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When I was in grad school, I had a job in conjunction with the Cartoon Art Museum in SF where we taught undereducated kids how to read and write by making autobiographical comic books.
A strange thing happened that I still think about:
A strange thing happened that I still think about:
I taught the same class over several years for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade kids. The 3rd and 4th graders were so great at drawing and thinking of imaginative subjects. The 5th graders, not so much- but here’s the catch-
Since I had them year over year, patterns emerged. The same kid who would draw extraordinarily cool things and make up the best stories in 4th grade, would come back after summer and in 5th grade… would stop.
I would ask them why they stopped and they would kinda shrug and say something like “I’m not the one that’s good at comics, Alan is.” and point to another kid. Then usually followed by something like “I’m good at soccer.”
I could never tell if this idea of identity attached to work happened because of society- we as adults see that they’re growing and isolate what their future might hold, or fear, because, well, kids are mean in that adolescent stage.
I think about this related to gatekeeping in the industry. “you’re not a programmer”, it’s a weird thing to say. Even as I write this thread I know some folks who will write me off because I once studied art. These tend to be people who have far less experience than me.
Were some kids better at drawing than others?
Not by that much- the differences could be described better as “different” and honestly pretty cool, divergent takes.
Not by that much- the differences could be described better as “different” and honestly pretty cool, divergent takes.
It became clear to me that at some point, for some reason, we confine ourselves and attach our identity to our work, and like most boxes, it’s fairly arbitrary.
Fin 
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