Sept 9 & 10, 2013
For the Mon & Tues of my visit up North, I began each day with a 2-hour workshop at Penguin High School. The focus was Creative Communication, and I was working with a small group of Additional Needs students, a mix of pretty high-functioning kids with various developmental or learning setbacks. As is usual with the age group, there was a bit of trepidation, a bit of resistance, and a bit of plain old “what’s going on?”, but once they’d warmed a little they were great. I was concerned that they’d be too easily discouraged if their drawings didn’t meet their expectations, but I was especially impressed with their perseverance & preparedness to push through any challenges. No-one gave up or spat the dummy, they had great input in our discussions about emotions, and they surprised themselves in the quality of their drawings. Thanks guys, well done! Thanks also to their teacher Sarah Van Beek, who was obviously a ray of sunshine & a model of positivity to these students, great to see and much needed by these young people.
The first morning we drew faces & talked about feelings, with some interesting interpretations:
The second morning we worked on body language, drawing a simple Boy/Girl scenario and an all-too-familiar Classroom scenario, both of which offered up some great variations:
