Barnyard Style Painting

I was painting the door to our shed this weekend. In the beginning, I was quite thorough around the corners and in between cracks. I was making sure that I didn't get any of the bright red paint on the white trim outlining the door.

I was painstakingly perfect for the first thirty minutes. Then, I started to get bored of the whole process. So, I sped it up a bit. I dipped my paintbrush deeper into the can to slop a good amount of paint onto the surface of the door. The more paint I could get on the brush, the fewer times I had to dip it in the can. A thicker first coat meant I would have to spend less time on a second or third coat. I decided to call this style of painting "Barnyard Style". And I called it this because I concluded that barnyards, though bright red, were probably painted rather sloppily with little attention to detail. I imagined this because, really, the only living creatures that would see the barn up close would be the farmer, the farm animals, and the feral cats that hopefully keep the rats away.

(I later learned that barns were painted primarily to preserve the wood. So, the precision of which the painter painted was secondary, if not irrelevant, to the preservation of the wood.)

And as I began to paint in my new style I realized, by simply putting a label with my painting, I had justified a sloppy painting process. And I'm not the only one who has ever said, "I meant to do a sloppy job". You can find art these days that appears to be paint thrown against a canvas.

Sometimes I think we do this in education. Once we give a kid a label, we have suddenly justified performance that is less than standard. We say a kid has autism and suddenly he or she can't perform like the others. We say a kid has a learning disability, so we don't expect growth like we would in other students.

So, I argue that we should not allow labels to tell us what a student cannot do. Rather, we should allow students to tell us what they CAN do. Let's not promote barn-yard style education for our students.

Instead of, "They can't and so we won't" we should think, "Let's go until we can't".

Some background information on barns and the color red:
"Ever wonder why old barns are usually red in color? Red is (or, perhaps, was) a popular color for barns due not to its color shade but for its usefulness.

Many years ago, choices for paints, sealers and other building materials did not exist. Farmers had to be resourceful in finding or making a paint that would protect and seal the wood on their barns. Hundreds of years ago, many farmers would seal their barns with linseed oil, which is an orange-colored oil derived from the seeds of the flax plant. To this oil, they would add a variety of things, most often milk and lime, but also ferrous oxide, or rust. Rust was plentiful on farms and because it killed fungi and mosses that might grow on barns, was very effective as a sealant. It turned the mixture red in color.

When paint became more available, many people chose red paint for their barns in honor of tradition."

Farmers’ Almanac Trivia – Why are barns painted red?
by Sandi Duncan | Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 | From: Farmers' Almanac Blog