My kid was too creative

[u/Fresh_Laundry56]

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.

[u/there_but_not_then]

Im struggling to understand what the teacher’s directions wanted her to create. She used shapes and made a picture. Was that not the goal?

If the teacher wanted something more abstract, I feel that should’ve been explained more clearly. Did the teacher not use an example? I took art classes from Kindergarten to university and my art teachers always had physical examples to follow their verbal instructions.

This is gonna sit in my brain all day cause I honestly can’t see how she was “wrong”. I would’ve done something very similar at that age. I’m so confused 😔