When I was younger, I had an interest in handwriting analysis. It’s just a bit of fun, but I used to find it helpful to see different personality traits. So I was googling handwriting analysis to check what it means to write above the line or below.
Anyway, this search brought up some different results about colouring books, which led to a memory of my early school days, and being given the task to colour in various images inside the line.
The reward for learning to colour inside the line would be to receive your own colouring book with your name and a gold star instead of colouring in on loose sheets of paper and not being an achiever.
I changed schools aged 6 or 7 from an unstructured quite progressive 1970s school where the classroom was more like a playroom and free expression was very much encouraged, and moved to a starched, uniform-wearing very orderly environment where we were moulded to be disciplined and well-behaved. In the new school I struggled to colour in neatly and although I did manage to do it eventually, I remember having to confine myself to the boundary, being the first stressful experience in my academic life.
I have always thought this was a bad thing and a significantly poor milestone attainment, but apparently my reluctance to be confined to the line now signifies individuality, thinking outside the box and being a bit of a rebel. I just thought I was a bit stupid and I’ve always been so envious of those who are neat and patient enough to take the time to ensure perfection.
So did you colour inside or outside the line? I still think inside the line is much better and yet I am still an outside the line type of person. It’s amazing how such a small task can mean so much.
What an interesting piece of information @AnnieS. I’m an inside the line person I think - I like everything to conform to my view of what I think to be correct. My schooldays were in the 50s and early 60s and were at a very rigid, strict uniform and even stricter rules school. However, my career was as an English teacher in secondary education - a subject that, although conforming to grammatical structures, is less rigid when it comes to the analysis of literary texts. So a bit of a mixed bag there!
I always coloured inside the line. It was a childhood activity but it can be therapeutic for adults as well. Plenty of colouring books on Amazon for this purpose. I posted a while about an art by numbers program I use and showed the results. I found it absorbing once I got started. It looks like I never quite got over colouring.
It’s interesting what you say about English literature. I’ve always been an avid reader, used to excel at writing poetry at school and went on to study English Lit at A level, but found it very confining and went into a career in financial management where I can finally create complex systems that give a neat result without having to pick up a pen!
Perhaps English lit at university level provides far more scope to explore alternative viewpoints and interpretations.
Mart I too have tried the colouring books in the past but my mind is too restless and I start thinking of other tasks that I need to do! (or just turn on Netflix!). Perhaps I was just traumatised and have a negative association
I’ve never thought of the study of Literature as confining @AnnieS how interesting that you did when you studied it - so I suppose then that I really am inside the line even in a subject that to my mind isn’t … I had always considered Maths based subjects too rigid, or maybe that is because I was always hopeless at Maths, although I did manage a B at was what was then GCE
One thing about the digital colouring. It colours according to the program. No decisions to make on inside/outside the line. I originally bought it for when our son visits. He has learning difficulties and it means he can use the computer like everyone else. The digital colouring by numbers keeps him happy and quiet for hours. Having got the program, I found it does the same for me.
It’s intersting that you say that you were always hopeless at Maths, when you achieved a B grade. That used to be an excellent grade when O levels were the standard.
For a long time I considered myself hopeless too after a particularly bad experience with a poor teacher at secondary school. Following a robust performance at Middle school, I was placed in the top class for maths, sat at the back with the naughty kids and had a teacher that went from A to Z in her explanations, missing all the steps in between. To compound it all I have a much older brother whose favourite A level subjects were maths, physics and pure maths, who was tasked by parents with coaching me (impatiently) to catch up following my teen rebellion lapse. Many sibling arguments and tantrums later, I did pass my O’level but I convinced myself I was bad at the subject, then realised later I really enjoy it!
For years though I had imposter syndrome in my career. So much of who we are later in life is shaped by those early experiences and setbacks.
This brings up so much food for thought. As a former teacher, and having the wisdom of six decades of life, it breaks my heart that we put so much pressure on young children to meet important milestones like staying inside lines when so much of it is developmental. We wouldn’t force an infant to walk at a certain age, but we are quick to draw arbitrary lines of achievement when these little souls have been on the planet for such a short time.
Behavioral expectations are fair enough; we all have to figuratively learn how to color between the lines to navigate school, social acceptance, an adulthood, but again, there’s a fine developmental line there too. As we get older, we all choose how much, how important, and when it is to do so. After all, if we didn’t color outside the lines sometime, we’d never learn to be self-determining
Then we have to consider the pleasure of “flow” when it comes to the actually act of coloring. Mart has it right to mention its therapeutic benefits. After all, regardless of our early abilities to color, I expect we all have a positive visceral reaction to the aroma and sight of crayons, don’t we!
I’m sure I read that until recently the US military used this colouring in approach to assess their ordinary candidates. I have no idea how the results informed their recruitment or subsequent assignments. I dread to think.
Not true. There was some ridiculous controversy that recruitment offices offered free coloring books that the obtuse viewed as propaganda. In no time that premise was rightly laughed down and ignored. Those books are still widely available. Want one?
Interesting topic @AnnieS . I was an avid “colouring book” fan as a child, I got my mum to buy me them all the time. I remember my Osmond Family coloring book, and I definitely made an effort not to go outside the lines, I just wouldn’t have it any other way! So that means I’m an inside the lines person, I had never thought about this being so significant, what an insight!
One group of people at work that I found difficult to work with were the people who proudly called themselves ideas people who think outside the box. I do not know what their colouring skills were. I do know that they rarely seemed to knuckle down and do actual work once the idea was formed into a plan. And even getting the outside the box idea into something workable was never easy … and not always successful. But I guess it takes a mix of all sorts to make a team.
It’s funny you should say that Lincs, because despite not enjoying colouring inside the lines, I feel the same about think outside the box people.
I did learn to colour inside the lines and force myself to conform to rules and boundaries, but it’s not my favourite thing to be confined in any process, yet I’m a very grounded individual who is both creative and gets things done. Past personality tests I’ve completed have shown a strong leaning in two opposite directions (which I understand demonstrate internal conflict). Yet it’s helped me to achieve in my career (despite always thinking I’m stupid!)
I think that there’s a lot to be said for how the inside/outside the line metaphor as applied to all areas of science, engineering, innovation, etc. Some of the most revolutionary ideas in medicine, science et al, have been through individuals not confined to the line and thinking outside the scope of the rigid systems we have in place to check and destroy progress in scientific and other ventures. Yet the need for control is incredibly important so that humanity doesn’t send itself down the plughole.
When I posted this topic I didn’t expect it to be such a thought-provoking one!
I wonder whether a colouring book and pencils should be given to candidates on their arrival for interview - it would make an interesting discussion during interview once they had filled in their pictures. When I was on interview panels for prospective new staff at the school where I taught the whole experience was spread over two days - apart from classroom observation time the candidates did quite a bit of waiting around so colouring would serve two purposes, keeping them occupied and then discussion of their colouring technique during formal interviews!
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So that means I’m an inside the lines person, I had never thought about this being so significant, what an insight!