Colored Pencils in Guyana (Part II-Attack of the Crayons)

There is

unrest in the

Guyana School

System. Several dozen

primary school students have

declared their intentions to draw

their emotions. This artistic movement,

under the leadership of the mysterious Colored

Pencil Project, has made it difficult for the limited

number of teachers to maintain peace and order in

the classroom. Matt Konfirst, the former Peace Corps

Ukraine Volunteer, is returning to the Guyana School System

to address the critical issue of creating an OUTLET FOR EMOTIONS to
assist the overwhelmed teachers…

The Colored Pencil Project has appeared in our blog before, but it's just such a great activity that we had to post about it again! The basic idea is that students are given a set of colored pencils (for keeps!) and asked to draw something abstract (who they are, what their environment is like, etc.). When they're done drawing they are given an opportunity to share their artwork with the the rest of the group.

The best part of this activity for me happened at the very end. As the kids were noisily breaking up to head off to lunch, one of the girls came up to me and lightly touched my arm to catch my attention. When I looked down at her she give me a shy little smile and said, "thank you" in a voice that was barely audible above the din of forty fourth graders going to lunch. That was definitely a top "Peace Corps moment" of the past couple of years!

To begin the activity I had the students close their eyes and visualize what they would draw if they were asked to draw themselves. The hardest part is getting the first line on the page, but once they got started, the kids became increasingly excited.

The Colored Pencil Project came to Guyana earlier this year to train us on how to do this activity. They also donated tons of boxes of colored pencils to hand out to the students. After the activity, the kids got to keep the box of colored pencils to continue developing their creative skills at home!

Indira and Barbara (standing in back) from a local NGO called GUYFUSE (GUYanese Families Unite in Service and Education) helped organize this activity for the students at Bath Primary School.

The first brave volunteer is describing her picture!

This girl thinks of herself as a part of her family, so she drew her family at home and her siblings playing in the yard.

This boy loves to swim in the creek in his free time!

The two boys in the back of the room spent their time carefully drawing a series of boxes using their rulers. They were very engaged the entire time, but I couldn't figure out what it was that they were drawing. When this student held up his drawing he said he had drawn "music." It took a second, but I realized the pictures depicted the giant towers of speakers that Guyanese love to blast music through.

This boy likes to fly kites, which is an especially common activity around Easter time.

Sheniza, the Sanitary Inspector in Rosignol and my counterpart, is showing the students the drawing she did of herself before introducing the second activity, which was to have the students draw their environment.