. It's amazing to think I was as awkward or clueless as these kids once upon a time, but it's definitely amusing. I'm teaching these kids next Tuesday as well, so if any of all y'all have some suggestions, I'm all ears!

P.S. My heart goes out to all school teachers.