Back to my Old Tricks

School is out for what they’re calling Voorjaarsvakantie. That’s Spring Vacation to anyone who doesn’t speak Dutch. It seems a bit early, but I’ll always take a break from them kids. Plus, I’ve got so many other things going that I need some time. The beginning of this year has been a terrible time for me as a blogger. I start the day thinking that I have plenty of time to blog and then at the end of the day, I haven’t done it. Stay tuned. I do a lot of things like that: knitting, compulsively watching television, working on that novel. I’m all go go go and then I’m on to the next thing. There are so many things to do. I’m rarely bored. I’ll be back to regular blogging soon.

My third year students are an interesting bunch. They’re mostly girls. (Have I talked about this? It feels like I have.) Since we’re in the part of the year leading up to their big speaking test, I thought I would try to get them to talk. But how? Bring in all those art therapy skills I honed for all those years while working with the mentally ill chemical abusers of Brooklyn, NY.

As this class is mostly girls and as they’re completely self-involved (they’re teenagers), I thought they would enjoy a technique I used to employ back in the day. This was also an ideal project because materials were limited: paper and a pen. I had them take a piece of paper (landscape) and divide into three sections. In the middle section, I asked them to draw or write something about how other people see them. On the left side, I asked them to draw or write something about how they ‘really are’. On the right side, I had them draw or write something about how they see themselves in the future.

After giving them a while to work, I started asking questions. How is the first image different from or similar to the second image. Are the two images really alike or pretty different? How do those two images figure into the third image? Is there anything surprising about what you drew? Which one did you draw first? Why? Was one image more difficult to draw than the others? Was one particularly difficult? And so on. I went around and asked different people to talk about what they’d done. They were as open (or not) as they wanted to be. It’s a pretty safe technique. There was a lot of talk about first impressions.

It was during this that one of the girls said that she really didn’t know how other people saw her. I was surprised. This is their third year together. They spend a lot of time together. You’d think that they’d have an idea, but she said she really didn’t. Others agreed that they also didn’t know how other people saw them.

The next day, I said, “This is just an idea. What do you think about the idea of taking a piece of paper and writing something - a word or a phrase - about everyone else in the class. What is your impression of everyone? Not your first impression, but just write down what you think about when you think about each person.” They loved the idea. Everyone agreed to participate and started writing. At the end, I took all the papers and read the statements so there was some bit of anonymity. Some of the students were really thoughtful. Some just wrote a word: “Sweet” or “nice”. There were a few stones thrown, but nothing unexpected or really hurtful. I had to edit out very little. The whole exercise was great because they had to find ways to express what they were thinking in English. “Mr. Baker? How do you say lui in English?” I really enjoyed it. I’ll save this one for later and use it again on another class.

This is the class where I’m going to try to get a dance therapist in and give them a taste of dance therapy. Then I’ll have them write about it or something. I found a German dance therapist who I’m going to barter with. The English on her website needs a little attention. It’s the end of the year and we’re all getting a little restless. I think this is just what we need.

The photo above was my idea, but Fred took it. I said, “Don’t clean up the tulips yet. I want you to take an artsy picture of them.” He did. (But he doesn’t always follow orders so well.)