Criticized By My Own Teacher!

Dot loved art. She was always good at it… until she entered middle school at East Packer Middle.

Dot’s elementary teacher always encouraged her to do her best. Mrs. Anders didn’t care about the actual quality of student work. She only had two rules: Rule 1: Have fun! Rule 2: Try your best!

Dot absolutely adored Mrs. Anders, but her new art teacher, Mr. Williams, always criticized her work. No matter how good she thought her work was, he would always find a mistake in it… often causing her to go home discouraged. Today was the worst of all! She never thought she would have a teacher who was such a bully, but here he was! Mr. Williams had criticized her and her painting in front of the class.

The assignment was to draw a dragon. She had gotten carried away with the background, drawing a castle and a princess. She was just getting to the dragon—she had made the body and the fire coming from its mouth.

Just as she was getting to the wings, Mr. Williams saw what she was doing and said to the whole class, “This is a perfect example of what we DON’T want. What is this, a fire-breathing snake? This isn’t what we want. I asked for a dragon! Yet you wasted your time making a princess!?”

Dot had never felt this embarrassed in her life! She ran out of the classroom. By the time the office called her parents to take her home, she was fighting back tears. The next day, spring break had started. Thank God there was a break from Mr. Williams!

Two weeks later, when they got back to school, they were starting a new unit in art: sculpting. Dot had taken a few sculpting classes when she was in elementary school. She had made decent sculptures, and she was confident that Mr. Williams wouldn’t criticize her work this time! Her class before art seemed to last forever. To make matters worse, it was history class, and they weren’t even studying a war! It was about the history of clothing. Sure, that would have been interesting to learn, but their history teacher kept going on about how lucky girls were these days to not have to wear corsets or dresses down to their ankles! (Snore!)

Finally, after what felt like the longest forty-five minutes of her life, it was time for art. She walked in confident that Mr. Williams wouldn’t find anything to criticize about her work this time. It was time to start sculpting. After about ten minutes of explanation, they learned there were three qualifications for the sculptures: 1. Three different textures, 2. No room for cracks in the sculpture, 3. At least half an inch thick of clay.

Those were all things Dot thankfully knew how to do! Though she struggled with making it half an inch thick like everyone else in her class, eventually, she got it with a bit of help.

She ended up making a beautifully intricate design. It was a medium-sized flower pot with flowers carved into it, a bumpy design on the top, and a few butterflies. She managed to create this awesome project with the help of a friend. They turned it in!

The next week as everyone walked into class, Mr. Williams announced, “Our school will be entering a pottery competition with the sculptures you just made. We will be competing with four other schools. If our school wins, we will have an end of year party,” he declared to the entire class.

When the cheers quieted, he added, “But today we will be painting them. I put them in a kiln over the weekend to dry,” he said, staring at them with dismay. He obviously didn’t think any of them could win, until he looked at Dot’s. His expression switched from one of dismay to one of surprise. Then his expression went to one of utter shock as he looked at the name on the stand!

How could his worst student make such and intricate design!? He looked at Dot with begrudging respect and he handed back the pottery. Dot looked at her pottery with a smile as she picked out the colors she was going to paint. She decided on bold colors with a few different shades of a deep red. For the stems, she made it a lighter shade of green and some darker. She used all different kinds of colors for the butterflies that contrasted the roses nicely.

A week later, it was time for art class again. Mr. Williams had taken the time to put a protective coat over all the sculptures. As Dot walked in, she saw all of the pottery shining with the protective coat over them. “We will be entering the pottery for the contest by the end of today,” Mr. Williams announced to the class.

It had been four weeks and Dot had been waiting anxiously for Mr. Williams to show them who won. She knew it took time for the judges to pick a winner, expecially with more than 700 entries!

Finally, after another month of waiting, MR. Williams announced that the judges and a few college students majoring in the arts had picked the winner. It had been on the news just a few hours ago. Dot hadn’t expected to win of course, but there was in name on the screen in bold letters! “Dot Marshall from Sast Packer Middle!?”

She had won! She had actually won! She was ecstatic as she ran up to her mom, shouting, “I WON!” The winner got a cash prize of $500 and a flight out to the award ceremony in San Francisco!

A week later, she and her mother flew out to San Francisco where they booked a hotel. The next morning she got to the event. Twenty thousand people were already gathered to see her accept the prize! Broadcasting for the news wouldn’t be for another two hours. Dot was only now realizing she was going to be a temporary celebrity, and all her friends and family would see this! She was starting to get nervous. This might be remembered for years at her school. What if she messed up her acceptance speech? What if she made a weird face like she did on picture day? She had started to sweat after thirty minutes of imagining what could go wrong.

She decided that if she kept thinking about what could go wrong, it might actually go wrong! That would be worse than making a tiny slip-up. So, she went to get a boba ice tea at a shop a few minutes away and came back feeling a lot better than before. She had about another hour before the camera crew for the news showed up. She watched some videos on her phone to pass the time. In the middle of the sixth video, the news crew showed up to record.

It was time for her to step up on stage and accept the award. It ended up not being as bad as she had imagined. She had a small slip-up when she almost fell off the stage, but no one had noticed. Then, one of the college students hosting the event asked her a question. “What are you planning to do with the reward money?”

Dot had to think for a moment. What would she do with the money? Spend it? Save it? Give it to charity? She came up with an answer. “I’ll spend it on some new clay to continue pottery education so students can enter more competitions.”

That seemed to please the audience and the judges as the room erupted in cheers for her!

The next day, she went back home. When she got there, her father was waiting to pick her and her mother up from the airport. As soon as they stepped out of the airport, he started singing her praises! He told her how well she had done and how professionally she had answered questions when she was put on the spot.

The next day she went to school only to be congratulated by Mr. Williams for winning. It was funny how he could go from hating her guts to congratulating her. The day after, he came to her with a handwritten apology for his actions.

That summer, Dot kept true to her word! She donated money to other schools in the district, keeping about $50 for herself. She started by entering one contest—and she won! So she got more money to donate as time went on. She entered more and more pottery pieces into different contests. Sometimes she won, sometimes she didn’t. But she was always proud of her work, no matter what place it was in, because she had found her true passion in sculpting.

(This is completely fictional.)