My Nephew Hates to Color

My nephew started kindergarten this year. So far, things aren’t great. The issue isn’t with his behavior. The issue isn’t his teacher. The issue isn’t missing his mother who he stayed home with for the last five years.

The issue is coloring sheets.

My nephew doesn’t like to color. Never has. And several times each week he is sent home with blank coloring sheets that he has to finish. My sister sits with him — sometimes for as long as two hours — to cajole him into completing the sheet.

My nephew doesn’t have an issue with fine motor skills or focus or his colors. He can easily prove his adeptness with all these skills if you sit with him for an hour or two playing Legos. But keep in mind, your job is to find the Legos, not build them. And he will take apart anything you create if he needs one of the pieces.

My sister is planning on talking to his teacher to find out why these color sheets are so important. I’m sure the teacher has her reasons, but my nephew also has his. He doesn’t like to color.

In this aspect of his life, my nephew refuses to be a docile body. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault says, “A body is docile that may be subjected, used, transformed, and improved.” For education to work, teachers need docile bodies sitting in their classrooms.

At some point in our lives, we must all be docile bodies and, at other times, we need bodies to be docile for us. However, when we assume everyone is going to be willingly docile, we run it problems.

Like my nephew’s kindergarten teacher. She’s probably never had a student so adamantly opposed to coloring. And since most schools don’t have stockpiled Legos, he cannot demonstrate in other ways the skills coloring provides.

A big issue among educators and rebels is that they assume others will cheerfully become docile while they themselves remain rigid in their convictions.

One of my biggest frustrations in grad school was sitting in pedagogy courses where instructors refused to acknowledge that the theories they were teaching fell apart when confronted with unwilling students. One professor became infuriated when the class tried to discuss possible ways students might resist the pedagogical approach and come up with strategies on how to work with the student, rather than plow through their individuality.

In a move full of irony that ultimately failed, the professor attempted to change her grading policy midway through the semester so she could fail any student who critiqued her preferred theories on the discussion board. The department chair stopped her, but this move illustrated our point since she assumed a room full of grad students who spent the last two, three or even seven years adjuncting would become docile and blindly accept her ideas.

In the end, she only proved how little influence she had over us since changing the grading policy during the semester is how professors get fired. (We later found out she knew two people on the hiring committee who didn’t actually do a full-fledged search and thus hired someone woefully unprepared and with little practical experience.)

Rebels have similar issues when trying to convince their family and friends of their new found convictions. Some of the most obvious examples being newly minted vegetarians and vegans who can’t stop talking about their new life choices. This group is resisting the common narrative and sharing their new ideas while simultaneously complaining about the meat-eaters doing the same to them.

When trying to teach or influence, we first have to convince someone to become docile. Growing angry at students or friends for not listening only produces resentment and causes them to become even more rigid, no matter how right your stance or helpful your message.

You first have to accept that some people will never be docile. Whether they refuse to learn from anyone or there’s just something about you that makes them resist, you have to acknowledge this basic fact of life.

However, simply showing the person respect and understanding will often help them become docile with little cajoling or convincing. The simple act of not assuming someone will be docile will open many more minds to your influence.

That usually works for me with my nephew. I respect that he wants to continue playing Legos instead of leaving the house. In turn, he respects the fact that I can pick him up and carry him to the car despite his protests.

Okay, that might be a bad example. His teacher could be in for a tough year.

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