I had a very nice Diwali program this past Saturday, I'll post the fabulous time-lapse I made of our collaborative Rangoli soon. There was one negative moment, though. Even though I believe that I need to respect the complex value systems of the families I work with and allow them enough space in our interactions to let me know what to leave out, this incident caught me by surprise:
Me: Well, that is a lovely mask! Tell me about it.
Child (age 9): (silence)
Me: (can I help?) I bet you can guess who it reminds me of! Ganesha!
Mom: It's just an elephant.
Me: Oh, do you know about Ganesha?
Child: (shakes head)
Me: Well, there are wonderful stories--
Mom: Listen, lady, I do not want her hearing about what those people think.
(also, we are in a room FILLED with Indian-American families, by the way)
Me: Oh! Sorry, I'm an art teacher, so I'm super-used to talking about all kinds of art! (walking away) Have a really fun rest of your visit.
And what do you do? I guess I get it, it's her right to block information she doesn't want. Families do that all the time, usually with sex or violent death, although I don't really feel the need to put those elements into a program for children anyway. I can hope that she's making developmental decisions, like maybe at some point they'll talk about it, just not right now. I think it was the "those people" part that really got me. Earlier this week, I was looking at some Mughal & Rajput paintings and heard a man ANNOUNCE to his wife so that EVERYONE in the gallery knew how he felt: "let's get out of here and see if we can find something a little less offensive than Islamic Art." "What?" I said aloud to myself. And I looked again at the floral pottery and golden jewelry-- what?
I can't really relate to a fear of other cultural ideas, but one hope I hang on places like museums is that they might serve to bring us together-- when we see sweet children dancing like Ganesha or perfectly benign floral pottery, we start to use these clues to formulate the conclusion that it's not so bad, what all those other people think. And maybe it doesn't happen right away, maybe what I see is the initial resistance, and maybe later it comes together?
Су 34 : Feb 17, 2017 · все новинки канала смотри в приложении моя планета:
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Външно той много прилича на изтребител с неговите източени форми и носово
управление. Feb 17, 2017 · все новинки канала смотри в приложении моя
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2 comments:
It's too bad you had to walk away missing the opportunity to make the visit a new adventure for a 9 year old because mom was blocking. Following your conversation I felt that the child was not involved at all. Mother wasn't respectful or open towards her child's wishes or following your expertise as the teacher. She didn't want to learn at all. The child didn't even get the freedom to decide weather to hear your story or not.
But you don't really know if the situation in the room, her general mood, her lack of sensibility, or something else was in the way. In general you would need more time to find that out. If you would not walk away and turn to the child, you would risk that the mother is yelling at you or she is then walking away with her child complaining about you.
what a tough one, but i think something that everyone encounters after working in museums or with the public long enough. seems like you need to end up choosing your battles, or else to be honest, you'd go crazy trying to right every injustice you come across. i agree that maybe they're eyes have been opened by their experience a bit, and in the long run, it does make them more receptive, or at least you hope it does.
also, i try to be open-minded about how the family's day might be going. maybe mom is having a rough time that day. maybe something happened that put them off to the experience that had nothing to do with you. who knows.
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