Child's Play

"Child's Play" is defined as:

1. Something very easy to do.

2. A trivial matter.

I wrote last week about my first encounter with the children at Spafford Children's Centre in the Old City. I returned today with Anne for a second time. This notion of a "very easy to do" task or trivial manner continued to strike a nerve in me.

The centre received a donation and poster/letter from school kids in Scotland. The director of the Spafford Centre suggested it would be nice idea for the children to respond with some art work of their own.

Anne asked the kids to draw a self portrait of themselves, write their names in Arabic and English, along with their age. On the adjacent side of the page, we painted one hand in blue and made a hand print. Photos of each child that I took will be printed out and attached to their artwork.

For North American kids, this is a task we might give kindergardeners or grader one's. And for all intents and purposes, that is what one might think the age group of the children at the centre to be. In reality, we had children aged 1 (closing in on 2) up to 13. An observer might not be able to tell the difference between the artwork of the 5-year-old and the 13-year-old. The self portraits were rudimentary, and the children often copied images from their neighbour's drawing, unable to pull upon their own imaginations or self images.

After this task was completed, the children were free to do their own artwork. Stickers are quickly consumed by outstretch arms and amid voices of "Miiiiissss...Miiiisss". Older children snatch stickers out of my hand intended for other kids (receiving reproach for their impatience and demands they hand it over to the intended recipient while awaiting their turn...I'm hard core, man).

Of the thirty-odd some children who joined us today (they come and go as they please, no accountable monitoring for them by the volunteers), only one produced artwork of something perceivable: she used feathers and coloured paper to make a sun and palm tree. Mostly, stickers are peeled as quickly as received and stuck to a page haphazardly, feathers and glitter are glued in random splotches depicting nothing more coherent than much colour. Of course, these kids could be future modern artists in the making, who am I to question?!

Impatience is a virtue for these children. They loose attention span quickly and resort to asking "Miiissss" to help them complete a task (like making pom-poms from yarn). They are heartbroken and frustrated when their project doesn't come out as planned, or as often happens, it breaks or is 'pinched' by another child.

For anyone who thinks arts and crafts is mere "child's play," I think these children would disagree.