One day, my daughter?s kindergarten class was doing an art project. The children cut pieces of fruit in half and dipped them in paint to make prints on paper. As the parent volunteer, I was assigned a group of five children to supervise. I showed them the ?template? to make the fruit art. I watched as four children dipped the fruit into the paint. Most matched the colors?the lemon halves got dipped into yellow paint, the orange halves into orange paint, and so on. One little boy decided to dip his lemon half into blue paint. I watched in fascination as he swooshed his fruit in beautiful swirls all over his paper. He continued to do that with other fruits and other paint colors. Swooshes, not prints. Different colors. I thought, this kid is creative! I told him that I loved his interpretation. We parent volunteers collected our groups? artworks and laid them on the table to dry. Twenty minutes later, I saw the teacher quietly look over the pieces while the children were engaged in another activity. She held out the swirled painting and asked the parent volunteers whose group it was from. I was instantly transported back to my own school days. Filled with fear, I raised my hand and managed to stammer out, ?He?s in my group. Isn?t it beautiful"? She asked me to sit down with the child and show him how to redo the painting. ?The paintings are to be displayed on the bulletin board outside the classroom and this one doesn?t match the rest.? What do kids bring to kindergarten...