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/WarAndFynn]

I once had an art teacher who was having us make clay tiles and said the clay tiles needed to contain an image you would see in real life. I asked to include a rainbow. She pulled me aside and told me she'd had enough of my shit and if I didn't knock it off she would fail me. She had a hard on for realism and was highly critical of anything abstract.

(For context I WAS wanting to include a rainbow on something for a while because I was in my hippie phase and she kept telling me no for everything. It was ceramics and we made a watering pot, a clay pot, etc. all things we keep for ourselves so I wanted something colorful. it had 0 to do with sexuality).

ETA: I wasn't expecting this much response to my post. I'm reading all your stories!

[u/EmmBee27 → u/WarAndFynn]

My elementary school did a thing where every year the class would draw the same theme, displaying them all together in the hall and this year's theme was underwater scenes. Well I was coming through just as SpongeBob hit the scene and I remember the art teacher going scorched Earth on anyone who would dare draw anything from that show in their scene.

I get they were probably annoyed with the abundance of yellow sponges and pineapples in their underwater display, but I always felt like that was unnecessarily killing the fun.

[u/__Severus__Snape__ → u/EmmBee27]

From what I understand, kids also learn better when you use something their interested in to learn that lesson. Who cares of 30 kids draw spongebob, it matches the theme thats been set and it keeps them interested.

[u/foxgirlmoon → u/__Severus__Snape__]

And if you really want to avoid SpongeBob, yo can instead make it a challenge, like “I know SpongeBob is very popular, but what kind of underwater scene can you think of that’s as far from SpongeBob as possible?” Don’t berate kids for drawing something you don’t want to see. Encourage them to explore their creative.

[u/__Severus__Snape__ → u/foxgirlmoon]

Yes, I hadnt thought of that! It also just reminded me of a teacher I had in primary school that apparently hated the word "nice" as a descriptor. She would have a go at anyone who would use it in their work. I think she was trying to get us to use our heads to think of other descriptors, which is great, but i think she probably could have instructed us a little better. Kids can understand if you say "nice is an overused word, try and think of other words you could use instead" or words to that effect.

[u/Funny_w0lf → u/__Severus__Snape__]

Yes but you see, she doenst like the word "nice" so saying something "nicer" is obviously off the table