Near the end of the school year at Brandon’s University Christian School, the art teacher gave his first-period students large canvases, leftover paint, and the freedom to go at them Jackson Pollack-style.

Danielle Parkman, 14, dipped her hands in color and splattered it against the white, tossing pink, blue and red across the rectangle. Then she threw it on her friends, who laughed and retaliated until, pretty soon, everyone was engaged in a colorful, carefree mess of creativity.