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| Painting and Drawing Kit for my students |
I think there are two very important skills in learning: imagination and observation. I always encouraged my students to draw and paint. Sometimes I asked them to copy from what I made or from a painting and sometimes I made them use their own imagination to draw.
Of the two skills some students were apt in being free but most of them wanted to copy. It was difficult for them to try to paint things that weren't there. They were lost and would take a long time to begin.
I came to realize the reason why the students hesitate to imagine and put colors to them was mostly because they were afraid of making mistakes and not getting another chance. So before I could instill the value of imagination and observation in learning I had to step back and emphasize to them the importance of making mistakes.
Mistakes are great teachers, we can learn a lot from them. The habit of inquiry of why we made a mistake goes a long way. It gives us insight of what not to repeat and also what can we do next so that we can avoid the same fate. For example while working with water color if we do not clean the brushes before applying a different color we will end up getting an entirely new, undesired color. Once a person makes this mistake and has to pay the price with the painting she will always remember to clean the brushes thoroughly. People should look at mistakes as a chance to improve and not a reason to stop.
Learning from mistakes makes us succeed in difficult tasks. It may seem, with the fluency that we talk or ease that we walk, that we have always been good at talking and walking. But looking at a child try and fail and try again we begin to understand the difficulty of such seemingly easy tasks. The persistence of learning through making mistakes (falling down while walking or saying the wrong word while talking) a child becomes good at those things. It is only the matter of learning through making the mistake that makes us perform difficult tasks over time.
Being comfortable with making mistakes we can start to become confident in what we do and become more honest. After all, what we all need is honest and confident children for tomorrow.