I was teaching from 2017 until 2023, and there were a lot of students during this time, as it wasn’t strict in age ranges. There were students from age 11 or 12 all the way until 18 and above. Eventually, I did tell the organizer of this school that we need a minimum age for the kids to get along and also the skill to be more or less same. So we then allowed mostly kids from the age of 13 to join. Sometimes there were students that attended for years, while most were only for a year or so.

During this time I was fully immersed in the gen Z world. While I know that kids with talents and drawing skills tend to be quirky and introverted, this generation was poisoned by the social media without even noticing it. It was depressing to see how from 2017, the kids each year were becoming more and more depressed/anxious, to the point they could not maintain any friends in school, so this animation class was their haven to meet other kids and socialize. I noticed the moods of pre-Covid and post-Covid years, how it impacted their character and behaviors.

Now I don’t want it to sound all doom and gloom, as there were a lot of great times with the kids, mainly before Covid. I was genuinely looking forward to each of the classes (before around 2022) as it was rewarding to share my knowledge with the young minds, and to have the next generation learn the art of hand-drawn animation. It always depended on the group too, if the kids were passionate or would rather scroll on the phone without care. The covid year made it so much harder for anyone to focus in class, which made me lose interest as well. I am just not the type to force someone to learn, as it is energy costing and may be a waste of time anyway. If the kids can’t pay attention, then I can’t give them meds to help. I did try to ask them to put away phones, but we don’t have that rule in school sadly. So barely anyone could disconnect from their devices. Not to mention when some of them were drawing on tablets/ipads, it was even harder to keep them away from the internet abyss.

I had to also learn to not have favorites in class, as it was clear who had more skills than others from the start. Also, there is a factor of mental disorders, like ADHD, autism, GAD etc. Some of the kids were in that tough learning spectrum, so it made extra hard for them to learn animation. I was glad that they were not upset if I was asking to fix something, well most of them were not anyway… There is always someone who has no patience to correct something, and those were usually with little interest in animation, so I am not surprised if their parents used this class to get some peace from their offspring.

One student in particular really impressed me, she was really good at animation and also research of its history. She was so passionate to become the next showrunner, I really could not believe there are such people in Estonia, the land of little to no passion in this art. I will never forget her, she made me this Mr. Sneaks figurine that still stands on my shelf.

P.S. yes, I look like a hobo there. I was juggling both Youtube and this school at the time, so I had little time on keeping myself in order.