SPURspectives

Last Saturday I led a group of volunteers providing an art therapy project for the kids at Marillac, a Kansas City hospital and school providing for the special educational needs of boys and girls with learning disabilities. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I have no experience with art therapy or special education. But, Marillac does — they have phenomenal art and music therapy programming. The walls of their facilities are a testament to their prowess — amazing student work is framed and exhibited throughout. They were also involved in developing the project that we were leading. In spite of this, I was not a fearless leader; I was very worried.

We were making May baskets — plastic cups with marigolds and pipe cleaner handles that get decorated with sparkly stickers. I was worried that it may not be age appropriate and that boys may not like this at all. But we soldiered on trusting that it would be OK.

We spread out the supplies in the cafeteria. The kids came in. With dread I noticed the 13 and 14 year old boys fist bumping one another looking like they’d be much happier on the basketball court. We stood nervously facing one another — volunteers and kids. The kids sat down and we explained the project showing them an example. There was awkward silence followed by very uneasy restlessness. My smile began to quiver.

Then one of the boys asked me in a very urgent tone, “Can I have that flower? That one right there.” Surprised, I handed him the flower and said, “Sure!” Then I was surrounded. All of the kids were suddenly inspecting the marigolds trying to find just the right one. Things were looking up. Then they found the stickers and soon the room erupted in chatter, giggling and May basketry.

The nervous tension was gone. They were lost in creativity and play. They went way beyond what we had designed as a prototype. They made fancier handles, drew on the containers, named their plants and put stickers everywhere — even on the bottom of the basket. Then they put stickers on themselves. I knew it was a success when a 13-year old boy put a pink sparkly butterfly on his chest, flexed his biceps and shouted to the laughter of his classmates, “ I am Iron Butterfly!”

The kids packed up their baskets and left shouting their thanks. They came in tense, agitated and grim. They left giggling, playful and happy. After cleaning up we toured the facilities. Looking in on the kids during our tour we could see they were still giggling, playful and happy. Their baskets were all lined up on the window ledge. We learned that they had made plans to plant the flowers in their courtyard garden. Play is transformative. I highly recommend it.

Photo by Muhammad Mahdi Karim under Creative Commons

Tags: creativity, invention, play, transformation