Claire Scissorhands (Part II of Mona Lisa and Van Gaga)

The day finally arrived. Claire, two and half years old, was finally introduced to some great artists: Van Gogh, Botticelli, Leonardo de Vinci, Picasso and more.

You must be thinking, "It’s about time! I learned about art history when I was one year old." I guess we are just not pushing our children as much as we should these days. Claire’s arts and crafts teacher arrived with her important assistant, the art historian. If you remember, the teacher needed a specialist for her class of three toddlers. First, the art historian (today I am convinced she has never worked with children) laid out portraits including Mona Lisa, Van Gogh’s self portrait, the Venus, one from Picasso and a couple others. Then she asked the children, “Which one do you like best?”

Claire, very enthused, proceeded to show me a new boo boo on her finger. Angélique stared blankly without contributing much to the discussion. The art historian posed her question again; confused she wasn’t getting any answers, “Which style do you like the best?” (Maybe using the word style would elicit a bigger response.) Then she explained the styles and asked the children to choose their favorite one.

Trying to engage Claire, I pointed to the 6 or so portraits in front of her. “Claire? Claire? Which one do you like?” First she chose Picasso, then she chose Botticelli. She wore a bewildered look on her face as if to say, “Hey! Where’s the paint? When are we going to paint?” Inside I was bubbling with rage thinking, “They are little kids, let them have fun. Why does it have to be so intellectual already?”

The art historian explained to the children the following, “You are going to make your own portrait. You can choose the eyes, ears, mouth, and nose from any of the portraits you like. First you need to draw a big circle on your piece of paper.” She handed out a piece of paper. Claire automatically started scribbling.

My friend who teaches pre-school told me teaching circles is good for children 3-4 years old but that it takes a lot of practice and it is very hard. She does weeks of activities just to help children understand what a circle is. For example, she plays games using balls and then has a specific activity of making balls with clay or painting circles. She may work on the whole concept for months. So, when Claire was asked to draw a circle from thin air, I held my breath. “Claire. Let’s draw a circle.” I handed her a pencil. She began to scribble dark vertical lines. “Let me help you,” I took her pencil and drew a big circle that was supposed to serve as her portrait’s face.

Then, we were told to let each child cut out the eyes, ears, mouth of each portrait in front of them. Claire is just learning to hold a pair of scissors and is excited to just open and close them. To actually use them efficiently is at least a year or two away. “This activity is hard for Claire,” I said trying to just state the obvious, “she is not capable of cutting things out with scissors yet. She is still learning to hold them.”

The assistant looked concerned. Had she prepared an activity that surpassed a two and half year old capacities? Yes. But, the teacher was not going to let me rain on their portrait parade.

“The goal is for her to get acquainted with the scissors. You can help her.” I let Claire pick and choose her portrait’s eyes, ears, nose, and mouth and let her hold her scissors and attempt to cut the paper along side me while I cut bits of the face out for her. It was hard getting her to pick these things out, she was uncommitted to the entire portrait concept. She enjoyed using a paint brush and glue though the concept of where eyes and other pieces go was not registering nor of any interest. I let her do as she wished since there was enough structure to stifle any creative fire still alive.

The assistant came over and tried to reason with Claire, “Look, Claire. You see, you have two eyes and here you have a nose, and then your mouth. So, where do you think her mouth goes?” Claire listened intently and then glued bits of paper that were scraps of rectangles and strips and glued them this way and that, unconcerned that her portrait had no mouth and the eyes weren’t where they should be.

Soon the teacher came over to us. She was persistent in Claire learning to cut and put things together in a logical manner. She sat Claire on her lap and helped her open and shut the scissors ad nausea and made her cut out a mouth and then a neck which she felt was very important for the portrait.

My pre-school teacher friend told me making portraits is an activity for much older children, kindergarten level and older. She told me the whole concept of a face takes months and lots of time. Claire focused on painting with glue over and over until the entire paper was shiny and resembled nothing close to a portrait. Tziki’s portrait was spectacular because the teacher insisted on everything being precisely so. The teacher announced the goal is just for the children to become aware of faces and how to put them together.

Several weeks ago, I made a reference to my friend Jeeves that all French coloring books have two pictures on each page, one is the picture un-colored for the child to color, and the other picture is colored so the child can copy it and do it correctly. I absolutely hate this! Jeeves told me the French are extremely influenced by the philosopher Descartes who believed in taking things apart, analyzing them, and then putting them back together. Descartes was one of the first people to compile an encyclopedia.

Seeing all this structure enforced in a simple toddler’s arts and crafts class may reflect these concepts. Or, another theory is simply that the teachers are not trained in pre-school education. However, it’s easy enough to talk to people who are competent to see what is appropriate, don’t you think? These beliefs of coloring in the lines, copying something color by color and focusing on a finished product makes me feel like I need to enforce originality and creativity even more to tip the balances back to something “healthy.”

I’m so close to pulling Claire out of this class, but if I do, then I should at least tell the teacher why. Will I seem mean and judgmental? And if I do seem that way, does it even matter? If we stay, Claire will be doing projects out of her league. Now is the time for her to have fun, use her hands, smear paint around without an agenda, feel sticky glue dry on her hands and enjoy the sensation of peeling it off. I think my true desire is to just get back to basics and enjoy the simple things. Why complicate things?