When I see my elementary students light up each time they launch the art program Pixie, I think about how art is often abused in public schools.Let's get this straight. Art is not a curriculum checklist item. It is also not an enrichment activity or a pleasing diversion from the rigors of the school day. Instead, it is essential to growing young minds and developing the intellectual skills needed for success within the traditional curriculum and even further.
Let's take a look at drawing. For some parents, cynicism and disgust is a natural response to the umpteenth sketching of Thomas the Tank (read Mom, You're One Tough Art Critic from the NY Times). But when children have the opportunity to draw freely, they are exercising their brains.
To borrow from an article written by Jean Mormon-Unsworth:
"Art is not just skill. It is the process of thinking, imagining, risking, seeing connections, inventing, expressing in unique visual form. Drawing is as basic and essential a mode of expression as is language and writing. Everyone can draw. And, just as we all learn the same form of cursive writing but develop an individuality that becomes our identification, so our drawing develops as individually as our writing. The task of a teacher is not to tell the student what it should look like; rather, the teacher's role is to lead the student to look. There is no absolute standard of good drawing."
In Scarsdale, elementary students come to the computer lab and use a drawing program called Pixie. This software is easy enough for a kindergartner to master the basics (my pre-K daughter loves it too!), while offering sophisticated features that an older elementary student can appreciate as well.
Pixie is the drawing/painting equivalent of a sandbox. Children jump in, grab a paint brush, and splash the digital canvas with color. They stamp images from a bountiful graphics library. They smear paint and grab a roller to leave a trail of balloons or animal tracks. And as if life in the sandbox couldn't get any better, Pixie connects to your computer's built-in web cam allowing students to add pictures of themselves to their artwork. Talk about setting a classroom on fire!
Interested in buying a copy for home use? The company, Tech4Learning, is selling this program for $25, that's more than 50% off the list price. Visit their site here and use this Discount Code: HUCVL100
Over the last ten years in Scarsdale, we've tried a number of art programs at the elementary level, each too flawed to continue, but I have a feeling Pixie will stick around.
