One of the things I really excelled at in primary school was making title pages.
I realize it wasn’t really part of the curriculum (I’m not even sure they exist anymore given the colossal time robbers they turned out to be for me) but sometimes I dedicated entire school days, even whole semesters to honing my title page to showcase a specific theme within a course. Quite often, my interest in the course would dwindle immediately after I had perfected the title page but that single piece of paper would hold enough information mixed with visual appeal, it got me through.
I guess that’s one of the many reasons I was put off by Hanna’s lack of interest in creating a poster for one of her classes.
It had the same concept as the title page and this time she would get to present it to the class.
I would have given anything to show everyone my magazine clippings of the Sydney Opera House on my final draft of my title page “Australia, by Elizabeth Hastings.”
The only thing Hanna wanted to hone was her pencil sharpening skills.
She sat at the table for a couple of hours, thinking, preparing, sharpening, sketching, erasing, then erasing the eraser marks, sharpening.
I feared the poster depicting eight symbols that positively represented First Nations would never, EVER get underway.
After a while, I scanned the poster with four symbols as opposed to the required eight. I looked over the legend where the symbols appeared to be different from those on the poster. I questioned her choice in colours, especially for the cob of corn, notably drawn with the sharpest pencil this side of Dollarama, where the kernels had been coloured a pale green.
I didn’t worry because maybe posters and title pages just weren’t her thing but then it occurred to me, maybe they were. Maybe this was her best work and maybe she was proud of her green corn. Maybe this is grade five and not everyone could have a 3D Sydney Opera House (still framed somewhere) next to some macrame pot holders.
It happened accidentally that I picked my kids up from school and I noticed a couple of students from her class walking out of the school holding their posters.
They had clearly completed a series of meetings with First Nations historians before tracing in charcoal a series (eight exactly) of some of the most moving, riveting symbols I have ever had the privilege to witness. None of them were drawn in pencil. None of them were corn. None of them were green. None of them mentioned Australia.
Cheaters.
