OPINION: That Thanksgiving construction-paper hand turkey on your fridge is actually an education policy failure

You may remember a teacher handing you construction paper every November and telling you to trace your hand and turn each finger into a colorful feather. Maybe you had permission to pick the colors for each feather. Maybe you glued on a single wobbly eye. But the product, the process and the definition of success for that project had already been decided. You made a hand turkey. Here’s why I hate hand turkeys. I suspect that no one asked what you wanted to create. The point was to follow the steps, fill the wall with 25 near-identical Stepford birds and call it art. I am 100 percent sure that no one explained how or why a construction-paper turkey became the elementary-school-age equivalent of a meditation on Thanksgiving gratitude. This wasn’t an accident of a holiday tradition run amok or even poor practice on anyone’s part. It reflects the residue of dated arts education policies. Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school.

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