At Last, More Things That My Students Draw

Man, it's been a long time since I did one of these, which is really quite a shame because there have been some true masterpieces sitting to rot in teacher's-giant-pile-of-papers purgatory. Does anyone else have a giant pile of papers sitting on their desk that, no matter what you do, never gets any smaller? The moment you decide to tackle it, every student decides to do their homework, and, instead of getting smaller, the pile just gets bigger. Over time, the layers on the bottom begin to decay, providing you with high-quality fertilizer for your pet cactus.

I used to hang up my students' work on the walls of my classroom. It served two purposes. First, it encouraged students to create high-quality work and to be proud of what they created. Second, it covered up the curse words and declarations of love for various k-pop groups that graffiti my otherwise whitewash-boring wallpaper. But, alas, it was not to be. One day, the CEO dropped by for a surprise inspection, and decided that student drawings make the classroom look dirty. So now my classroom looks like a psychiatric ward instead. I suppose they'll replace the wallpaper soon. At least, I hope so.

We're down to the last week of the term. Next week, the new 3.0 curriculum launches for more levels, which I will most definitely be teaching, and I don't expect I'll be able to share as many drawings. Most of the class is going digital. Instead of a haphazardly-prepared poster accompanied by a wacky script in which students use every excuse to punch each other, we'll be making and presenting films in which...well, probably the same thing will happen. Anyway, here are some gems from this past term.

First, here's a story about the end of civilization at the ruthless hands of dinosaurs.

You fool! Didn't you ever see Jurassic Park?

Using their powers of telepathy, the dinosaurs create their plan to hack the traffic system, turning all lights green simultaneously, bringing about the collapse of all order. Terror! Destroy!

One brave man's declaration halts the dinosaur advance.

And...that's it? Hm...How anti-climactic.

This next assignment was for students to play snake-oil salesman, inventing a disease and then charging people obscene amounts of money for a cure.

Stop loving yourself too much, you narcissistic jerk! Try normalify and suddenly have friends again!

Another project was for students to image how society would be structured in the future. This group decided that humans would learn to clone themselves and bring back medieval feudalism. 

Or set themselves up as gods. Same thing.

This next project was supposed to be about inventing an alternate source of energy, but apparently these kids ate too much sugar and decided that they would much rather force their favorite teachers to dance for eternity on top of a giant Theresa-shaped statue.

Dancing can save us all from the impending energy crisis.

This next one was doomed to be weird from the beginning. The class was about the assassination of JFK. The original assignment had them analyzing the evidence and deciding if the conspiracy theories are true or not. But that was probably the least relevant project ever assigned to a group of Korean elementary students who, two hours ago, didn't even know who JFK was. So I changed it. Pretend you are a member of the news media and a famous person has just died. Tell us what happened. Perhaps this seems a bit perverse to you. Perhaps it is. However, kids seem to love fictional, potentially violent deaths. The whole point is that it's fictional, and, whether some adults realize it or not, kids can definitely tell the difference between reality and fiction. Okay, rant over. Let me show you what they did.

This is the CEO of my company. :(

Finally, here is the greatest thing ever produced in my class. Maybe I've said that before about other things my students have drawn, but I retract those statements.

Because those other projects did not have Hitler showing up and killing you so he could take your seat.

The logic here is baffling. Do older people have magical powers that render all Nazi assaults futile? Is it the canes? Is it the fact that angry Korean grandmothers are terrifying? So terrifying that they even frighten evil mass-murderers? We may never know.