Don't Waste Your Talents

Steven did the simple test over and over, filling the blanks with silly answers. I would just glance at his paper and hand it back to him without marking it. After two hours, he finally got tired of the game and decided that he wanted to get out of school. So he let me win. He wrote in sensible answers and achieved a score of 90%. From then on, we were the best of friends. The rest of the children in the class, of course, had always known that he was a bright boy, but no one would ever have divulged that information to a teacher. They knew how to keep their friend's secret. Now, however, I was one of them, because I was in on their secret.

The Prize Winners

The class' favorite subject was Art, possibly because it was also my favorite. One day, I came across a special sale on sponges in a new department store. One huge bag of them only cost $1, all sizes, shapes, and colors. During the next art class, we used those sponges to decorate covers for the children's text books. We mixed bowls of tempera paint in which to dip the sponges to create interesting prints for the covers. The paper had been donated by a local bank and was covered with a map of Canada, but we turned the paper inside out where it was plain white paper. Henry, true to his usual pattern, decided to work together with Steven. After they had made enough book covers, they decided to make a design on a plain piece of paper. That is when the two of them created the most beautiful design of the day. It won the school's art contest and was entered in the regional contest where it also won a prize. The work then went on to tour the province.

Those Professionals

None of the "professionals" believed what had happened. The principal saw that the two boys had signed their work, but she insisted that someone must have helped them. Well, every child in the class had seen them working on the print together with no help from anyone, certainly not from me. I never touch anyone else's work and have never allowed any teacher to touch mine. The psychologist put Steven through intensive testing and determined that he was a borderline moron. She insisted that he be placed in a special school the following year. No

The copyright of the article Don't Waste Your Talents in Art for Children is owned by Traute Klein, biogardener. Permission to republish Don't Waste Your Talents in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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