Responding to an FSM Doodle

I loved all of my teachers, because they trusted us students and let their colors show. Thank you to all teachers who make a difference!

I especially love that this student can express herself.

Some of my students occasionally write sarcastic remarks or make jokes about questions on tests and assignments. I usually love them and the comments often show how my students are creative or think outside of the box. One of my students this year started writing weird comments just to test if I was actually reading, so now I always comment on his remarks. It’s been an entertaining, silent exchange between us.

Funny, usually when my students doodle or write anything on the tests I give them it’s because they’re desperately ignorant of the material. So no, the Latin word for “duck” is not “anas, anafizzlewizzlehomeslice”. Even if it rather did make me, as it were, lol.

Unfortunately, doodles on exams are almost always an indicator of failure. If they have time to draw amusing little pictures, they are more likely to have given up than to have finished early.

I had the same experience as Kimpatsu in 5th grade. In fact, it may have been almost word-for-word. It wasn’t just doodles, either, but full-fledged comic strips. So I stopped. Who knows, she may have stopped the next Charles Schulz. (just kidding. I have no real artistic talent.)

I was also a cocky smartass in high school algebra. It was always my best subject, so I’d ace the test and then doodle in the space for the extra credit problem. He dropped the lowest grade, and I think mine was like a 96, so on the last regular exam, I just drew crap in the answer spaces (things like a square root symbol with a random doodle of a cow or something inside) and then did the (more difficult) 2 extra credit problems perfectly. My teacher (who was a really cool guy, which is why I knew I could get away with it in the first place) threatened me with not dropping the grade because I’d intentionally failed. He gave me a -5%.

I used to make my students prepare written essays/reports, in longhand and would not accept typed copy (since they would all too often cut & paste and do a half-assed job of paraphrasing their source material, etc). They resented it, but I told them I want to know what *you* think, not what someone else thinks/says. Their essay quality improved and became more genuine as they found their own voice, and I even loved the essays that turned a critical eye towards me. At least it showed they were thinking, and as long as they were respectful I would let them be as critical as they wanted. Making them write stuff out by hand was the only way I could ensure that they themselves had written something and not their parents, or that they had only slapped together something from a mish-mash online.

Um, well, I hate to pee on the parade of all the oversimplifying doodle-demonizers on here, but the fact is that I, long ago, was a straight-A student with a penchant for drawing/doodling constantly. Every test I turned in was encrusted, so to speak, all over the margins with detailed doodling, sometimes fairly abstract and sometimes, depending on my mood, funny or morose. Usually it was because I finished answering the questions before everyone else, was subsequently bored with nothing left to do, and didn’t want to be That Kid who always jumps up and hands in his completed test before everyone. While some teachers appreciated the drawings and others really didn’t, the grade would inevitably be an A.

So this crap about doodlers necessarily being low achievers is just that: crap. Perhaps that may apply to some of them, but not all — so teachers would be wise not to label their students negatively based on a simple overabundance of creativity.

By the way, I have 2 degrees and am a successful Creative Director with an equally successful second career as a fine artist that will soon be my sole support as I retire from the rat race of my more high-paced first career.

Wow. I can’t say if I’m envious of these students or not. The school I was at had a zero tolerance approach to doodles: you did it, you got points off, period. Even if your answer was perfect otherwise. I learned *very* quickly not to have a sense of humor on my exam papers. (Some teachers were pretty relaxed with jokes as long as we didn’t interrupt the lesson or deface books, or if we seemed less than 100% concentrated during exams.)