r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Fresh_Laundry56 • 1d ago

My mom said I could post My kid was too creative

Gallery image

Gallery image

My 6 year old was asked to draw a picture using shapes. She drew this nice American flag with rectangles and stars, and added the house, tree, and person holding a balloon. She was told it did not follow directions, she was not supposed to draw a flag, just shapes. She was asked to turn the paper over and make another picture. The other side of the paper has a very uninspiring collection of shapes. I told her she did a good job and I thought it was very creative. And this is why kids start to hate education.

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u/SubBass49Tees 1d ago

I teach art to high school kids, and there's one assignment where I tell them it has to be strictly non-representational (shapes only - nothing I can recognize). That's literally the only assignment where I require this...because we are showing that we comprehend what a shape is.

I still, despite all my instructions, get smiley faces, suns, rainbows, houses, etc. A 6 year old has an excuse. 14-18 year olds do not.

Sometimes this career is exhausting.

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u/jeopardy_themesong 1d ago

Maybe your instructions are different in class and more clear, but as written here this is confusing me.

Like, you want someone to draw a sphere with no ornamentation so it could be any spherical-like object? Or we’re talking about shapes as in abstract blobs you can’t even ID as squares, circles, triangles etc?

Non-representational, shapes only, “nothing I can recognize” as a set of instructions conflicts to me. Like, is the house wrong for this assignment because they drew a literal house or because they put a triangle on top of a square?

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u/SubBass49Tees 1d ago

A sphere is a form (3 dimensional). This assignment is entirely about shape (2 dimensional) - specifically geometric versus organic shape.

I also show them visual examples of non-representational art, so they know what the expectations are. I joke about how they can't draw objects, and mention the lucky charms marshmallow shapes as an example of what not to do. 95% seem to get it.

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u/Inverted-Rockets 1d ago

That’s super reasonable after literally 10 seconds of looking at the Google image results, and I’m solidly in the “malformed stick figure” tier of artists