Even though empowering and supporting preteens to become active creators in the digital age is a significant and contemporary issue, there are always doubts and deep pessimism. My primary audience, parents and children, is a great starting point for change, but we feel ambiguous about the whole thing. We also feel lost in the fast-paced world. Literally, we are in a state of uncertainty. We are not sure about our concerns, perspectives, or ability to influence and support our kids.
I was just wondering what we could do other than let kids follow the paths of many and point them in the direction we knew was better.
The first workshop was a closed experiment with friends that I already knew and were aware of what I was trying to achieve, and the second time, I opened it up to the public with the library’s help, but only five children attended. This made me even more aware of my lack of experience with children, so I need to be more qualified, or I may need to outsource the education work to a more qualified person to stay passive in my observations. If I want to be a supporter of children’s visual culture.
The mums who came to help with my workshops explained that I needed to understand the excessive and crazy 11plus in London, particularly in the SW area. They said that children have two years from the age of nine to prepare for secondary school, which takes a lot of time, effort, and money. She consoled me by saying that it’s a time when children are applying and taking exams, so it’s no wonder there are so few children to attend the workshops. She said that even birthday parties are postponed during this time.
She also said that even children interested in art pause during this time because the school gives points for instrumental skills, but art is not a consideration. She mentioned that she was worried about not being able to meet up with friends because of the lack of time and that playing games and watching YouTube during that time would only take up time, but she said that it was not something she could change by herself.
I said that children need to build their own worlds before they are exposed to mass culture to have the courage to choose a different path from others and to maintain an outsider’s perspective. One mum said she is a math teacher, and her daughter is good at drawing and wants to be an artist. She is good at academics, but she doesn’t know how to help her. She asked me if she could be an artist when she grew up, and I told her that an artist is not someone who creates artwork or products but someone who sees the world from a different perspective and that even mathematicians do their own art, and I was relieved that she found some comfort in that.
Thankfully, the library put it on social media to help with my workshop.
