Designated Doodler

Here are the important tips about teaching art that you won't find in your first year teacher's survival guide. 1. Only leave out on the table the supplies that you want each grade to use. Little kids are like bloodhounds that can find a marker in a crayon stack, and it only takes one marker to mess up a project! 2. Never give your kids the color black, unless you are using it specifically, or their work will be 90% black. I'd also go ahead and pop out all of the black cakes in the watercolor palettes. 3. Demonstrate how to do absolutely everything, from using a glue stick properly to how to do the project, step by step. 4. Start the year off by immediately telling the kids that they will always, ALWAYS, only get ONE SHEET OF PAPER. Unless you want to singlehandedly destroy the rainforest, do not hand out paper like it's candy. Instill in the kids that their work is precious and should take time and care. And if they make mistakes, they need to think of ways...

Gravel ground against itself as I took one step after another. Although I could barely make it out in the midnight darkness, I knew that the black asphalt stretched out in front of me like a calloused noir arm reaching into infinity. The night breeze was nearly frigid, a stark contrast to the burning sun of midday. As soon as the sun set I slipped on my jacket. It's fabric slid against my sunburnt skin and sent a burning pain radiating across my arms and neck. I became keenly aware of my body at that moment. The way the fabric of my shirt moved against my skin, the way my feet ached so bad that the hurt travelled all the way to my upper thighs. My feet slid around in the vast house of my shoes, leaving bleeding callouses on my heels. My once soft curls fluttered with each whisper of wind. My hands were in knots, shoved deep into my jacket's pockets. I listened intently for the sound of a car engine, for the promise of human life, but heard only deafening silence. If ther...