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Building
Superheroes Out of Blobs of Paint |
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I Am An Art
Superhero
a book by Desirée DiGerolamo is a book for young children. It is also a
book for adults and older children. It is a book for teachers. Most
importantly it is a book that teaches a valuable lesson in building
self-esteem in our most precious treasure, our children. The fifty-six
page book is wonderfully illustrated by Richa Kinra and in a manner that
is fun. Oh and do not let the fifty-six pages scare you off, as about
half of the pages consist of only an illustration.
Desirée DiGerolamo a former actress, who you may remember from the ‘80s
television series Rocky Road
(she played Jessica Stuart and
was credited as Desirée Boschetti) is now both an art teacher and a
drama teacher in an elementary school and she says, “I wrote the book,
because it was an actual incident that happened in my art classroom
during the first or second year that I was teaching art. The young child
dropped a blob of paint on the paper and he started to cry, because he
thought he had made a mistake. I thought wait a minute now, how do I
deal with this? If I give the child new paper everybody is going to want
new paper every time they don’t like something that they do. It’s not
about being perfect. It’s about experimentation and trying things. I
think as adults what we try to do is to make everything better for the
child, whether it is your own child, or you are a teacher with a
student. We try to solve the problem for them instead of empowering them
to figure out what to do on their own. I think that is such an important
part of growing up. At an early age empower them and let them have
ownership of the behavior and deal with the consequences, so I wrote the
book.
I took the story that happened in the classroom and then I would tell
the story to friends over dinner or at parties and everybody fell in
love with the story and the idea of how I dealt with it. One morning I
woke up at 5 am and the story that I had been telling was in a full book
in my head. I could see it and I had the beginning and the end, so I
just pulled it together. It is a simple, sweet little story.”
Desirée DiGerolamo continues, “That is how the book came to life. I
started a Kickstarter project to self-publish the book. I really didn’t
know what I was getting myself into, which is how I do a lot of things.
I get these ideas and then I just run with them and that’s how it
happened.”
What Desiree DiGerolamo allows us to do in her book
I Am An Art Superhero is to
see the art classroom and to see life in general through the eyes of a
young child. It is capturing that innocence and those bigger than life
challenges that seemingly face children that enable the author to
deliver her message with clarity.
She says, “I think that art and drama are so underrated in the
educational process, because learning is a journey and children aren’t
just glasses that we want to fill with information. What art and drama
do for them is to open up their world and it helps them to express
themselves.
Everybody is different. We are all different. That is what makes the
world an incredible place. If we are all the same, as I tell my
students, how boring would it be? We are all different and we have to
embrace that. Those of us who learn differently and who behave
differently or who have different IQs these kids can come together in an
artistic environment. It levels the field and it gives them an
opportunity to try things without negative consequences. The fear is
that I won’t get a good grade or that I’m going to make a mistake and if
I don’t do well I will get in trouble.
I have had kindergarten students come into my classroom and say to me I
can’t draw, so I am not going to draw. Who said you can’t draw? Some
adult (said that). I have had parents say to me that their younger child
is a much better artist than their older child. You can’t label kids.
They need that place where they can go and try things and just be. It is
not about mistakes. It’s about trying and experimenting. It gives them a
place to express themselves. Kids can have whatever issues and some of
them have difficulting expressing themselves and drama is perfect for
that. It is the perfect environment for kids who have those sorts of
personalities, because again they can let it out and they can
experiment. There are no negative consequences, be silly and be loud and
do whatever, as long as it is within the confines of the lesson the
teacher is doing. I feel it is so important to give them a lot of
freedom. Those are the kids who benefit most from the art classes and
from the drama classes. Those are the creative kids.
I don’t expect them all to be artists and I don’t expect them all to be
actors. It is about feeding their imaginations and it is about
expressing themselves. It is about taking chances and giving them a
personal choice. You don’t want to use that color and you don’t want to
do this. Tell me why. Great go try it. Go ahead and go for it! They
discover things about themselves and that’s why it is important.”
A friend of Desiree DiGerolamo volunteers her time to work with special
needs children in Portland and she reads the book to them. The book is
also read by other teachers at Ms. DiGerolamo’s own school and she reads
it to her new students each year. It is the opinion of Riveting Riveting
Magazine that the book I Am An
Art Superhero is a book that should be ordered by school boards
across the country. In fact, there are a lot of groups that could
benefit from making sure this book is read to children and read by
adults.
Ms. DiGerolamo talks about why she feels it is important to read her
book to new students each year, “Now if something happens to somebody in
art class and someone spills something, they will say its okay, because
there are no mistakes. You can turn that into something else. Take a
look. Its funny how they (repeat) what I have been teaching them. They
know and they have experienced it.
The message is important to get out there to kids, because I see these
little ones who come in and they are already feeling defeated. We are
talking about five, six and seven year olds who are afraid to try,
because they think they can’t do it when in fact it couldn’t be any
further from the truth. I learn from them.
Being an art teacher is a little bit different, because I have the
freedom to do that whereas you have other teachers who are confined to a
particular curiculumn that they must do and the kids have testing they
have to do. I have a different environment that I have created in my
classrooms and I feel fortunate that I have had the freedom to do that
and to feel this way. It opens them up and there is no fear of failure.
Think about it, what would you try if you knew you wouldn’t fail at it?
I have taken so many chances in my life and if I thought about failing
then I would never have done any of them. Just like with the book when I
wrote it, I suddenly said to my son I am going to do a Kickstarter
project and he said mom do you have any idea of what that involves? I
didn’t know anything about it, but I said I was going to do a
Kickstarter project to see if I could raise money. I am going to write
this book, because I think this book will help other kids. It just
happened. That is how I do things. If it doesn’t work at least I tried.
I have turned over all of the stones.”
What kind of feedback has the book received?
“Everybody that I have spoken to or who has contacted me about the book
they really appreciate what the book offers. Most of the time if a child
is having a meltdown, because something is happening that they don’t
want to happen the parents want to rush in and solve the problem for
that child. I think the best thing to do is to let it be and to see what
the child does. You have to help to facilitate it like in the book when
the teacher went over and looked at it and said you know what the paint
is there, so what can you do with it? They need that guidance, but then
walk away. Let the child think.
So much technology is thrown at them from such an early age now and
everything is instantaneous for them. If they don’t get what they want
immediately they have a meltdown.
They don’t want to think how can I do this myself? They want it
done for them.
What has been really interesting is parents and even grandparents have
contacted me and said you know what this is not just a children’s book.
This is a message for everybody. It is for adults too, because everybody
is afraid of making mistakes. Mistakes are the building blocks to
learning. You get on a bike for the first time and you fall and you get
up until you have that balance going on. If you don’t fall and you don’t
experience that, you don’t really appreciate the ride. The feedback has
been good and it has been a positive experience for me,” she says.
The experience will be good for as well, so go out there, buy a book or
books for your child or children, buy one for your child’s art or drama
teacher and make sure you read the book as well. We all need positive
experiences and we all need to know that sometimes things do not turn
out exactly as we planned, but there can still be pleasant surprises.
The book I Am An Art Superhero
can be ordered online through Amazon or Barnes & Noble’s website.
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The
book begins with this boy who remains nameless throughout the book,
which more easily facilitates sliding your child’s name into the story,
he is waking up and his parents are in various states of being awake. We
follow the little boy to school, as he eagerly anticipates his art class
with his teacher Mrs. D.