Our Writing’s On the Wall [Fast Forward]
by David Khalili, Savannah Springer-Sutton, Harry Chapman, and Max Brownstein
Children’s Cultural Center
With assistance from Hope Katz, president, The Writing’s on the Wall
Fast Forward: The newspaper for kids / by kids
January 1994
This winter, kids at the Children’s Cultural Center in Sausalito got the chance to work with an organization called The Writing’s On the Wall and talked about what we could do to make the world a better place.
The project lasted most of the day. In the morning, we sat around a table with markers and paint and glitter and crayons. We each have to take some pictures with Ken Smith, who was shooting our portraits. He even let us use his photography equipment, which was very cool.
After a lunch break, we all sat in a circle and talked about our wishes and our thoughts. Everyone got a chance to say something. When we finished, each of us got a brick. We decorated the brick with our favorite wish or thought, then glued our bricks to the outside walls of a miniature house. On the inside of the house we got to draw some graffiti art on the walls.
DAVID KHALILI: “I love to write on walls. I don’t get to do that much. I really liked working on the project. I had heard about working on this project a few days before when my teacher, Miss Lisa, told us we’d be working with or supplies and learning to take pictures.
“I also liked it because we each got a paper brick and were asked to create a message about what we’d like to do to improve things out there. That was cool. I like to express myself in this way because it feels good.
“My wish is that I’d make people laugh more. To do that, I’d make every channel on television a comedy. I like to make people laugh. Comedy is my life.
The way I see it is that if people are laughing, they are happy and then they are nicer to each other, and to themselves. “Of course, sometimes people laugh at you. When that happens, I figure it’s their problem.
SAVANNAH SPRINGER-SUTTON: “The part I liked best was making the art. I decided to pick out stuff from magazine and tear them into pieces to put on my brick. I think it was pretty creative. I do a lot of this kind of stuff at school, so I’m good at it. It’s always fun to make a mess with art stuff!
“My wish was to get lots of presents, like a computer so I can ploy games like Wheel of Fortune. But on my brick I wished for something else. I wished for peace. Peace means everyone gets along and people like each other.”
HARRY CHAPMAN: “We draw a lot in school, but here we got to make wishes with our art. I wished for no more pollution. I said, ‘I wouldn’t drive if I were you!’ I think that should make some people think twice.”
MAX BROWNSTEIN: “You know what else? I think it’s neat to tell people that this is my wish, because after we all finished our bricks we put them up on this house. I guess that’s the part I like best, that this project is especially made for kids. Grown-ups don’t ever listen to what we really think. Sometimes, adults look at kids playing and only see what’s on the surface. They don’t get the whole picture. This way they won’t have a choice but to listen.”
DAVID KHALILI: “It’s really important to me that adults pay attention to what I’m saying. People should listen to kids and hear what they think. We have some important things to say, you know? To sum up the day, I guess I’d say it was nice. When I got home that night, I told my parents all about it at dinner. They thought it was good, but then the coolest thing happened the next morning. I went out to get the Marin Independent Journal and guess what? My picture was in the local section! When my parents saw my picture, they knew why I was so excited. They were really happy, too. “
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