Observation Frustration

The child has a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture

(Loris Malaguzzi)

Children can draw from observation.  They have an eye for detail and they can reproduce those details with remarkable accuracy.

Even very young children, only just able to hold a pencil, can draw the concentric petals of a rose or the long lines of stalks of grass.  But what happens when children forget that they can draw?  When they insist that they can’t?

I’ve been faced with exactly this challenge this year as most of our students have resisted drawing from observation.  Every time I or my colleagues have put out a drawing invitation, we’ve been met with motifs: flowers with happy faces and 6-8 identical petals around a circle, for instance.  When I’ve asked the children to show me the flower they were drawing, they’ve resisted, shrugged, and declared “that’s the only flower I know how to draw.”

I’ve trucked out my usual strategy of sitting and drawing with them; perhaps they’ll realize that Madame’s flowers aren’t perfect representations either and maybe watching me struggle will encourage them to try.

I’ve put out the work of a variety of artists whose work ranges from representational to abstract, hoping that it might encourage them to try a new way of drawing.  We’ve even had group conversations about the mechanics of drawing what you see – moving your eyes and hand together to draw.

Unlike other years none of these strategies has met with much success.  While a few individual students have been engaged, the idea has never really caught on.

But I’ve kept at it and finally, in the last month of school, victory!

What’s the magic? Was it the subject?  Maybe dandelions, that most common of flowers, is less intimidating than roses, faces, and block towers?

Maybe it’s just time having its often miraculous effect.  Maybe it has taken a year for the cultural message of sameness and cuteness to be washed away and for the children to realize that their own representations, however different from each other, will be valued as much, more even, than any smiley face.

Wouldn’t it be great if they didn’t have anything to unlearn?  If their interpretations were always valued?  If we allowed the aesthetics of childhood to exist without needing to modify them to suit our own adult ideas about what childhood is?  Wouldn’t it be great if children’s interpretations of the world were as precious to us as the motifs that the media presents as childhood for sale?  That would be a smiley-face moment.

Architectural Voices – Part 3

This is the third and final installment of children’s poetic reflections on their architecture projects.  To read about the project in its entirety, please use the search term “architecture” in the search window below.

The Big Apartment Building

It’s kind of big and also people who live here don’t have to live in little houses, they can live in big buildings.

And also they don’t have to live out of houses.

It took a long time to build it.

The sides are really big and the building’s really big

There’s lots of places for people to live inside.

Sometimes they have to break it down because it’s not working well.

They make designs so that the building doesn’t fall down

and they glue the bricks so it doesn’t fall down on the people inside.

 

The Pretty Triangle (A-frame)

There’s a big window.

You slide the door open.

I like that it’s a triangle.

It looks like a face with eyes open or eyes closed.

 

The Villager Hut

L: It kind of looks like a farm.

T: It would look like a real farm if the windows were down there.

E: It looks like a villager hut from Minecraft.

When the rain falls down

it will fall off onto the roof.

The roof is a sesame circle.

It’s for Lego guys – villagers.

 

K’s House for my Family

The stairs they go up

roof.

the

to

way

the

all

And the windows are not square

‘cause they can look out of more places.

The fence has a little door

and they can go

straight to go inside.

The chimney is where Santa goes down.

 

Z’s House

The roof is made out of paper and the rest is made out of wood.

There’s no ladders to go inside the window ‘cause that would be weird.

I have a chimney.

Santa Claus fell through the window – he’s stuck in there now.

I have a square window.

The door looks like a square

But

It

Isn’t.

 

The Playground (an almost haiku)

This is a chimney.

There’s a slide and a diving board.

It’s to play in.

 

Of Leaders and Lunch Money

A new blog post on the BAM Radio Network – I hope you enjoy!

http://www.bamradionetwork.com/edwords-blog/leaders-and-lunch-money

Architectural Voices – Part 2

This is the second post in a series of children’s poetic reflections on their architecture projects.  You can read more about their projects in earlier posts on this blog tagged with “architecture” as well as here.

The Fire Fighter Station/Gymnastics Place

We put the roof on top and it can move a little.

I want

A door that opens and closes

If there’s ever a fire, you just run inside for help.

When you’re all done with the slide, you can just lift it up.

I wanted to do that to the ladder too.

We had to take one thing at a time.

When we make it we had to think up ideas

And when it falls apart we have to do it again.

It’s a place to go and do gymnastics, like I do gymnastics.

The Shoe Factory

The roof is pretty crazy.

It looks like something that I don’t know what it is.

There are 3 rooms.

I made a model first.

I thought of the idea because my auntie told me about it.

This one won’t break because it has glue and not tape and it’s made out of wood.

I dreamed about the roof.

I like it because it looks like a crazy head.

The Squirrel Hotel

It’s a playground hotel for one squirrel.

There’s a ladder,

A little shelter.

The roof is shaped like a diamond. It has wings

A flying house.

It has a window.

They can lie down on the ground

So they can sleep at night.