"You may still have issues with the English educational system," a friend who knows me well remarked the other day as we watched our children chase each other around the playground, "but your children were made for it." I looked at my kids, at quiet Julia who thrives on structure and academic stimulation and at charming Evan whose innate politeness and desire to please have completely endeared him to his teachers here. "I know," I sighed.
For the most part, I've reconciled myself to the way my children are being educated here in London. It's still hard to set aside my long held belief that a foundation of free-form play, experimentation and creativity is far more important than early exposure to traditional academics, but I'm willing at this point to at least acknowledge that my way is not the only way that works. My children have truly never been happier, and anything that makes my children this excited and motivated and downright gleeful cannot be all bad. I've brought them to London and inserted them into this educational system, I remind myself frequently, and now it's important to support them here. The place where I draw the line -- the one exception which I cannot bring myself to enthusiastically endorse -- is Evan's obsessive quest for coloring perfection.
Evan is an excellent colorer-in. (Yes, I know this is not a real word. In Evan's world, it is, though, and this is his story.) He adores coloring sheets and can spend hours a day on them, and the end results are spectacularly well done, more so than anything Julia can produce, even. I must admit that I prefer his quirky happy face people and other original drawings to his painstakingly neat coloring sheets, but he is all about the latter and I am generally all about whatever makes my kids happy. If Evan wants to print Sesame Street and Little Einsteins coloring pages off the web and spend his afternoons happily creating perfect color-accurate replicas of his beloved characters, who am I to argue?
an Evan masterpiece, circa August, 2007
I know that Evan gets a lot of positive reinforcement at school for his careful coloring. In general, the art projects which Evan brings home from school are gorgeous and impressive, but they inevitably follow a strict, teacher-dictated structure. Evan's projects always look just like the teacher's model and he receives high praise for his artistic abilities, so he's clearly internalized the whole idea that there is a right way and a wrong way to "do" art. I'm thrilled that Evan gets so many opportunities to work with interesting art supplies at school and I'm happy that he's so proud of the projects he produces. But I'm less delighted with the uniformity of the children's work and I'm downright concerned about the effect this is all having on Evan in general. Because suddenly, my artistic little boy who loves coloring sheets is crumpling them up and bursting into hysterical tears if his marker strays even a millimeter outside the lines. All of the joy seems to have gone out of coloring for him in his quest for perfection and his rigid and unrealistic expectations of himself.
"Evan, what's wrong?" I asked yesterday as he burst into tears and pushed aside yet another coloring sheet. "I colored outside the lines," he wailed.
I studied the sheet. It looked pretty darn carefully drawn to me. "I don't even see it, Evan."
the source of all the hysteria
"There," he moaned, pointing at a nearly microscopic bit of red in a corner of Elmo's eyes. "It's ruined!" The tears began to flow even harder. "I need to print another one. I can do better."
"Evan, this looks fine to me," I soothed him. "You've clearly been doing very careful work and it shows. I can scarcely even see the red in Elmo's eye. But if you're really upset about it, why not make the eyes red, too?"
Evan looked at me scornfully. "Elmo's eyes are WHITE," he replied emphatically. "Usually they are," I agreed. "But why not make a creatively colored Elmo this time? Why don't we color a silly Elmo with crazy colors?" My only response was an angry head shake and some more tears.
"OK, coloring pages are clearly not working right now," I replied. "How about we get out some plain white paper and you can draw your own Elmo and color him in any way you want?" No response. "We could do something even more fun," I tried again. "How about a really messy, abstract art project instead of something representational?" Evan sniffed mightily. "No thanks," he replied. "I just want to be by myself for a while."
Are self-flagellating tantrums like this, which happen more frequently than I'd like to admit, entirely the fault of Evan's current educational situation? Certainly not. This quest for perfection and artistic drive is something that's innate in my child. Most of his classmates are gleefully scribbling across the coloring pages they find in the classroom despite the teachers' constant reminders to try to stay within the lines. This is my own kid's personal craziness. But I can't help but believe that there is something about the fact that they're even
giving those reminders and something about those pretty art projects that need to be done the "right" way which feeds into Evan's perfectionist tendencies. At the very least, it's not helping.
In the reminders to "do your best" which Evan gets at school, Evan seems to hear "I can do better." And just as he beats himself up when he isn't proud of his work, so do I beat myself up when I watch him suffer this way. I'm trying to do my best for my children here, trying to trust in the educational system and to believe that I'm doing the right thing sending my kids to this school. But when my 3 1/2 year old is crying hysterically because
he didn't color in the lines carefully enough? Surely I can do better for him.