I recently got a job as a teacher's aide for grades first through third. Now, I am only eight days into my new job, have no field experience in teaching before this job, and didn't imagine that being an aide to seventeen children could be so difficult.
My class LOVES to do arts and crafts. Of all the things that our classroom has to offer, the first question I am asked every morning is, "Miss Shaylie, are we going to paint today?" My kids ~love~ to paint. We have painting parties every single day. With watercolors, acrylics, stencils, canvases, and more, these kids stay busy for nearly eight hours just by painting.
The other day, I was finishing my lesson plans and watching my kids paint, when I began to eavesdrop on their conversations. Among the many interesting things that I heard, the best thing was this, "*insert name here*, you can't mix colors! If you do, you'll ruin them!" this little seven-year-old literally shrieked. The children proceeded to argue about why you shouldn't/can't mix colors when drawing with markers or paint.
After about five minutes, a quiet child stepped in and said very boldly, "Guys! You see, you can mix colors!" She proceeded to mix purple and blue and then demonstrate the ombre effect on her canvas which she was using. The other children sat back in awe. And I mean, jaws dropped, eyes wide, the whole works.
It was like these kids have either never been given the freedom to mix colors or that they had never even thought of mixing colors. The room grew silent. The children then crowded around the canvas in awe of the beautiful teal color that was created as a result of the purple and blue being mixed.
I am not sure why this moment seemed so memorable to me, or even important enough to me to include in an article. I think the reason why I was in awe, was because we are taught since the first day of school to not mix our colors.
To me, mixing our colors is a way of telling us to try new things, no matter what the end result may be. If we are told to not mix our colors, then, aren't we telling our children that they can't do something, try something new, or experiment? And isn't life supposed to be about finding who you are, experimenting, and trying new things?
In Kindergarten we are told to keep our paints clean and crisp, therefore, we are told to remain crisp, clean, and pure. Uniform. But, by the time we graduate high school, we are told that the world is in our hands and to take advantage of it while we can.Experiment. Find out what you like. Try new things. Why is this so discouraged to our tiny humans?
Mixing colors in my classroom is okay and it always will be. Without trying new things and mixing our colors, my student wouldn't have created the beautiful teal color she did. And without the teal color, our Father's Day cards wouldn't look nearly as beautiful.
