The Infamous Art Presentation

I love our homeschool co-op.  Ryan does too.   Every so often, the kids have to give an oral presentation to the class.  Last month, the topic was art and each child was to pick an artist to present on.  Ryan does not exactly know many artists at 5 years of age, so I suggested the first one that came to my mind: Vincent Van Gogh.....because of his beautiful swirly "Stary Night" painting.  In some cobwebby recess of my brain I slightly remembered he had a hard life.....but I had forgotten many things about Mr. Van Gogh. Things that quickly returned when we sat down with our stack of library books detailing the many troubles Van Gogh encountered.  Things like mental illness, depression, cutting off his ear, living with a prostitute and rumors of suicide.  Oy vey! 

We stumbled through those books as I attempted to soften the message.  I would get halfway through a sentence and then realize I could not read that to my five year old! 

  I paraphrased and omitted things.   I tried to focus on reading about his young life when he had ambitions to become a pastor and help people and the inspirational quotes Van Gogh penned to his brother.

Then we sat down to make Ryan's poster presentation.  He carefully wrote out his four sentences.  "Vincent Van Gogh was an artist.  He wanted to be a pastor when he was young.  He was kind to those in need.  He had a hard life."  We practiced what he would say over and over.  We practiced talking about the names of his paintings and the vocabulary that went with them.  We talked about where he was born and some of the inspirational quotes.  Then we talked about how to play I-spy with the class with the painting of Van Gogh's bedroom (Who can find the chair? Who can find the bed? etc).

On the morning of the presentation day, we went over it one more time.  He had it down perfectly. 

He patiently waited his turn while all his friends gave excellent presentations on their chosen artist.  Then he proudly and exictedly began his presentation.  "Vincent Van Gogh was an artist.  He lived with a woman and her kid and then he left them.  He cut off his own ear.  Then he shot himself to death.  Who wants to play I-spy?"
The words just poured out.  So fast.  I was in shock.  My mouth opened to stop him but nothing came out because my mouth was stuck open.  My eyes panned the room to see every other living soul in that room was also doing their best imitation of a codfish.  Eyes bugging out, jaws on the floor.  This day will live in infamy as the day we brought the concept of self mutilation and suicide to our wholesome Christian homeschool group.