The Lake of Generous Fish

    This past winter in my Grade Three classroom we made a dragon mural. We began by cutting out large sheets of blue and grey construction paper to make mountain ranges, streams, and rivers. And then we added our dragons. Some were so large they loomed over the mountain peaks. Others resembled hummingbirds. Some stood perched on a slope. Others were in flight, entering their dragon lairs. Two of the children decided to make a lake for the mural and filled it with fish, happily swimming about in brightly coloured pairs. I asked them to tell me about the lake. They said it was magic.

“Why?” I asked.
“Well, the fish are generous.”
“The fish are generous?”
“Yes.”
So the lake became “Le lac des poissons généreux.” And a little sign went up over the lake, not far from “La caverne des petits dragons”. Later in the morning, the two girls came to see me, very upset. Another child had drawn a shark in their lake. This incident led to a class discussion. If the mural was a collaboration, was it appropriate for Jake to draw a shark in Maria and Sarah’s lake? He said he didn’t see what the problem was. They hadn’t said he couldn’t draw a shark there, so why shouldn’t he?
Maria countered with, “We didn’t say you could, and what if we had drawn on your dragon?”
Jake’s dragon was one of the two that loomed over the whole scene.
“That’s not the same,” replied Jake.
“How isn’t it the same?” asked Maria.
“The lake is part of the landscape,” said Jake. “It isn’t somebody’s own dragon.”
“But we made the lake,” insisted Maria.
As a class we reviewed the concept of a collaborative piece of art like this. Each of the twenty-three children was contributing to its creation, by adding their artwork to the scene. Some of them were working together on one aspect of the mural, as Maria and Sarah had done with their lake. Two boys had also created a river and lake system.
The majority of the children agreed that Jake did not have the right to draw on the lake without asking permission of the original creators. I asked the children how they thought Jake could repair the situation. Kim who has acquired the knack of artistically reworking mistakes, suggested he use a pastel crayon and blend the shark into the water of the lake. Owen had a similar idea. Jake could cut out a shark-sized piece of blue paper, the exact same colour as the lake and glue it over top of the offending shark. Maria and Sarah agreed to this, but said they wanted to do it themselves. Soon the shark repair was complete, and the blue patch was covered with little black fish darting about. Maria and Sarah seemed satisfied with the result.
But the incident raised several philosophical questions for me. When the surface appearance of things meets our expectations for order and beauty, does that lead us to forget, or even deliberately ignore the presence of the shadowy aspects of human experience? Le lac des poisson généreux was invaded. Since the invader was a shark, drawn in felt pen, he couldn’t be easily removed. However, he could be covered over, so that things looked normal. And yet, if any of the children were asked, they would say that the shark was still there, just not visible to the eye. So what do we do with our hidden sharks, and the boys who feel compelled to cause a stir by drawing them? My hunch is that we need to give them the light of day, ask them what they’re hungry for, and invite them out to play.