Pretty clothes clashing with science?

I like pretty clothes.

However, in one of my “Animations with kids”, I made a video with the second-graders at MacAllister Elementary called “A handbook to taking care of the earth.” And in that movie, it kind of sets up a conflict between doing good in school/being conscientious versus fashion.

I didn’t want to make it a conflict … so I tried to soften it by adding: “I like pretty clothes, too … but Diana thought about nothing else.” (The boy who narrated that line did such a snarky job of emphasizing Diana, with no pointers from me!)

However, I then went back to the second-graders at Irvin Elementary and showed them all the films I had made at other schools. We also re-watched their own film, “All about butterflies.” They were really into all the films!

But when we watched “Handbook,” and then paused to talk about it afterwards, most of the kids raising their hands told me what they’d learned was: you shouldn’t care about clothes and make-up, you should care about the Earth.

And I got a little muddled and trying to help them distinguish between normal levels of interest in clothes versus complete asceticism versus complete hedonism was beyond me when faced with these lovely little upturned faces. So I didn’t have much more sense than to quickly nod my head and tell the kids they did such a good job for comprehending the lesson of the film. I’m going to try to be a bit more perceptive and careful next time!