No Doodling!
From the desk of Gina…
When my daughter, Madison, was beginning the 5th grade she was doing the usual grind of work sheets, testing and homework. One day a spelling test came home for my review and she had “doodled” on it.
As I reviewed the paper I see the teacher assistant had written at the bottoms in big red letters “NO DOODLING!”
As usual, Madison and I sat down to discuss her day. For the most part, her days at school normally consisted of the ongoing flow of “boring” worksheets, tests of all sorts and the continuous stream of homework. When she came home from school, there was yet more worksheets and an impossible amount of homework. Her stress level was very high and on this particular day she again had the NO DOODLING! note in red ink on her spelling test page to add to the madness. Her doodle was actually a birthday cake. (Just think about how this affected her that she remembers the specific doodle!)
We continued our conversation on this subject. In Madison’s fifth grade voice she says, “Mom why can’t I doodle? I like to draw and it relaxes me and helps me think while I am taking a test and doing worksheets. ” My reply was, “That is a good question. I have no idea why you can not doodle.”
At that point I took charge of the “doodling” situation and shared with the teacher that I thought it was only fair that my creative, artistically inclined daughter be able to doodle on her work at school and her “homework” as long as she was getting her testing and work completed. As I advocated for her to be able to doodle and for less homework, I would win a battle every once-in-a-while. This time I won the ability for her to doodle, which made us both very happy.
There have been many instances over the years that I had to advocate for my child to have her learning style accommodated. The learning style she needed, and still needs, is “engagement.” Hands on learning.
Learning while doing. Is that so difficult to accomplish?
I found myself wondering why some teachers hamper children’s learning by talking negatively in class, assigning stacks of worksheets, large loads of homework, screaming in class, require students to memorize an endless amount of facts, spelling tests, and have math facts that recited in three minutes or less??? My list of frustrations goes on and on…
While I am certainly not a classroom teacher and I do not pretend to be one, I am a parent who has witnessed first hand what the stressful learning environment can do students.
So lets fast-forward to my daughter’s junior year. She has just completed a mural for the local Salvation Army. Please take a look at this picture and her artwork and tell me “doodling” is not important.
Let’s encourage our children to love learning and not dread going to school in an environment that creates stress that effects them as they go into adulthood. Give them time to think and be engaged in their learning environment whether it is at school or home. Let’s celebrate our children’s individual gifts and let them have opportunities to share them with the world.
As I close, I will share an interesting quote that is worth repeating.
Researchers think doodling may help boost concentration and recall in one, or both, of two ways. It might prevent us from sliding fully into daydreaming mode, keeping us anchored in a concrete activity. Doodling might also help us maintain just the right level of mental “arousal” that keeps our brains just interested enough to gather what we need from a conversation or phone call.
Regina Edwards
Madison’s mother
regina.edwards61@gmail.com