Yesterday I worked at a Summer Camp at the school I was teaching at last year. I was brought in to teach comic book and cartoon art for a special “Cartooning Day” they had. I taught 4 different periods, and all combined I ended up teaching the entire range of elementary school students, from grade 1 to grade 8. I must have seen over 70 of them in total. It was a busy day. Some of them really enjoyed it, and most everyone was able to take some artwork home that they were proud of. Not bad for a day’s work.

In my first class there was a little girl who was in my class over the past year, and when I was finished the lesson she came up to me and gave me a hug. I’m not really supposed to get hugs from students for various reasons, but she did this 4 or 5 times and she said she missed me. It was kinda cute. I have to take that as a sign that I’m a decent teacher.

The first graders were an interesting bunch. I’ve never taught anyone that young before, let alone a big group of them. You can’t really teach them the same way you teach older students, because they’d forget everything by the time they started. So I showed them how to draw a super hero one step at a time, and stopped after every step to let everyone catch up. So I first drew a circle, and then went around and helped everyone draw their own circle. It went slowly, and even the simplest things went slowly, but most of them were able to get through it and have a finished drawing by the end. They all weren’t angels through, and a few were really disruptive, but that’s pretty much always the case with any age group. There was this one creepy little squirt who was just vehemently opposed to the very concept of cartooning and was very destructive the entire time. This is ironic because this kid had these ridiculous looking glasses with perfectly round lenses that made him look just like a cartoon character. Somehow I imagine that he’s got an army of insects waiting for his commands. Far be it for me to make fun of a 6 year old, but still, this kid was something else. He could be a villain on Yu-Gi-Oh.

Anyway, me teaching at this camp was pretty much a one off, special occasion. There isn’t a “job” in it, so to speak, just a gig. But I’ll be doing the exact same thing again next month. So I’m not completely without anything to do this summer.

Sayonara.