change of direction

When I began this blog it was meant to be an interactive space created for dialogue between myself and a specific group of teachers.  It worked well and served as the impetus for discussion on teaching, education and art in the context of an inquiry into the Project Approach.  While the topic remains the same, that was a summer study group that no longer gets together and yet I find there are still so many things upon which I would like to reflect and write.  As an artist and early childhood educator I find myself often reflecting and wondering about the world of young children and the current educational practices and the society in which they find themselves.  The questions raised currently serve as the context for my dissertation and life long research and will become the topics of my blog postings.  I see this space as becoming the means of my sharing such reflections and wonderings with others that I hope challenge some of my perceptions and take my own thinking to a different level.  By merging both the written language and visual images within my blog in connection to current educational practices I seek to illustrate the possibilities and potential of early childhood education and beyond, many of which are yet to be realized in our current practices. 

Slowing things down

Recently I heard a wonderful comment from a teacher.  She said, "I help children slow down, to really look at and listen to the world around them."  What better skills could we teach children who are growing up in a world that is so busy and based around quick sound bites of information.  There is so little to sustain children and engage them for long periods of time and while education should support such skills, more often than not it seems to support these quick bits of information, with no true engagement in learning.  And this is why project work is so important because it supports engagement and sustained interest in a topic, supporting in-depth research and investigation not only for the students, but for teachers.  As teachers we are often so focused on covering so much content in order to "teach" that we forget the role of sustained engagement and uncovering an understanding of a topic based on real life experiences.  Project work returns this element while bringing joy back to teaching by providing a space in our education for the teacher, side-by-side with the students, to rediscover the world and uncover knowledge.