For the past 20+ years, this has been my observation of my little learners too.
Classroom cuteness has been coming in baby steps for many years, but now with social media, it seems wherever we look, cute stuff has taken over. I have a love/hate relationship with that fact. In an effort to have cute, because it is everywhere, I feel it has created a strange new sense of competition within the teaching profession that I despise. Am I the only one who sees it? Not likely.
Cute also has added more pressure to our teaching responsibilities and drained our pocketbooks, because it is now the norm. I don't believe that it is teachers trying to outshine each other. I think it comes from society. Which classroom would a nervous kindergarten parent rather send their child to, the one that oozes colorful fun or one that is plain Jane? Without knowing, of course, that both teachers are fabulously loving, dedicated, knowledgeable and inspiring...
Before there was commercial use clipart and the Pinterest cute classroom explosion and all of that, teachers everywhere spent lots of their own money on cute but only to a certain extent. Cute came in the form of expensive poster sets from the Teacher's Store. It came in the form of a 25 dollar Carson Delosa Clipart or DJ Inkers paperback book. Ask anyone I have taught with and they will tell you, I was the master of old-fashioned cute with cut and paste clipart! Maybe you remember doing that yourself or seeing your teacher create their own attention-grabbing materials. I still have those old tattered books. They are part of my evolution as a teacher, so I will not part with them EVER!
As a child, I was obsessed with all things pink, Hello Kitty, and anything cute. I only wish my teachers had made learning fun, creative and cute for me. Instead, we sat silently at our seats doing worksheet after boring worksheet. There was barely a single decoration in the room and teachers used only RED PEN. Was that bad? Not necessarily. It is all that there was available at the time and all that was expected. Rare was the teacher who tried to do anything more than what came supplied by the school or came from the textbook series. I wonder how I might be different as an adult if I had been a child in today's classroom. Maybe this is the reason why I am so passionate about these things for my students.
Believe me, my classroom is not all fun and games hence, the recent lack of interesting photos to share of kids in action. I am very mindful, as we all are about finding a good balance between rigorous academic tasks and those that are fun, colorful and engaging for students.
But because I consider cute to be a resource at my disposal, to help draw my little ones in, you bet I will use it to my full advantage. No worries, critics of cute, it usually slows down in the upper grades. Why not make things that are visually appealing for our little ones while they can enjoy it? Will we ever go back to being a RED PEN profession? Let's hope not, but let's also be realistic in our expectations of ourselves. We all do the best we can with what we have, given both time and money!
Do I admire other classrooms and their cute fabric covered bench seats and fabulously decorated bulletin boards. Absolutely. Will I be able to have my room look like that? Probably not. Will anyone judge me for that? I hope not!
Thanks friends for stopping by every now and then for a little sharing and inspiration with ideas with a dash of cute appeal you can hopefully use!
Classroom cuteness has been coming in baby steps for many years, but now with social media, it seems wherever we look, cute stuff has taken over. I have a love/hate relationship with that fact. In an effort to have cute, because it is everywhere, I feel it has created a strange new sense of competition within the teaching profession that I despise. Am I the only one who sees it? Not likely.
Cute also has added more pressure to our teaching responsibilities and drained our pocketbooks, because it is now the norm. I don't believe that it is teachers trying to outshine each other. I think it comes from society. Which classroom would a nervous kindergarten parent rather send their child to, the one that oozes colorful fun or one that is plain Jane? Without knowing, of course, that both teachers are fabulously loving, dedicated, knowledgeable and inspiring...
Before there was commercial use clipart and the Pinterest cute classroom explosion and all of that, teachers everywhere spent lots of their own money on cute but only to a certain extent. Cute came in the form of expensive poster sets from the Teacher's Store. It came in the form of a 25 dollar Carson Delosa Clipart or DJ Inkers paperback book. Ask anyone I have taught with and they will tell you, I was the master of old-fashioned cute with cut and paste clipart! Maybe you remember doing that yourself or seeing your teacher create their own attention-grabbing materials. I still have those old tattered books. They are part of my evolution as a teacher, so I will not part with them EVER!
As a child, I was obsessed with all things pink, Hello Kitty, and anything cute. I only wish my teachers had made learning fun, creative and cute for me. Instead, we sat silently at our seats doing worksheet after boring worksheet. There was barely a single decoration in the room and teachers used only RED PEN. Was that bad? Not necessarily. It is all that there was available at the time and all that was expected. Rare was the teacher who tried to do anything more than what came supplied by the school or came from the textbook series. I wonder how I might be different as an adult if I had been a child in today's classroom. Maybe this is the reason why I am so passionate about these things for my students.
Believe me, my classroom is not all fun and games hence, the recent lack of interesting photos to share of kids in action. I am very mindful, as we all are about finding a good balance between rigorous academic tasks and those that are fun, colorful and engaging for students.
But because I consider cute to be a resource at my disposal, to help draw my little ones in, you bet I will use it to my full advantage. No worries, critics of cute, it usually slows down in the upper grades. Why not make things that are visually appealing for our little ones while they can enjoy it? Will we ever go back to being a RED PEN profession? Let's hope not, but let's also be realistic in our expectations of ourselves. We all do the best we can with what we have, given both time and money!
Do I admire other classrooms and their cute fabric covered bench seats and fabulously decorated bulletin boards. Absolutely. Will I be able to have my room look like that? Probably not. Will anyone judge me for that? I hope not!
Thanks friends for stopping by every now and then for a little sharing and inspiration with ideas with a dash of cute appeal you can hopefully use!
Happy Teaching!
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