Art teacher shares his love for origami

“All the kids, from kindergarten through fifth grade, have to take art. So I get to see every student in the school once a week. My first year, I taught a lot about art history and the background of the artists’ lives. And the kids’ eyes would just glaze over. They would fall asleep in class. After a while I realized that the best structure was to give them as much time as possible to do actual hands-on art, with just enough instruction to get the message across.

“Some of the kids who kind of gave me behavior problems were the ones who didn’t really enjoy drawing or painting. They didn’t feel like their art work was as good as the other kids. I could relate to that. That’s how I felt when I was going through school. Then in college, I realized there are many different mediums and different ways to go in art. I discovered that what I enjoyed most are things like sculpture, printmaking and origami.

“The first time I did origami with the kids, they were like, ‘That was so cool. Can we do it again?’ That blew my mind because it’s something that I really love. Now we do origami for about three weeks every year. It’s gotten to the point that on day one of school, they’re asking, ‘When are we doing origami this year?’

“Sometimes in art, like on a drawing assignment, students have more freedom than they can kind of handle at that age. But with origami, there’s a step-by-step process and specific directions to follow. So when they finish, there’s that level of fulfillment and achievement that’s pretty satisfying.

“In art, there aren’t a lot of times where you feel like you really finished a piece. It happens every time I paint. About 30 minutes before I stop is when it looks really good. But then I work 30 more minutes, and I hate it by the end. I’m like, I wish I would have stopped 30 minutes ago. With origami you have a stopping point, and you’re able to say, look what I made. I didn’t overwork it to the point where I didn’t enjoy it anymore or feel like I messed it up. I think the kids feel that way, too.”

— Josh Crowhurst

Josh recently completed his sixth year as art teacher at Ashbel Smith Elementary School.