You know what I think about most of the Doodles in the K-3 category? They’re pretty fucking awesome. AND TOTALLY NOT DOODLED BY A KID! Seriously, doves carrying the world to a better place? Religious symbols for the letters in ‘Google’? Breast cancer awareness? Yeah, that’s EXACTLY what 6 and 7 year olds think about when they’re told to doodle.
I can practically see the desperate Indian parents who did the religious symbol thing getting their kid to copy it neatly. (“No, beta, colour in the line!”)
Yes, that was a purely original thought from an 8 year old boy.
So I pit the parents and teachers responsible for faking their kids’ entries in such competitions. I pit the Google judges for selecting such pretentious, glurgy crap and encouraging the bullshit. The kid just learns that copying is good and that winning at any cost is important. The only ones who ‘win’ are the parents and teachers/administrators who get to boast about their little ‘prodigy’.
I agree that the drawings, if they were even done by kids, are trite; and plagiarising the cliched “Coexist” bumper sticker does not constitute creativity.
Also I’m not particularly pleased about the Grafitti-style one:
Way to go, Google; encouraging people to commit property crime. Hey Google; I think I am going to drive down to the Google headquarters and spraypaint some of my own “art form” onto the side of your building. How do you feel about that?
I don’t deny that, but the thing is, it’s perfectly possible to ask a little one what they want for the whole wide world to have and get an answer like ‘Pets!’. And then they sit down with crayons and make a pet doodle about Google. It can be done.
But shit like ‘love and respect irrespective of religion’ and a perfectly drawn pink ribbon followed by a 6 year old preaching about raising money to make breast cancer go away…that stuff chaps my hide.
Go participate in your own competitions, you silly parents. Or are 6 years old the only demographic you can win against?
I’m an (a). It felt awesome to win stuff at the time, because, hey, a prize! In retrospect, I learnt shit-all besides the fact that judges worldwide seem to love cliches about peace and harmony and the environment.
Aankh…why are you so angry? Did your google art submission get passed over? Of course the parents helped…I help my children all the time…its part of being a parent!
guess I should have read your last post in its entirty…it would have answered my question. So, you did yours all by yourself, but everyone else had help, right?
I did my own artwork as a kid - the difference being that back in the early '70s, it was acceptable by teachers and parents alike for kids to doodle stuff that was of interest to kids - like Nazi soldiers being blown up by tanks.
These days, the school psychiatrist would be all over that action.
I did all mine by myself and everybody else had help. When I was in elementary school I went to this upper class private school, so some science fair projects were actually done by, like, independent contractors.
I didn’t look at the submissions, but I totally understand the anger. My kindergartener just had a “Creativity Fair” with a theme of “Think Green, Create Green”. The instructions were that the kids had to think of an idea on the theme, then make a project. My husband and I spent some time explaining the concept of “green”, talking about ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’, asking him what kind of things we do that are green, what kinds of things we do that aren’t, etc… Then he came up with an idea and built it. (It’s a car made of a cracker box and coffee can lids that has a scoop on the bottom for cleaning up litter.) He did an awesome job, and it sure looks like it was made by a six year old. When we got to the Creativity Fair and we saw all the projects, he cried because his looked pretty weak next to the fancy, working contraptions that used concepts I’m not even familiar with. Yup, I think he might have been the only kid in Pre-K, kindergarten or first grade that didn’t cheat. I told him such, and made sure he understood how important it is to do your own work and be proud of what you do.
When I was 11, my science project went to State and almost made it to Nationals (it was a runner up at State)…at its core was a ship I built to clean up oil slicks.
A few years later I ran into my old teacher and we talked about it. He said one of the reasons it went so far is that it was COMPLETELY OBVIOUS that I had built it myself where many fellow students it was pretty obvious they had much help.
Not all people who use the graffiti style or street art go around ruining others property.
We have some pretty amazing kids in our group of 400 Skatechurch kids that do some amazing art.
It does piss me off to be driving somewhere and see that some idiot kid has tagged up someone’s house or fence with gang crap. Our city just finally rounded up a group of four or five of the little jackasses.
It drives me crazy when you see children who have made an honest effort to be creative and do their best get the shit end because someone’s mommy or daddy “helped” them because they want their children to be winners.
Those poor kids who are winners all of the time now have a rude awakening when they have to go and do things on their own and realise they aren’t always winners.
Shame on the parents for not letting their children learn how to be proud of their own accomplishments or be gracefull losers as the case my be.
Or actually practice on projects to honestly get better at it, for that matter. My parents may have helped me to understand concepts for school projects, and obviously had to go out and help me buy the materials, but neither of them ever actually DID the project for me. I was on my own with that because IT WAS MY PROJECT!
Kids whose parents can’t let them do things half-assed at least once never learn just how embarrassing doing things half-assed can be, and therefore never get the lesson not to actually do things half-assed in any visceral, effective form.
The local mall ran a kids drawing contest around a fire safety theme. One of the third graders drew a nice picture of McGruff the crime dog holding a burnt out match. The picture was labeled “Help take a Bite out of Matches.” That was a pretty original thought from an 8 year old.
That’s ridiculous (the cheating, not the OP). By choosing winners that are very obviously not the work of children in that actual age range, competitions like this teach children that you’ll never win without cheating.
Submissions should be age-appropriate and judged on their REAL merit. Otherwise, why even bother having age ranges?
