In Dialogue

The other day I was having a conversation with a group of children about “fastness,” and the focus of the conversation turned to their shoes–the stripes or the “bumpy things” make shoes fast, and certain kinds of shoes, and colors of shoes, in their opinion, make one run faster than other kinds of shoes. I invited the group to draw “fast shoes.” They all sighed at this, and, frankly, declined. Curious, I asked why they didn’t want to draw and one child said, “because it’s hard.”

I have been thinking about this comment a lot. Drawing from life is difficult, because it requires communication and compromise, among other things. The child who said drawing is hard is correct –but why do we shy away from things that challenge us, both adults and children? What atmosphere are we creating at school or at home that does not encourage children to want to tackle things that are hard, challenging, or complicated?

I remember when, many years ago at my first school, the Model Early Learning Center, children did not want to draw. Teachers and Amelia Gambetti (our mentor/consultant) decided to confront this problem head on. We added drawing materials to many areas of the classroom, the construction area, the library, the house. We invited children many, many times, to remember experiences we had together through graphic representation. We, the adults, changed our attitudes towards drawing in order to support pleasurable, joyful time together with drawing as the center of the experience. Drawing became the norm, instead of a dreaded and pressure-filled aspect of our work.

“The moment we enter into a routine we are dead.”

-Amelia Gambetti

It takes a certain disposition to be able to continually move away from a place of satisfaction and comfort, and enter into situations of complexity and uncertainty.

I am thinking about the culture of education in America, where certainty and authoritative knowledge-giving are the norm, and ambiguity all but non-existant in our schools.

I am also thinking about the role of the Hundred Languages and their potential to counter the pervasive routine and complacency as, by nature, the expressive languages offer the opportunity to share differences and newness.

Children went outside yesterday to draw the birds and nesting area in the wall near the school’s entrance. As luck would have it, the birds were not home at that time. All of the children, however, chose to draw the nests with birds in them: mama birds, baby birds, and eggs.
The teacher asked the children if they actually saw the birds in the wall, encouraging them to draw what they see. I whispered to her, “they can’t, they don’t want to separate out the life.” I was reminded of Vea Vecchi’s words in “Art and Creativity in Reggio Emilia,” p.7:

“Taking leaves as an example, Goethe argued that the terminology used to name their various parts was unsatisfactory, using words which are too abstract, too far removed from the life built up by related structures. Saying ‘stem’ has little meaning if it is not placed in a relationship of growth and life with other living elements.”

and, on p. 8:

“An empathetic attitude, the sympathy or antipathy towards something we do not investigate indifferently, produces a relationship with what brings us to introduce a ‘beat of life’ into explorations we carry out. “

The children would not? could not? draw an inanimate wall without the birds living inside. They brought life and empathy to the empty bricks, as they spoke and drew about warm places, mama birds, and babies. They gave the wall a “pulse of life” (Vecchi, p. 7) that it did not have, and imagined relationships of caring and nurturing.

I just finished reading  What the Robin Knows, by Jon Young. I underlined many sections, but this one struck a particular chord, p.180:

I made a promise to myself  this year to include technology as one of the “Hundred Languages.” Not that I am reticent, but it has never been in the forefront of my mind in my work with children. Having good technology really helps, and my own studies this summer-a Photoshop class, makes me more comfortable navigating various draw programs.

This week I began introducing the Bamboo tablet to some 4.5/5 year old children. I am watching carefully and with fascination as they navigate and investigate. I am learning and wondering alongside them as they discover new possibilities with the media. I am stumped sometimes by not being able to undo or fix something. The children, however, are not frustrated or impatient. They are excited and available and willing to experiment with abandon.

Below are my notes, following one child’s first drawing (I didn’t take photographs of all of the steps, so I hand-drew some of them). I also learned a lot by this close observation of Maeve and other children I worked with. I noticed that some children explored all the tools, some stayed with one, some explored options, some were intentional about what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it. All children used their “mistakes” as launching points. They liked the ease of erasing and undoing, in fact one child asked first thing “how do I erase?” I love Maeve’s comment towards the end (after close to 30 minutes of working): “This is just like drawing!”