When our daughter was born, it seemed a forgone conclusion that she would be an artist of some sort. Her mother and I, both formally trained in the arts, would inevitably guide her down an artistic path with no return. When she was born, I was teaching art and art history to college students. It was decided that I would pause my teaching career and stay at home full time with her until she reached school age. In effect, I would be her teacher.

Although she is a free spirit like her parents, she is much different than either of us ever expected. As she grew up, it became more and more interesting to see how her mind developed, what was interesting to her, and, more than anything, what she created. In my mind, what makes a great artist usually involves a great deal of technical ability and commitment to a complex idea. While these are not the qualities of a toddler, I was continually amazed by what our daughter was able to convey with the simplest of strokes of a crayon. One day, when I asked her why she had not drawn the face on her hybrid robot-frog Dusty, she casually answered, “Because that is the back of his head.” I pondered on that idea for a while and realized that I would never do such a thing. I would delete a photo of the back of someone’s head and would never draw a subject from behind. Why not? And so, this is how it goes with the two of us, the college professor being schooled by the preschooler.

This is an excerpt from Expanding Our Vision for the Arts in Education.

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