[Ditroi]

It was also in Kindergarten when I learned to doubt some of the wisdom of the education system... we had coloring time. Teacher passed out line drawings of fruit for us to color. I was preparing to color the grapes. There are only 8 colors in the crayon box. In my household we ate green and reddish grapes. At that point in my life I hadn't seen or eaten purple grapes. I preferred the green ones, they were sweeter. So I picked the one green crayon provided in the box. I colored the grapes green. The teacher said I was wrong and I don't recall if she docked me a point or not. My reality didn't match the dogma. LOL. I was a rebel ever since.

[horatio]

Originally Posted by Ditroi

I found out I liked playing with colors, lines and shapes since what... kindergarten because there was nothing else to do during the free hour. I gravitated to the paint easel where I made red and green blotches on a brown line. Apples on a fence. My first painting... teacher said I was talented.

I guess I did, but just on the usual kids level. You did enjoy it more, you had skills and that's why you are an artist today. In between a lot of hard but hopefully also enjoyable work.

Of course you can become good at something by studying and training off your a*s, but you won't enjoy it unless you have some skills and/or interest in the area.
I am pretty bad at learning languages but when I was about 16 or so, something drove me to learn more than just school-level English by reading books with a dictionary and index cards. So interest can partly substitute talent, but without either you don't make it very far.

Originally Posted by Ditroi

It was also in Kindergarten when I learned to doubt some of the wisdom of the education system... we had coloring time. Teacher passed out line drawings of fruit for us to color. I was preparing to color the grapes. There are only 8 colors in the crayon box. In my household we ate green and reddish grapes. At that point in my life I hadn't seen or eaten purple grapes. I preferred the green ones, they were sweeter. So I picked the one green crayon provided in the box. I colored the grapes green. The teacher said I was wrong and I don't recall if she docked me a point or not. My reality didn't match the dogma. LOL. I was a rebel ever since.

Typical, a decent teacher should try to encourage his or her students and sparkle excitement. If children cannot be excited for the wonders of the world, who else can?

[Ditroi]

Originally Posted by horatio

Typical, a decent teacher should try to encourage his or her students and sparkle excitement. If children cannot be excited for the wonders of the world, who else can?

And that's a big problem... depending on the kid... it makes or breaks them. I hear it all the time:

"I used to draw(or play the piano or dance or sports)"
"why did you stop?"
"Cause people said I wasn't good."

I was just darn lucky I got nice people telling me I was good from the start otherwise I would have quit. Mom tells me I stalled and gave up in the first grade. I didn't touch some art project given to me so my mom did it... I don't remember that. But it started back up in 2nd grade and the praise came again and I kept going from there to an obsessive degree. All kids crave positive attention.