One of the most important things that happened today was getting my Bob Ross Master Kit. It's essentially a painting kit that gets you started on how to use the Bob Ross painting methods.
For those of you who don't know who Bob Ross was, he was an American painter who ran a 30 minute TV show that ran for 25 or so seasons on PBS until near his death in 1995.
Before you immediately think "Why would I want to watch or care about that??" you have to realize that within that 1/2 hour of his program, he produced some absolutely gorgeous works of art that you were stunned he could possibility create in such a short time.
Not only that, but you were also mesmerized by his voice, his relaxing nature and his happy little trees. Bob Ross reminded us of such things as:
Happy painting and God Bless, my friend.
Bob Ross made painting accessible to the layman. He made, what seemed like the impossible, possible. He always said that within an hour people learning his methods would have a completed work if art. He made art less intimidating. With his quiet, reserved, calm voice and simple nature he made the scary, accessible.
He was an awesome teacher. And it's what he wanted to do. Teach. Make things doable. Make people feel good about a skill they didn't think they had.
And I reflect on that to think that we should all do that. We should all try and make the intimidating, or inaccessible, accessible to our kids and those around us.
To our students, many things seem impossible, unattainable or just too hard to try. So, we need to seek ways to make it less intimidating. So they can access it with their minds. Just like Bob Ross did with painting. He allowed many of us to tap into creative parts of our nature that we didn't realize we had. We just need to make it look easy, and support kids when they struggle. Find the ways they can get something.
But don't get me wrong. Elementary teachers are often expected to be experts at everything.
But it very much depends on what we are trying to do.
And it often depends on what our expertise are too.
Bob Ross was an expert painter, so he made painting accessible. As teacher, we need to find what we're experts at, make it accessible to our students, then tap into the other "experts" on staff and have them teach our kids what makes them experts. By doing this we can make the impossible, possible. We make everything doable to our kids
In a nutshell, that's one of the big lessons from Bob.
To make the impossible seem possible to our students because intimidation creates fear. Fear creates doubt. And doubt isn't something that we should want in any of our kids' lives.
So, go out and be a Bob Ross. Big red hair and all.
For those of you who don't know who Bob Ross was, he was an American painter who ran a 30 minute TV show that ran for 25 or so seasons on PBS until near his death in 1995.
Before you immediately think "Why would I want to watch or care about that??" you have to realize that within that 1/2 hour of his program, he produced some absolutely gorgeous works of art that you were stunned he could possibility create in such a short time.
Not only that, but you were also mesmerized by his voice, his relaxing nature and his happy little trees. Bob Ross reminded us of such things as:
Happy painting and God Bless, my friend.
- Ken Tucker (2006) Kissing Bill O'Reilly, Roasting Miss Piggy: 100 Things to Love and Hate about TV, Macmillan: ISBN 0312330588, p. 155.
- Ann Curry (September 22, 2004) "Painter Bob Ross remains an iconic figure years after his death", NBC News.
- David Brancaccio (May 12, 2003) "Legacy of Bob Ross lives on through his TV show still airing on public television stations", Marketplace, American Public Media."
Bob Ross made painting accessible to the layman. He made, what seemed like the impossible, possible. He always said that within an hour people learning his methods would have a completed work if art. He made art less intimidating. With his quiet, reserved, calm voice and simple nature he made the scary, accessible.
He was an awesome teacher. And it's what he wanted to do. Teach. Make things doable. Make people feel good about a skill they didn't think they had.
And I reflect on that to think that we should all do that. We should all try and make the intimidating, or inaccessible, accessible to our kids and those around us.
To our students, many things seem impossible, unattainable or just too hard to try. So, we need to seek ways to make it less intimidating. So they can access it with their minds. Just like Bob Ross did with painting. He allowed many of us to tap into creative parts of our nature that we didn't realize we had. We just need to make it look easy, and support kids when they struggle. Find the ways they can get something.
But don't get me wrong. Elementary teachers are often expected to be experts at everything.
But it very much depends on what we are trying to do.
And it often depends on what our expertise are too.
Bob Ross was an expert painter, so he made painting accessible. As teacher, we need to find what we're experts at, make it accessible to our students, then tap into the other "experts" on staff and have them teach our kids what makes them experts. By doing this we can make the impossible, possible. We make everything doable to our kids
In a nutshell, that's one of the big lessons from Bob.
To make the impossible seem possible to our students because intimidation creates fear. Fear creates doubt. And doubt isn't something that we should want in any of our kids' lives.
So, go out and be a Bob Ross. Big red hair and all.
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