My Students

I have three groups of students: One group from Old Askar Camp, the second is from New Askar Camp, and the third is from Nablus City itself.

For their first class I asked them to draw whatever they feel like. I wanted to see what themes they would come up on their own, how they drew, and the techniques and colours they used.
It seems as though these children are not used to being creative or ever asked to improvise. Coming from a very structured society with many rules and regulations, it seemed impossible for them to come up with their own ideas. Roughly 50% of class drew the exact same thing (with the exact detailing and colouring). 25% drew something related to war, Palestinian patriotism, and religion. 20% drew something. The rest drew something that looked like its been practiced over and over again. Not more than 1 or 2 students actually drew something creative.

Their second class was a bit more structured. I showed them a bunch of still-life paintings and asked them to discuss them. I directed the discussion by asking questions about the artists' intentions, why certain objects are included in the paintings, the style, colours used, etc. Surprisingly, the children from Old Askar Camp gave the most creative analyses and interpretations of the artwork. Their interpretations were not universal, but still creative and valid. For example, when I showed them a picture of a vase with flowers and leaves falling off, one student said it looks like the artist wants to represent Autumn. Most other students focused on the theme of death. The students from Nablus City were less creative with their answers. All the students focused only on the obvious interpretations. The New Askar Camp students were drastically different. They were not responding as they should have for their age group. When i asked them to discuss any of those paintings, they were not able to give me any comments beyond the formal aspects of the artwork (size, composition, and colour). Even when i asked them directly, "why do you think this artist drew dead flowers, rather than alive ones?", the only answer I got was, "...maybe because he only had dead flowers to paint!".

After the class discussion, I gave the students instructions on how to draw a tomato by focusing on light and shade. I took each class outside where there is natural sunlight, asked them to focus on the tomato, and draw exactly where they see the darkest and lightest spots. Again, each class gave me drastically different results. The best drawings came from the students from Nablus city and Old Askar Camp. The new Askar Camp children had the most trouble. They understood the concept of light and dark but they were not able to execute it. Some kids actually asked me to draw them the circle, because they didn't know how. That lesson was very unsuccessful with this group because it was beyond their comprehension.

Overall after the second day of classes I realized that every group is different. My theory is that this could be due to their different living conditions, and educational experiences. New Askar camp has the worst living conditions from all three groups, so their comprehension of artistic concepts is virtually non-existent!

The main difference between Old Askar Camp and Nablus City students is their quality of discussion. My hypothesis is that the Nablus city children did study art interpretation in school which is why they were able to answer my questions with good, but typical commentary. The Old Askar Camp children did not receive as much art instruction from school, therefor they were able to "think outside the box".