Sean Jones, art teacher at K.O. Knudsen Middle School, curated a show of student work about life during the pandemic. “In My Room: Student Reflections on the Time of Isolation” is on view at the Nevada Humanities office in the Arts District.
What are these kids telling us about their pandemic experience?
They were bored. Before we created the artwork, I asked students to write a brief "artist's statement." Almost all of them began, "I was bored …" I had anticipated diatribes about loneliness and depression, but this was not something they wanted to or could express. We started over. We collectively began remembering owning a variety of masks, washing our groceries, missing holiday gatherings. There were some who resisted digging below "I was bored, I watched TV," but a majority began to recall actual memories of what I think future generations will call "The Lost Year."
What did you learn from this that you didn't expect?
That adults have been projecting our own emotions and thoughts onto students. During the lockdown, I thought about the first crushes, friends, and events they were missing. I assumed they were all dangerously depressed and morose. They weren't. Essentially, you cannot miss what you have never had. Being a preteen (who cannot drive) at home with your family prior to the shutdown is not much different from being home with your family during the pandemic. The dominant emotional memory from them was boredom.
Another aspect that surprised me was the overall positive memories they had — family and friends, caring for animals, making bread. Generally, when I ask students to create art based on "self" or "society," I receive a lot of melting faces, skulls, and doom and gloom.
What role does art play in helping them process these things?
Education has always stressed talking or writing as the primary means of communication. I have pushed over the past two decades that my students need to communicate visually — how can you say what you mean without any words? For many, this is liberating. I believe they appreciated being able to focus on an object or image to communicate the many emotions in their heads.
