Hey you! Put that drawing away!

Zackary Schejbal, Staff Reporter

In your class you may have heard the teacher say, “Put that drawing away” to a student so focused on making a picture. Well, that kid wants to tell you their story.

This kid’s a really big drawer. He will draw almost anything that comes to his mind.

If he wants to draw a cool wasteland landscape, he will. If he wants to draw a G1 transformer, he will.

This kid is very attached to his sketchbook. If you take his sketchbook away, his inner demons will unleash and try to take over his body.

The kid can keep his cool from getting physical and aggressive towards the person who took away his sketchbook, but his language changes completely. He is attached to drawing and is unable to let go of it.

If a teacher asks him to put the sketchbook away, he will. But then he tries to pull it back out to draw and keep his stress level down.

This kid’s sketching skill was at one time ignored and looked upon as a bad thing when he was a wee lad. He used to go to a school, which will be left confidential for obvious reasons.

He once drew a zombie with a chainsaw and was banned from drawing during the school day. So, he went to secretly drawing on the bus ride home from that school.

When he drew, he’d draw whatever he’d like to draw. Unfortunately one day a kid spilled the beans on his secret.

The kid was banned from drawing whatsoever. He lost all his cool that day and was very aggressive towards the teachers of that school on that day.

From that day to the beginning of sixth grade, he was unable to be himself without his art. He was only allowed to read and was ready to lose it all until LADSE shone a heavenly light on his art career and decided to take him in.

Despite all the efforts from all staff at that school trying to make him snap in anger, they failed at it. And soon, the kid was out of that school.

When he left that school in sixth grade, he was able to pursue his passion to drawing again. He drew all throughout his LADSE program and even when he transitioned to his middle school.

When he left LADSE in eighth grade, he had a year of a complete art flip. He went from basic shapes and basic simple first grade drawing to drawings that of a college kid.

Still to this day, he practices and is super passionate about his arts. He will and would give everything for art at any cost with one goal: create art.

So, next time you see a kid sketching an odd thing in class and the teacher says “put that drawing away”, remember that he is a kid with Autism, struggling through trying to be an average Joe but with art.