Empty canvas?

Natalie comments on her blog entry "Bridges - Photography and Education", while making a metaphorical comparison between forms of art and education, saying, "The canvas is empty and it's the teacher's and her students' mission or calling to create something just as an artist would." I like your thinking, Natalie. I like the image of an empty canvas waiting to be filled, the child's mind and heart. I can see the artist's pallet, the many colors as yet unmingled, the teacher's vast knowledge and experience. I can see the brush poised above the canvas, the teacher's love as she pours her heart into what she does. However, it has been my experience that the "canvas" is almost never empty. Children, including preschool and kindergartners, and especially middle school and high school students, show up in our classrooms with a plethora of prior circumstances, some good and some bad, that effect, in a variety of ways, their ability or inability to learn (and in some cases to simply function). If the "canvas" were truly empty, we would have no need to consider how to make the educational process more compelling.

We would simply paint. The canvas would simply become painted.

But it is not simple. Because children come to us with a set of expectations already installed and each child has a different set, it is in fact extremely complex. We must somehow meet the needs of them all, whoever they are, wherever they have come from, and whatever abilities they may or may not have. Perhaps we need to be looking for ways to work with a canvas that has already been painted, ways to make it better and more beautiful, regardless of it's appearance when it arrives.