About a month ago, I was at my rural mountain school on a Wednesday. Usually, I go there every Tuesday, but due to a demonstration class at another school, my schedule got shuffled around a bit just that one week. Ordinarily, this would be no problem, but that particular Wednesday there was one small catch: I had no classes. In fact, there were no English lessons scheduled at all for that day. Rather than cancel and have me sit at my Board of Education studying, the school decided to have me still come and participate with the kids in the activity they had planned. They were making pots.
Not just pots, they were also making cups, bowls, plates, and anything else they could think of. The entire school, a whole whopping 32 kids, gathered in the art room. Under the tutelage of a local pottery master, they started pounding clay on the floor, then threw it on pottery wheels and started spinning. The younger kids were making plates instead, as using the wheel was beyond their abilities. The kids had various levels of success at it, but they all had fun.
At first I helped a younger child with the bowl he was making, but then they gave me my own clay and told me to try it too. I ended up making a little tarepanda chopstick rest out of the younger kid's leftover, throw-away clay (whether it bakes properly or cracks in the furnace remains to be seen), and a little plate with a rose I drew in the middle.
I wasn't able to do the best job at it, but I really enjoyed myself. It was an amazing experience to make something the way the Japanese people have been doing it for hundreds of years. By the end of the day, I was lobbying my teachers at that school to have English class changed to Art class. I didn't succeed. Maybe I'll have better luck next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment