Tuesday, December 13, 2005
The Princess, The Robot And Faber-Castell
Okay so 3 months ago my friend told me that he's opening a tuition center and he wanted me to teach for Art & Manga class (whatever 'Art & Manga' means) every Saturday. I said okay, since I always wanted to do some Manga and less Art class which I can't do at my school now. I think it was 2 weeks later after the meeting that my friend called me to start the class that Saturday. But I never thought it would be quite a surprise.
I was expecting junior or high school students, like 12-16 years old. The ones who already have some basics of drawing. But instead of teenagers I was a bit shocked to find 2 cute, tiny and so lovable creatures looking at me with their witty yet innocent eyes as my friend introduced me to them, "This is Jessica, 6 years old. This is her brother Eric, 7 years old". Wait! Two kindergarten kids? A bit panicked I forgot everything I prepared for the session that day. Well it didn't really matter though, since I couldn't do it with 6 and 7 years old kids anyway.
Flashback ~
You see, I avoid teaching anything to kids below 10 years old. I think it has something to do with my experience as an English tutor a long time ago. I taught elementary kids, all boys, from 1st grade to 4th grade. And I found those kids so very slapable! Irritating, annoying, lazy, always playing around, and they couldn't sit still, and cried if I scolded them! Doh! A pain in the ass. Well of course there were one or two kids who were nice, kind and smart but still I never really like to teach kids stuffs like teaching ABC, the name of colors, animal or fruits >.< I dunno, maybe I just don't have the patience for it or maybe I don't like the way I talk when teaching small kids, yes I know you know what I mean!
Just a bit of observation, but I found that those annoying kids had something in common: their parents were never at home. Most of the time, there were only the kids with the maids/babysitters. I think hiring a private tutor for elementary kids can only mean one thing, parents are too busy or too lazy to teach their kids. I mean, it's only elementary school, come on! How hard can the subjects be anyway?!
You don't need a tutor just to teach your kids elementary English, Maths or Science. My mom didn't need it. When I was in elementary school, she taught me everything. She would write down questions for me, help me with my homeworks and review the lessons with me. She didn't understand English (up to this day), but still she taught me the basic stuffs like colors, greetings and animals. And I'm so glad that she did that. If you were a kid, you don't want a stranger to teach you things, you want your mom and dad! Family is the first, and should always be, the best school for a kid (at least before the kid knows Google =P ).
Okay, enough with the flashback ~
Eric and Jessica are smart kids. They talk in cute IndoEnglish* which only makes them even more lovable. And they love to draw! It makes my job a whole lot easier =P But as expected from the first time I saw them, it's not going to be easy. I have to talk in 'that way', you know.. the way you talk to kids.
First, I wanted to teach them how to draw animals, the basic kids stuff: make 2 circles, one is bigger than the other, combine them, draw the eyes, a beak and 2 feet, voila you have a chicken! But they don't want animals. "It's ugly.." Jessica told me. "Well what do you want to draw then?" I said, trying to stay calm and keep my patience. "A princess!" She told me. Well princess it was then.. so I taught her how to draw a beautiful princess with long curly hair plus a castle for her to wait for her prince charming (and now, everytime she draws a princess she draws it the way I taught her. It makes me happy, because I know it will stay with her for a very long time).
But boys don't like princess, so I asked what Eric wanted to draw, and he said, "A robot!" Well robot it was then.. Kids these days, they don't like to draw animals anymore, they prefer princess Barbie or Super Robot Dekaranger >.< And they are so easy to get bored. Especially Jessica. It was a whole new experience for me. And somehow it was a combination of good and bad one.
Now that it's been 3 months already, unexpectedly, I've learned so much from these kids. Like how they are so absorbed with their imagination when they're drawing, eventhough it looks just like a messy hard-to-understand scratches to other people's eye (they're 6-7 years old, what do you expect?). But that's the beauty of it, the power of imagination. The images are so vividly alive in their mind! So despite of their 'raw' scratches and scribles they would tell themselves story of each drawing they make. Eventhough it doesn't look like a princess at all, but Jessica would tell the story of a princess with her sister waiting for her mommy outside the castle where a witch is brewing something not far from them. She would tell details while she draws it, like what skirt the princess is wearing and that the sister is wearing a ribbon.
Eric is even a better story teller, like any other boys, he loves a robots-fighting scene with heavy-artilery. So while he draws he would tell how the war goes. Yes, with the sound-effects too, like "Boom!", "Blaar!", "Syuuuuu.." (sound of an airplane flying), "Bang! Bang! Bang!" (he's still an Indonesian after all, so usually he goes with "Dor! Dor! Dor!"), "Awas!", "Mati kau!" and all of that stuffs. Missiles flying everywhere and explosion is essential. It's a World War III going on that drawing paper! It was so amazing!
As a person who draws, and gets paid for doing it, I must admit I've lost most of that fun a long time ago. Yes, I enjoy my self when I'm drawing. Yes, I have some fun. Yes, I let my imagination free. Yes, my drawing gets better and better. But still something is missing, I don't get absorbed into the drawing like it used to. I just sit there drawing a picture, and not get caught in the middle of a war like Eric. The images in my mind are not alive anymore. And how I long to feel it again. I can still remember back then I used to draw for hours and hours untill my dad yelled at me to go to sleep. And those kids remind me of it. And maybe I should end this very long entry right here and start drawing instead..
I just started writing about Eric and Jessica and it ended up this long. Maybe I'm starting to like little kids now.. well, maybe just a bit.
*IndoEnglish: when you speak English the way you speak Bahasa Indo, like "Nanti jatuh loh.." becomes "Later you fall loh..". It's quite similar to Singlish but with Indonesian style.
Okay so 3 months ago my friend told me that he's opening a tuition center and he wanted me to teach for Art & Manga class (whatever 'Art & Manga' means) every Saturday. I said okay, since I always wanted to do some Manga and less Art class which I can't do at my school now. I think it was 2 weeks later after the meeting that my friend called me to start the class that Saturday. But I never thought it would be quite a surprise.
I was expecting junior or high school students, like 12-16 years old. The ones who already have some basics of drawing. But instead of teenagers I was a bit shocked to find 2 cute, tiny and so lovable creatures looking at me with their witty yet innocent eyes as my friend introduced me to them, "This is Jessica, 6 years old. This is her brother Eric, 7 years old". Wait! Two kindergarten kids? A bit panicked I forgot everything I prepared for the session that day. Well it didn't really matter though, since I couldn't do it with 6 and 7 years old kids anyway.
Flashback ~
You see, I avoid teaching anything to kids below 10 years old. I think it has something to do with my experience as an English tutor a long time ago. I taught elementary kids, all boys, from 1st grade to 4th grade. And I found those kids so very slapable! Irritating, annoying, lazy, always playing around, and they couldn't sit still, and cried if I scolded them! Doh! A pain in the ass. Well of course there were one or two kids who were nice, kind and smart but still I never really like to teach kids stuffs like teaching ABC, the name of colors, animal or fruits >.< I dunno, maybe I just don't have the patience for it or maybe I don't like the way I talk when teaching small kids, yes I know you know what I mean!
Just a bit of observation, but I found that those annoying kids had something in common: their parents were never at home. Most of the time, there were only the kids with the maids/babysitters. I think hiring a private tutor for elementary kids can only mean one thing, parents are too busy or too lazy to teach their kids. I mean, it's only elementary school, come on! How hard can the subjects be anyway?!
You don't need a tutor just to teach your kids elementary English, Maths or Science. My mom didn't need it. When I was in elementary school, she taught me everything. She would write down questions for me, help me with my homeworks and review the lessons with me. She didn't understand English (up to this day), but still she taught me the basic stuffs like colors, greetings and animals. And I'm so glad that she did that. If you were a kid, you don't want a stranger to teach you things, you want your mom and dad! Family is the first, and should always be, the best school for a kid (at least before the kid knows Google =P ).
Okay, enough with the flashback ~
Eric and Jessica are smart kids. They talk in cute IndoEnglish* which only makes them even more lovable. And they love to draw! It makes my job a whole lot easier =P But as expected from the first time I saw them, it's not going to be easy. I have to talk in 'that way', you know.. the way you talk to kids.
First, I wanted to teach them how to draw animals, the basic kids stuff: make 2 circles, one is bigger than the other, combine them, draw the eyes, a beak and 2 feet, voila you have a chicken! But they don't want animals. "It's ugly.." Jessica told me. "Well what do you want to draw then?" I said, trying to stay calm and keep my patience. "A princess!" She told me. Well princess it was then.. so I taught her how to draw a beautiful princess with long curly hair plus a castle for her to wait for her prince charming (and now, everytime she draws a princess she draws it the way I taught her. It makes me happy, because I know it will stay with her for a very long time).
But boys don't like princess, so I asked what Eric wanted to draw, and he said, "A robot!" Well robot it was then.. Kids these days, they don't like to draw animals anymore, they prefer princess Barbie or Super Robot Dekaranger >.< And they are so easy to get bored. Especially Jessica. It was a whole new experience for me. And somehow it was a combination of good and bad one.
Now that it's been 3 months already, unexpectedly, I've learned so much from these kids. Like how they are so absorbed with their imagination when they're drawing, eventhough it looks just like a messy hard-to-understand scratches to other people's eye (they're 6-7 years old, what do you expect?). But that's the beauty of it, the power of imagination. The images are so vividly alive in their mind! So despite of their 'raw' scratches and scribles they would tell themselves story of each drawing they make. Eventhough it doesn't look like a princess at all, but Jessica would tell the story of a princess with her sister waiting for her mommy outside the castle where a witch is brewing something not far from them. She would tell details while she draws it, like what skirt the princess is wearing and that the sister is wearing a ribbon.
Eric is even a better story teller, like any other boys, he loves a robots-fighting scene with heavy-artilery. So while he draws he would tell how the war goes. Yes, with the sound-effects too, like "Boom!", "Blaar!", "Syuuuuu.." (sound of an airplane flying), "Bang! Bang! Bang!" (he's still an Indonesian after all, so usually he goes with "Dor! Dor! Dor!"), "Awas!", "Mati kau!" and all of that stuffs. Missiles flying everywhere and explosion is essential. It's a World War III going on that drawing paper! It was so amazing!
As a person who draws, and gets paid for doing it, I must admit I've lost most of that fun a long time ago. Yes, I enjoy my self when I'm drawing. Yes, I have some fun. Yes, I let my imagination free. Yes, my drawing gets better and better. But still something is missing, I don't get absorbed into the drawing like it used to. I just sit there drawing a picture, and not get caught in the middle of a war like Eric. The images in my mind are not alive anymore. And how I long to feel it again. I can still remember back then I used to draw for hours and hours untill my dad yelled at me to go to sleep. And those kids remind me of it. And maybe I should end this very long entry right here and start drawing instead..
I just started writing about Eric and Jessica and it ended up this long. Maybe I'm starting to like little kids now.. well, maybe just a bit.
*IndoEnglish: when you speak English the way you speak Bahasa Indo, like "Nanti jatuh loh.." becomes "Later you fall loh..". It's quite similar to Singlish but with Indonesian style.