Blue Eyed Sensei: Octopi Everywhere!

I started working with children in an educational setting when I was eighteen years old. Over the past eight years I've worked with kids of all ages, kids in different settings, kids from different cultures and taught them different subjects, but there is nothing I've enjoyed as much as working with children and art. No matter who the child is or what the craft is, I always enjoy teaching how to use different materials, and guiding them in their creativity. It's important to encourage them to experiment, get their hands dirty, and create something from their imaginations that doesn't have to be anything real. There is no such thing as bad art, and I try to instill this way of thinking in all the kids I work with. Everyone is creative and it is so important to find the confidence in your creativity at a young age so that you continue expressing it as your grow older.

Last year I proposed to my director that I wanted to teach a private English class after school that focused on English through art. I've loved working with a small group of kids every Thursday afternoon, and it has allowed me to teach students that are not in my class. In last week's meeting I suggested that myself and the Milky Way sensei team up to teach a combined art class once a week, and if it went well, schedule it for twice in a week.

The Milky Way class is a year older than Shooting Star, and I thought that by combining the classes, it would give the older kids a chance to both help the younger students as well as set an example for sharing, following directions, speaking in English, and general behavior. It would also be a nice change for myself and the other sensei, as we both work alone without partners. The goal was for the students to benefit from being joined together as well as for the teachers to.

This morning we had all twenty-four kids come into my classroom and we mixed them up at different tables and then began the activity. The project was making an octopus from different mediums, and the students were required to follow multiple steps as well as wait patiently for their turn to rotate to the different stations for the activity.