Creativity and Turmoil

The last week of school in June, the kids at Edison Charter School, once known as Edison Middle School, sketched out these poems in chalk on the playground. Plot first saw them when he came down to play b'ball on Sunday morning, and since there's been so little rain since then, most of the poems are still there. Most are doggerel in squirrely English and all are kind of touching in their way.



But it's summertime. Yesterday morning, when Plot got to the court, he saw what kids do on the schoolyard during the summertime.





They even tagged the basketball backboard. (Sigh) Plotnik wishes he could reach the basketball backboard. He wouldn't even have to spray paint on it to enjoy it.



Plotnik knows it's not the end of the world, it doesn't mean anything, kids will be kids and all that. But it's ugly. It's purpose is to be anti-beautiful, otherwise they'd tag their names or affiliations (or whatever in the world those symbols are supposed to mean) in a more esthetically pleasing way. Please, don't pander and say kids think this is beautiful. Kids are a lot smarter than that and a whole lot more creative.

If this kind of tagging, common world around, reflects a kid's inner turmoil, then what can we expect from their actions?

It doesn't mean anything? Yes it does, dammit, it does.