teaching and learning

Parker Palmer talks about "we are who we teach" which I find pertinent to my own work and teaching.  Having started out my educational pursuits and personal passions in the field of art, this permeates everything I do in my teaching.  Creativity is the source of my teaching and I cannot separate it from my work as a teacher educator.  But often, I find this conflicts with the current expectations of teachers to standardize and generalize experiences in the classroom.  Today in class with my students we  were discussing how even art class has become standardized.  A student raised the point that their child is given "directions" on how to do their art.  Is this art?  And more importantly, is this learning and creating, two skills we deem crucial, at least in theory.
In many art classes today children are expected to reproduce, not create, a product which the teacher deems worthy of duplication, but this is not art and definitely does not support creativity in children.  But I guess my question is, has even the field of art education fallen prey to a standardized curriculum?  Is this how art education "stays alive"?  And if so, what is the point when art is the one means of escaping high stakes testing, measurement and standardization? But I think this comes to a more fundamental question about what is teaching and learning.  Is learning just the mere absorption of what the teachers tells you or is it something more.  And so I would like to pose the question, how do you define teaching and learning? 

Fantasy vs. Reality

I have been struck lately by a phenomenon I have noticed in early childhood educators and it is in relation to the conception of fantasy and reality.  I think we as teachers are confused by how to facilitate these two forms of thinking and what I would define as children's ability to make sense of their world.  I believe this leads to a disconnect in how we facilitate learning in the classroom.  How often do teachers discredit children's level of creativity and imagination when they are engaged in the act of creating something.  For example, a child paints a tree purple or puts wings on a car, only to be told that trees are purple and cars can't have wings.  And yet, when we teach, more so than not, we shift out of reality in order to help children "learn" what it is we would like to "teach" them, let me provide two examples.
Recently during a study group session with a group of teachers we were reflecting on videos taken in the classroom that were to show discussions teachers had with children on their project topic.  The one classroom was doing a study on trees and had begun to identify different leaves and types.  The video was about a discussion on the parts of trees.  As the means of trying to give children a context to which they could relate, the teacher started talking about the trunk of the tree having legs and the branches were like the arms.  She kept making this analogy and yet, when she was trying to see if the children knew what the roots of a tree were called and a young  boy  called out that what held the tree in the ground were the shoes, the teacher said, "silly, trees can't wear shoes."  I am quite sure she was unaware of the disconnect and misinformation she was providing the child which led to his answer of a tree.  For me, he was only logically responding using the analogy of the body she was referring to and yet he was quickly told his answer was "silly".  We do this all the time to children.  Another instance was a group of teachers studying butterflies and when the children were on the playground and began to chase a butterfly the teacher cautioned them not to touch the wings.  When asked why, the teacher said, "the butterfly had fairy dust on her wings and if they touched it, the dust would fall off and she wouldn't be able to fly."  When asked why she used this explanation, the teacher responded that she couldn't remember what was on the wings of butterflies that shouldn't be touched and so she made things up.  Additionally she said that children wouldn't understand the real terminology anyway.  And yet, what does this do to children when we can "make things up" when we are unsure or don't know something, but children are quickly discredited when within the context of fantasy and imagination engage in something "not real".  Here is where the real disconnect comes in because children when engaged and interacting with the real world want to know the truth, not the fairy dust answers.  And they are fully cognizant of when they are manipulating reality within the context of fantasy.  Children know there are no purple trees for example, but when engaged in fantasy are taking what they know and making something new. 
As teachers, we are uncomfortable when we don't know how to answer children's questions about the real world, but children want to make sense of the world around them.  At the same time, when they truly are engaged in some form of fantasy play, drawing or other creative act, children wanted to manipulate and transform what they know about the world to something else.  We need to be comfortable and willing to support both, but more importantly we need to know, as children do, that when talking and studying the real world it is pertinent to provide the knowledge of the particular subject of investigation, not to trivialize it and "make things up."  Children know the difference and if we belittle them by figuring that they won't understand anyway.  They do and they know when we don't give them the true, hard facts about something they want to know.  And they also know how important it is within the context of play and the act of creating to manipulate what we know about the world and create something new that is truly unique to the creator/the child.  We need to step back and truly observe children as the means of our learning the role of both fantasy and reality within the classroom and how we need to be careful not to mix these two worlds.

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.

Session 3

"Experiences often lead us to unanticipated learning and moves us into deeper understanding of the world around us."  This quote guided me in the facilitation of our last study group which I am embarrased to admit was at the end of July and I am only now posting (photos are still to come).  As a group we engaged in some individual reflection, group reflection and presented the ongoing projects.  We also read and discussed a wonderful article on thinking routines in the classroom, an article to which I would like to return for further discussion.  The idea of getting children to think about their thinking and be aware of this process is not only fascinating, but also I believe crucial in supporting the deeper level of investigation necessary for the Project Approach.  And as teachers, it is critical that we are not only aware of this phenomenon, but actively engage students within the classroom in thinking routines.  As we continue on in our journey, it is my hope that we can truly move into deeper conversations on this topic in relation to the process of projects.
With this said, although I have much more I could say, I will hold off given that we will meet in two days.  What I am posting are the two questions from the last meeting:
1)  How do we keep the level of engagement necessary for Phase 2 in students in order to actually have a project, and
2) How do we keep teachers engaged in the project enough to support the deep level of investigation necessary for Phase 2 of project work.
While these obviously are incredibly intertwined, both questions are very important on their own.  We only began to discuss the need to have frequent, sustained conversations with children, but I think this could lead us towards one answer, or possibly another question, can we really move to Phase 2 with out a deep level of conversation and discussion?

Two questions

The two questions posed this time are 1)  How do you keep children of all ages interested in the project?  2)  How do you get the time to document and plan?

Summer Session 2

There was such an energy and excitement to our second study group session. Many of the participants are engaging in projects for the first time and it was amazing to see and hear about their investigations in trains, gardens and water. Not only was their evidence of the children’s stories, discussions, wonderings and questions, but also of the teachers. As we worked through their Phase 1 of their projects in their classrooms we charted successes, issues and questions while posing provocations to one another. It was the discussion and sharing about their projects that really created energy in the room and the pride in what they are doing in the classrooms was clearly visible. It was also great to hear teachers using the language of the Project Approach, for example I overheard one infant-toddler teacher state don’t you remember how Sylvia Chard called it Project Practice with infant-toddlers, not projects. Yes!

The quality of the documentation was also visible. We could truly see the questions of the children and their deep involvement and interest in the projects. What was clear is how the documentation made the learning visible, both of the teachers and of the children. The infant toddler groups really were able to show the potential of young children to be fully engaged in concepts, from water to trains. Their questions and knowledge are being discovered by the teachers. One of the questions raised was in relation to how you can hear their stories and have discussions for some of the children who are still non-verbal? What they soon discovered through discussions was the concept of the 100 languages and that through deeper observation infants and toddlers show us what they know, what they want to know and what intrigues them.

In addition to sharing about the projects one purpose of the study group is to also provide experiences for the teachers. This occurred in a variety of ways. We began with time for personal reflection and then moved towards some group experiences. One being what is called mirror in the performance arts where you pair up with another and must mimic as a mirror everything the other individual does. While fun, this is an aesthetic experience that helps individuals observe another in a different way, react and respond to them. The other experience was to engage with the visual arts while developing building on the language of the Project Approach. We began by doing memory drawing of the topic each teacher was engaging in. Following this, each then worked either on an observational drawing or informational drawings. During this various techniques were also introduced, particularly with using watercolors (terms such as wet on wet and dry on dry). All were engaged and discovering the materials that will support them using them in the classroom.

A tour through the classroom of one of our participants also allowed to see how she is making a project come alive in her classroom.  Her classroom is engaged in gardening and developing a garden outside, which is also working its way into the classroom.  For me what was truly amazing was to hear the teachers talking about the plants and knowing the names of different animals and plants (and this from one teacher who prior to this project hadn't ever pulled a weed).  This shows the true power of projects for teachers and the transformations that can occur when there is investigation and curiosity within the classroom.


As facilitator, it was wonderful to be able to step back and watch the teachers engage in talking about teaching. Not all of the barriers that often come up during a professional development and the yeah buts, but talk about the learning that is occurring in the classroom and the planning of a curriculum that emerges. Couldn’t have been a better day.