When I made the first Today’s Wilson, I was probably feeling that air of mischievousness one gets in a school setting, all dapperness and conformity. Not so much that I wanted to make a point by ripping out pages of textbooks à la Dead Poets Society, but it’s nice to do something out of the norm in high school. Push against the unyielding all-encompassing cinder blocks a bit. Also, I have access to any sized Sharpie I want (yes, even the MAGNUM one–it exists), and I’ve bought all of Austin Kleon’s booksand subscribe to his substack. I have access to sheafs and sheafs of copier paper that keep replenishing like a Harry Potter spell. And, later, when I got industrial, I had a copier that is larger and more complicated than my human body–it’s been in a fine state of repair this year, which is like insanely glorious.
If you look right below, you’ll see a closer look of what I’m talking about:
The whole idea came out of this character I created called Evil Wilson.
Evil Wilson is not really evil; he’s basically a cat. When a classroom becomes ponderous and quiet and feels like there is anything but 28 people in the room, I locate the nearest whiteboard marker and, looking at the class the entire time, scoot it off its ledge and onto the floor. I nudge more markers to the floor. I amp up the evil: I scuttle some papers off a table. And then I make preposterous statements, leaning into being a devil’s advocate in whatever discussion we are having, which is really the only reference to evil the whole act takes, and not a very direct one at that.
This bit of drama created quite the moment when I first did it. It was during first bell, and the students were no doubt tired, as they always are, and they weren’t ready to be all philosophical and stuff. So, having exhausted some icebreakers and some of my regular group discussion cajoling, I resorted to silliness. It worked. Evil Wilson became a bit of an in-case-of-emergency thing.
As an ode to this educational possibility for my students, I put a sign outside my door to serve as a way to communicate to which Wilson students would get that day.
I worked the act for a couple days, mostly just to up the discussion barometer. But having only two sides, I felt hemmed in. I thought about making a Grey Area Wilson, but that was me most of the time. That was everybody most of the time. I needed nuance. So I made a template.
No eyes; no eyebrows; It used to have a straight line for a mouth, but I took that out before this year started.
Snarky Wilson was one of my first creations. And it was also the one that gave me my first bit of interesting feedback. Somewhere right before lunch, when my memory of what I had signaled to my students had quite faded, I had the following confrontation:
“You don’t seem that snarky to me,” said a student.
“Why don’t you cry about it?” I said.
No. I didn’t say this. I’m not sure if I admitted that I wasn’t quite so snarky or maybe I half-heartedly defended myself. Not sure. But I knew that at least some of my students were paying attention to the signage. It was a playful gesture to a Soup of the Day menu item, and it produced some fun conversations. Maybe it brought the class together in some measure: Unfortunately, we got this guy, but, hey, we’re in it together!
So I leaned into the project, and when you do that you start breaking through walls. This is the creative process. It’s something I try to convince my students of every year. Stick with something but take breaks. Rest. Come at it multiple times. Your mind will stick to it and evolve it, of its own volition, as if you can’t stop it from doing so, like you are on autopilot and some weird alien manifestation is feeding your brain ideas from another dimension.
It’s very hard to claim creative ideas because all the ingredients seem like just you paying attention for an extended period of time while being open to whatever it is that is in that brain of ours, maybe a little French-béret-wearing hamster on a wheel that resembles Bob Ross’s paint pallet. Happy little creative thoughts.
A couple months later, some of my students wanted to create their own Today’s Wilsons. I’ve gotten some good ones and, because they are my students, some weird ones. I think that’s a win for sure.
I have a stack spanning two years:
When I have been absent, I’ve been these:
When I’ve slept weird and have been totally exhausted:
And this:
And when I’ve run out of ideas:
What is Today’s Wilson? I’m not really sure. It’s some sort of DIY decoration. They are–let’s get hipster–artisanal in every way, except NOT made from totally organic material that was handcrafted. (I’m not really sure what Sharpie’s ethics are to the environment, or the construction paper industry.) I guess what I’m saying is they capture the really human aspect of DIY: just an amateur doing amateur things.
I was never good at decoration, so Today’s Wilson tracks. What I’ve discovered is that Today’s Wilson is a part of that punk rock ethos that has been with me ever since high school: glory in the chaos of imperfect creativity made with approachable tools. Push a form that has stark limits. And, there, we’ve made it back to the idea of creativity and a solid correlation to writing.
Anyway, school is supposed to be messy; it’s where you learn to learn. How else are you supposed to learn the messiness of creativity if everything is clean and straight lined?