I remember my secondary school days in quite some detail. I remember I loved learning – I still do! I also remember being a very anxious teen when it came to many things including socialising, navigating the canteen at lunchtimes, and art lessons. Just entering the art corridor would make me nervous. I never felt I was any good at art because I was slower to create anything compared to my peers; I would be proud of a sketch I did but felt like it was ruined as soon as I added paint; and art homework was awful, often taking a whole weekend to complete only to feel disappointed in the result. I left school feeling I wasn’t “artistic” and that was that. So why did I recently volunteer to lead the relaunch of the book and craft club at my library? And how did I face my fear of art lessons enough to essentially teach one?
Well, I love working with kids, and an almost inevitable part of working with kids, especially in a library, is arts and crafts. And I want to be the fun library assistant that facilitates this. I also want to enjoy doing it. So I thought I’d tap into my artistic side by finding an art hobby I could do at home - in my own space - before diving into the deep end at work.
Thinking back to my school days, I remember being pleased with some of the sketches I made; even enjoying the process of putting pencil to page. That felt like an excellent place to start. Picking up a little sketch pad at an art supply store and finding a random pencil I had around the house, I was ready to sketch. Now I just needed something to draw.
The first time I sat down to “do art”, I doodled cartoons leaves, flowers, and birds, not really thinking about it at all. But then it came to me. Birds are an interest of mine – I like to go out on walks in nature and spot birds, it was something I started doing back in lockdowns and I’ve yet to lose my spark for. It was clear to me then, I wanted to try sketching birds. Specifically, realistic(ish) ones from photographs I found on the RSPB website, along with their calls which I thought I could learn at the same time.
Birds turned out to be a great entry point. Months later, I am still enjoying learning all about the birds I can see in my local area through this sketching process. A key part to that is that I haven’t set myself a goal to complete a certain number of sketches each week, month etc., but instead sit down with this activity only when I feel I want to. The activity has also developed overtime to include colouring-in bird illustrations in this colouring book I picked up recently and enjoyed doing with a friend one time. This social element has been really important to me as well. I’ve either been creative alongside someone else, or have shared my work with family and friends along the way.
It was then a reflection prompt in the Open Learn ‘Engaging Young Readers’ course I’m completing that made me connect this journey with the LIST reading for pleasure pedagogy. The LIST idea suggests that kids need reading to be ‘Learner-led’, ‘Informal’, ‘Social’, and involve ‘Texts that tempt’ for them to build up their identity as a reader. By me starting out at home and only picking up my sketchbook when I wanted to, I was setting up a hobby that was led by me and in an informal setting. By linking it with my already-established interest in birds, I created a tempting activity for myself. And by talking about this hobby with others and sharing my sketches with family and friends, I made it something social.
My hobby may be quite different to the craft sessions I will lead at the library, but it has allowed me to see myself as artistic and therefore bring a new confidence to these children’s events. It has also helped me to better understand the LIST reading pedagogy which will also make me better at my job overall. I have now run the first of these book and craft sessions at the library since the relaunch, and I still had some nerves like I used to with art lessons at school, but, with my new artistic identity, I was excited and even enjoyed the event! And I’m proud that I didn’t let my fear of arts and crafts stop me from taking on – and succeeding at – the responsibility of leading this project.