Experience + Discovery = Learning

As a parent, whenever possible, I allow natural consequences to do the teaching.  The experience of forgetting a lunch box leads to the discovery of hunger.  Hunger will be a far more effective "teacher" than a lecture on responsibility.  The same principle applies to the classroom.  Our art students are learning about primary and secondary colors.   After two days of explaining, demonstrating and pontificating about the attributes of primary and secondary colors, the students engaged in an art experience designed to reinforce these attributes.  The project was simple.  The students were given red, yellow and blue paint.  They were instructed to first paint shapes using red, yellow and blue.  Then they were instructed to paint shapes using secondary colors - orange, green and purple.  For a short while the art room was full of contented artists as they painted delightful shapes of yellow, red and blue.  Then it hit.  "Hey, we don't have any purple paint!" " Mrs. Ligon, I can't paint this shape orange because I don't HAVE orange paint!" "Mrs. Bowling, I NEED green!"  Our reply, "Make orange - use what you have to make purple."  Encouraged to press through incredulous skepticism (at having been asked to do the impossible) the students tentatively dipped their brushes in red, then yellow and began to mix.  Delight overtook defeat.  Wonder replaced doubt because a discovery had been made.  "It works!  It works!  Red and yellow really do make orange!"  We had talked and talked about how these fabulous colors work together to create new colors.  We had shown Power Points and given demonstrations, yet they did not really "get it" until they discovered it through an experience.  Art affords experiment and discovery.  Art allows children to create new things with assimilated information.  Art gives children the opportunity to experience, discover and learn!