Remember middle school? All the energy, the creativity, the curiosity, jam-packed into one tiny human. Everything was constantly changing; your friends, your body, your voice, your opinions. You get older and things keep changing but it doesn't feel the same. Your friends still change sometimes but it's usually more subtraction and division than it is addition and multiplication. Your body doesn't change near as much anymore and when it does, it's usually in ways you don't like. Your voice has been the same for years, but now it either falls on deaf ears or you're just tired of hearing it yourself. Your once malleable, wet-concrete opinions have dried up in social media echo-chambers that work to distract and divide us.

At least those are my findings after surviving a school year as a teacher with no teaching experience. I present to you, a collection of Childlike ONEDERS. A collection of designs done by my middle school students. Some after prompted with "draw me something that would look good on a t-shirt" and some organic middle school doodles that were either turned in on the margins of an assignment or drawn on a whiteboard while waiting for the bell. I chose six out of nearly one hundred different design submissions to turn into this collection. The rest are available to view in the design archive.

This collection is meant to be worn as a reminder.

A reminder to live like a child sometimes. To roll down a grassy hill. To climb a tree. To give the monkey bars a whirl every once in a while. To find shapes in the clouds. To talk to the new kid. To ask questions. To listen with an open-mind. To get out of your comfort zone. To doodle. To create. To imagine. To do whatever it is you have to do to experience childlike wonder.

Now a message about the clothes.

All products are recycled, one-of-one, and made in-house (literally).

++ Recycled: all blank garments are sourced second-hand from the bins. The bins refers to warehouse stores selling bulk, unsorted clothing, usually stored in large bins, by-the-pound. It is the last stop before landfill.

++One-of-one: Due to the nature of the ONEDERS brand, every single product is entirely unique. The blank garments are different. The print placement and quantity varies. These are authentic pieces of clothing not mass produced fast-fashion.

++Made in-house: Every piece was washed, printed, cured, and shot in my sisters basement (thanks for letting me live with you sis). There is no overseas sweatshop underpaying their children employees in order to make these for pennies on the dollar. It's just me down there. And sometimes my girlfriend helping me out too. But the only children involved in this process were the students who submitted their design ideas to me. And I'm not paying them anything.

I am also throwing in a free t-shirt from my last collection, the I'M SORRY MOM collection. You don't want one? Too bad I have tons of them left and you will be getting several.

In conclusion, I appreciate you taking the time to read my research paper and to look through my findings in my collection of Childlike ONEDERS. I hope the creative minds of the next generation can help to conjure up your own feelings of creativity. I'll leave you with what I yell to my students as they follow the bell out of class.

Go on. Be good. Be great. Work hard. Chase your dreams. Give somebody a compliment.