Fall 2013 M301 Saturday Art School

In the past I have used this blog to share experiences and things learned from prior courses. Mostly I have shared lessons learned from using new technology. You are all welcome to look at my prior posts if you like. For the duration of this semester I will switch my posting purpose to sharing Saturday Art School experiences. This is new territory for me as our class begins to study the evolution of children's art making and its function. I have very limited experience working with young children. I believe my comfort zone is helping older students: middle school through adult. I'm excited and scared at the same time at the task of caring for a large number of young children. I feel the experience may rid me of some insecurity I feel when viewing myself as someone capable of caring for young children. I don’t believe I have any problem doing so, but I have never been afforded the opportunity to prove it. I have no children of my own. Even though that has been my choice for a variety of personal reasons, I carry a suspicion that my friends and family who have or care for young children on a daily basis have little faith that I am capable of doing the same nor do I want to be bothered with participation in child rearing discussion or practice. This is probably an opinion I have projected on to them, but nonetheless it is an underlying fear I have that their assumption of me could be true. I hope my experiences here help me to not feel that insecurity anymore, because most people who choose not to or can’t have children are capable of caring for them and shouldn’t be denied the opportunity to do so based on the assumption they don’t like children.