Oakville offers a wide variety of elective courses to choose from, and it can be hard for students to be able to narrow down their top choices of what classes to take. Because of this, some classes have fewer students enrolled than others.

Social studies teacher Daniel Richter came up with the idea that current ceramics students should have the opportunity to make mugs and “mug” other people to get them to join the ceramics classes.

“This time of year where everyone’s signing up for different classes,” Richter said, “there’s some pressure where you want to build up your own elective if you’re an elective teacher because you want to teach those more fun courses, so this would be a way for those classes to be publicized and get kids interested.”

Richter believed that the best way for the idea to effectively work in getting kids interested should be to have the student record it. Basically, a student in ceramics who has made a mug has the choice to either keep the mug and not mug anyone or to give the mug away to kids who would potentially be interested in taking the class.

“To have new students come in and broadcast people getting mugged and invited in taking a 3D Art or ceramics class could be a way to drum up and invite more people who might have been unsure if they had the talent or the capability for those more artsy classes,” Richter said.

He thinks that having students who haven’t previously worked with clay present these self-made mugs to other students who are unsure whether they could be successful in these classes could increase their confidence and willingness to enroll in classes that are out of their comfort zone.

“I thought it just would be a good way to promote ceramics, friendship, community and love,” ceramics and 3D Art Foundations teacher Alexandra Heyl said.

The idea is credited as Richter’s, so Elliot Mcginnis (12) decided to mug him first by running into his classroom and yelling, “You just got mugged!”

“It was very unexpected and very rewarding,” Richter said. “Since it was my own idea, it made me feel pretty good, but maybe more so that they were using my idea. Basically, art owes me their life.”