A Painting Class Story About How Creativity Is Spent in Schools

Ekşi Sözlük writer “baranba” shared the story he lived in an art class in primary school. Many of us are familiar with situations where our creativity is not accepted because it is unrealistic. Let’s listen to a similar story from baranba.

I think primary school was first grade. We are in painting class. As a regular student, I had my paint and notebook ready. I proudly took out my monami crayons of 20 different colors and placed them on the table. At that time, 20 kinds of pastel paints were a bad product. so if you have 20 kinds of crayons, you are charisma. If there are 10 kinds, you’re in charge.

If it’s 5 kinds of paints, you’re a loser. But the brand is also important. At that time, brands were indispensable not for the clothes worn, the phones used, the shoes, but the crayons, backpacks, and pencils. my paints were also monami. solid brand. I feel incredibly happy. When the teacher came, I opened my mopak notebook.

the teacher said, paint a landscape.

I also started to draw… I drew mountain ranges. A river flows through it. Classic elementary school freshman painting composition. A house by the river. stones in the river…

Oh, and a tree, that’s a must. occasional lambs. Then I said, let me draw the sun. but… I made five or six mountains, I didn’t know which ones to put between them. I put it among them. There are six mountains, there are five suns.

I also felt a lack in the land. I said let me do something there too. That’s why I drew a teleport center there, before I came to the trees after I passed the houses that appear when I cross the bridge over the river and turn right. such a one-room residence with one door and two windows, the roof of which is designed vertically like Scandinavian roofs, and the word “teleportation center” on the door…

After finishing the picture, the teacher started checking it. The favorite pictures will be hung on the wall, I’m looking forward to it. it was my turn, the teacher looked at a picture, he looked at me… he said to me: ‘you’re welcome.’ I was in such pain that I said, ‘I beg you, too.’ I didn’t know its meaning then, so I thought it was a curse. afadsfgdsa joke. He looked at me, he said, “What are these suns?” I said, “This is the sun that illuminates Turkey, this is the sun of Japan, this is the sun of Madagascar, this is the sun of America, this is the sun of Mexico, and this is the sun of New Zealand.” I counted these countries exactly. Well, he asked what is this teleportation center, and I said, “Those who want to teleport from here are leaving.” He said there are no such pictures, you have to draw real things, it was not beautiful at all. I tore up the picture too.

I took a surreal look by drawing the sun for each country there, and counted 6 countries at once, including Madagascar. On top of that, I used an argument about a neo-technological development, I drew these as a 7-year-old child, the teacher would not be surprised by “where did you learn about Madagascar”, instead of being confused by “where did you see the teleportation event”, “the idea of drawing a sun for each country” what did you think?, instead of wow or something, he made a curriculum fetishism saying “these didn’t happen”.

this is the education system in turkey