Our World of Experiences

Art is a natural vehicle for teaching tolerance in a classroom, beginning as it does with the individual as the source:

Your favorite color is green. I like orange.

You think orange is ugly. I think green stinks.

You like to draw skeletons. I think skeletons are creepy.

Required Material:
Questions Handout: Go

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It isn't necessary for me to like green or for you to like orange. I don't have to become comfortable with your skeletons. What is necessary is that we tolerate and respect each other's preferences.

So we paint side by side — you using green, me using orange. You draw skeletons. I avoid looking at them.

Art also acts as a barometer, a way to measure the level of tolerance in a classroom. We teach tolerance, but are we tolerant of the cultural differences between us — the adults — and the children?

Are we respectful of our students' experiences and do we consider them equally valid to ours? Or do we view ours as superior?

I raise this question because I have observed teachers chiding children for the Batman™, Pokémon™ and cartoon characters that show up in their art and writing.

One teacher proposed an art project about "cute and furry" rabbits and became furious because one student painted a rabbit squished on the side of the road.

Another teacher suggested a community mural and was angry to discover prisons and jails being depicted by students along with grocery stores and gas stations.

One asked for a painting about Fall. Expecting colored leaves, she instead got several paintings about deer hunting, guns and dead birds.

These teachers are not cruel or mean. They are trying to discourage what Professor David Keirsey in his book Please Understand Me II calls "moral weeds from springing up."

But they do so at the risk of "... discouraging mental flowers from growing ... herbicides killing the good and the bad indiscriminately." Tolerance being one of those flowers. Confidence in expressing oneself another.

The students are not being difficult or violent. All the above situations are a result of cultural differences: The urban child's experience with rabbits was road kill. The children included prisons and jails in their community because they had relatives living there. The ones who pictured guns and dead birds hunted with their fathers and uncles. They weren't out to shoot Bambi; hunting was no different for them than fishing.

Poet David Whyte defines art as a "private understanding made communal."

"Private understanding" is just that — sensory experiences, thoughts and feelings unique to the individual. This is the "no two people are alike" part, the part that makes up who we are.

Our private understanding shapes our unique vision. There is no way to fail at having experiences and sensations.

"... made communal" refers to the language that allows us to communicate. How we share our vision or truth with others depends on the languages we have been taught and what comes naturally to us.

Words, spoken or written on a page. Storytelling. Dance or mime. The visual elements used in painting, drawing, graphic design or sculpture. Music. This part requires labor, action and time. It has a learning curve.

The following exercise uses awareness of authentic individual sensory experiences as a means of recognizing differences.

This exercise is for your benefit as a teacher. You can decide if you wish to use it with the children in your classroom. However, I suggest you complete it before sharing it with your class.

Everyone Has Sensory Experiences
Using a pencil, draw a large circle on a 12" x 18" piece of paper, letting the line hit the outside edge of the paper. This will represent one small part of your "world of experiences." Write out answers to the questions.

This is not a test. There are no wrong answers. The circle is private and need not be shown to anyone. It can even be destroyed when the exercise is finished.

Read the questions slowly, taking time to respond.

Once you have completed the questions, you will have inside the circle a sampling of your experiences and private understandings.

These could be a source of inspiration for you in the arts. If you wanted to share one of these experiences, how would you do that? What skills would you draw on? What language would you use? What comes naturally to you? Speaking, writing, dancing? Would you sing a song or act out a mime?

Now that you have your circle, it’s not hard to imagine if there were ten people, each one from a different country, all a different age, together in the same room, we would find some ways we are alike — our universal experiences. For example, everyone has a circle.

Everyone has sensory experiences: seeing, tasting, smelling, hearing, touching. People they love (friends, mothers, fathers, siblings). All experience anger. All have experienced pain or fear or death. All have firsts and lasts.

We may not be able to identify them, but all of us live by rules. And all would be looking for a language natural to them, through which to communicate their experiences because the need to communicate is another experience we share with people all over the world.

Looking at your own circle, it's also not hard to imagine that even if all ten people were of the same race, sex and education — from the same town or lived on the same street, lived in the same house — there would be ten completely different circles and no two would be alike.

Speculate for a minute on what the children's circles might include, if they completed one.

Don't assume — but it's okay to guess. What would go in under "things they love," "miss when it's gone," things that seem "a little magic or mysterious," "shivers," and "pain." What would their "firsts" look like? Their "lasts"? Their "sick fevers" and "near misses." What do they reach for when they need "comfort"? What causes them to cry? What would their rule be about love?

Their circle would be pretty different from ours, wouldn't it?

Whether we are alike or different, it's also easy to see just how precious each item would be to the maker of the circle and how they might fight to keep it as it is — representing as it does — some of who they are.

It is also easy to see how inappropriate it would be for anyone to walk around criticizing what has been included or excluded in someone else's circle.

Modeling is one of the easiest ways our children learn. Model tolerance for your children. Delight in witnessing what is there. Recognize and value the experiences they share through their art.

Acknowledge what you see — whether you agree with it or not: "You drew a purple sun." "The soldier in your picture is fighting."

By accepting the content of their work, we show respect and acknowledge their courage and daring in sharing their vision, and thus promote not only tolerance, but integrity, conviction and a sense of trust.

Acknowledge the differences between you. "You draw skeletons. I draw trees." "You have yellow on your cows. I think of cows as brown." This will increase awareness of tolerance and acceptance.

Refrain from projecting your interpretations on the content of their work. For example, "You painted snakes — snakes are evil." "This is a drawing of someone being killed — you must be violent."

Instead become curious — not an inquisitor, but a friend simply asking about another friend’s circle. "Do you like snakes?" "Tell me about your drawing so I understand it better."

To deny our children's experiences — to insist they base their art on someone else's idea of correct content — is to ask them to use someone else's nose and someone else's eyes.

Our children have their own eyes, their own hearing, their own sense of touch. It is our role to honor and protect their right to share that and to recognize it is as much a part of who they are as their DNA or fingerprints.

Janice Freise is a writer, artist and art educator based in Kansas City, MO. She has recently completed a manuscript about protecting the creative spirit of our children.