Children Never Were What They Were

Week 7

             I was very intrigued by Freud's theories regarding adult behavior towards children. I also believe adults treat children differently because of they are afraid of being call childish themselves. Society has always had this false view about children. We always sugar coat everything for them without realizing what their capabilities can truly be. I think that as a nation, we should start thinking differently about them. The videos shown in class are proof of what children can truly be. They can be outstanding innovators if we could only allow them to see the real world instead of shoving our image of childhood on them. 
            Personally, my image of childhood is one full of exploration and play. Children shouldn't be stopped from being exposed to things they are curious about. By doing so, we are only limiting them. The reading just contextualized things I've thought of before. As an older sister to a sibling of 6 years of age, I never hid anything from her such as television shows or video games. If she was curious about them, I would show her but wouldn't explain anything unless she asked me to. My perspective regarding television, is that she will only understand, what she understands. The explicit comedy content will just be a blur because she doesn't understand the context of it yet. I've realized this is true myself when I've gone back to several family movies I watched when I was a child but now I understand the context in them. As educators, we shouldn't be limiting children to how society thinks we should. Instead, we should go further and make children be better adults than we were. 
            In my opinion, we might change our classroom practices by thinking of children as responsible beings. We shouldn't be limiting them to supplies we think they can't handle. They are pretty capable of understanding how to use them as long as we educate them to do so. We need to get rid of this idea of babying them so much. 

           The image I chose is a demonstration of how times have changed. The reading stated that children used to be workers at a young age capable of doing what adults did too. They were apprentices and mastered a skill when they were young adults. This is something that seems to be lost in this contemporary society. Other countries such as Italy and the town mentioned in the reading challenge students to use supplies that would be found dangerous in the states. Children there seem to be more productive and innovative artistic-wise because they are being exposed to things they should explore. The states on the other hand, keeps using the same commercial products everywhere made for different age groups because of what we keep thinking about them. Finger-paint, water color, giant colors are starting to make children art repetitive. It doesn't seem to be advancing. Instead, as art educators, we should take a risk and develop different ways of having students experiment with different mediums. It is time to innovate that stereotypical image of children art we have imposed as a society.