Rodrigo's Story

Don't you love the magic moments in the art room when everything just comes together? Yesterday a second grader made my day. I had an art teacher and supervisor from another district observing my class, along with a student teacher. This was one of my largest classes so space was tight.

The students were completing the cardinal lesson you see here (this is Rodrigo's). Last week they printed the green lines for the branches; this day they were adding the birds and painting snow.

Rodrigo is this very quiet little boy who was completely absorbed in so carefully and slowly painting the lines of white between the green. We were all drawn to him because of his focus and effort. At the end of class he wasn't quite finished so I let him stay behind his class and finish, knowing his teacher would understand. (He also offered to put his work on the drying rack and clean up his table when he finished.)

When I had a free moment I took his work down to show his teacher and to tell her how proud I was of him. She looked at his work and was moved almost to tears, pointing out that he had written his name in cursive (he is in a second grade bilingual class). We were both so proud of him! And the next day he brought in a pencil drawing he made at home of the same scene.

Rodrigo's story is a reminder to me that we must look for and pay attention to the quiet children so easy to overlook when we are distracted by other, more noticeable students (I must admit another boy in the same class painted his hand and pressed it on the wall behind him, but that's another story!). I hope we made Rodrigo's day; he certainly made mine.