My morning coffee just tastes better in a certain mug. I have a habit of always using a bright yellow fiesta mug for my first cup of coffee. I hate to admit this but I have become a bit superstitious about it. My husband has caught on and now always pours my coffee into a yellow mug.
Mugs can mean many things. In January, the sixth graders at Lincoln Park Middle School learned this as they made face jugs. They each got a flat piece of gray, moist clay from their amazing teacher Ms. Valento. She taught them how to cut out a round bottom and then shape the cups’ sides. Carefully the kids etched the clay so the pieces would stick together well. Then they smoothed their clay mugs with water, fingers and sticks.
After the mug itself was formed they added facial features. Each student adding eyes, brows, a nose, ears and a mouth. Handles were optional. Ms. Valento had ceramic tiles for them to add for teeth. Even though they each added the same elements, none of the mugs looked the same.
The addition of ceramic glaze made each mug even more unique. I helped to keep the cups of glaze full at each table. A certain table of girls went through a whole lot of pink even though each student had to use at least 5 colors. The mugs were all unique.
It was so fun to see the students’ reactions as their mugs came out of the kiln. They were shiny and colorful. And yes, they were kind of ugly. That was the point really.
Ms. Valento taught them the history of face jugs well before any of them touched their clay. Face Jugs were made by enslaved people working as potters in the Edgefield district of South Carolina in the mid 1800’s. Scholars speculate that the jugs may have had religious or burial significance. They were ugly perhaps to keep evil spirits away. As written in the Smithsonian, “they reflect the complex responses of people attempting to live and maintain their personal identities under harsh conditions.”
The jugs were also used to hold water water for enslaved people working in the fields. And the jugs were found along the route of the underground railroad. The students learned all of this before they got their hands on any clay. It is an important part of our shared American history made real in a mug.
On the last day of the semester the kids got to use their mugs. I helped out as a paraprofessional for the first hour of the school day last semester. So no coffee in a yellow mug for me this morning, but a root beer float in a face jug. I am so grateful for teachers like Ms. Valento who help our students taste a little history, both the ugly and the sweet.
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