“Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize” -Thich Nhat Hanh
All These Questions Are Love
This is the view from my window right now.
Another snow day.
A day to reflect and catch up on blogging.
February just ended.
It’s when the Love Fairy visits SWS.
I adore Valentines Day.
The opportunity to “make” for others, to write, draw, wrap, and give to others-just for the sake of the day is worth all the commercialized advertisements for diamonds and dinners.
What does love have to do with learning?
What’s love got to do with it?
I was thrilled to engage my PreSchool children in making a sewn, beaded, wrapped Valentine for someone in their family.
It was a first time sewing for the children. The pulling and pushing just the right amount without creating tears or big loops of thread, flipping the card, finding a new hole to go through.
The concentration and dexterity paired with the tactile feel proved to be worth the focus. Every child stuck with their sewn Valentine through completion. 
The next week the children beaded, made a card, and wrapped the Valentine.
This is a lot of work.
Wrapping a gift was also a new experience for many. A tape dispenser alone offers a challenge, and then learning to connect two pieces of paper with one piece of placed tape, without getting it all stuck together.
These rituals and skills of Valentine making, and giving children the opportunity to “do” is no different from all the other learning experiences. Except this one, this project has the ultimate impetus of love.
Hidden in all the rigor of managing materials, using new tools, staying focused for extended periods, and persevering in new tasks is the anticipation of giving.
I asked the PreSchool children, What is love?
Hard question.
You try answering it, let alone only being on this planet 3 to 4 years!
Their responses were moving, thoughtful, and thought provoking.
The multi-layered work they did gave me opportunities to assess many skills. Language, connection to content and comprehension, fine motor skills, following multiple-step directions, staying focused to complete tasks, overcoming difficulty.
Their conversations and language went deep, and they became a small connected group in conversation.
The children were motivated. Love.
Working with the medically fragile children,I can clearly state love also is a part of learning. I have a weekly challenge of bringing materials-based experiences that bring joy, discovery, and that each child can in some way participates in.
Each child must also feel safe enough to trust all the strange sounds, textures, mess, and sights that I entice, cajole, engage, and impose on them. Love.
In the PreK classes, there is a long-term project that has had it’s starts and stops and starts and stops again as holidays and winter storms came and went.
It’s Fairy Houses.
It started as a way to work on engineering and building sturdy structures.
It was developed to engage the children in looking closely and seeing natural materials as viable materials and metaphors in expressing themselves.
I want the children to notice and be able to differentiate between artificial and natural materials.
I want them to realize that constructing is multi-layered, requiring understanding of space, gravity, and design.
I want the children to think about when something needs to be drilled as opposed to hammered or glued, and how to determine what drill bit is best.
I want them to realize you can only work on one side at a time, one three dimensional surface.
I want them to have the experience of extended periods of making that allow enough repetition that they can master parts and press on to harder and more demanding solutions and ideas.
I wanted them to have time and space to step away before they make their next decision. Time to interact and share with each other.
It is happening.
It is the love of this work that is motivating them to continue to come in and get to work. It is theirs.
It is theirs because the very intentional long-term studio practice and habits have transformed them into children that are independently able to take the next step on their own, or with the help of a friend. They are able to build upon their competencies and go deeper.
One work period, there was a commotion and excitement:
It’s a rainbow!
The fairies did it!
I think they are already visiting our houses.
They are visiting my house, I know.
They are going to visit everyone’s house!
We made them a fairy city!
Wait, it went away!
Where did it go?
“In a culture obsessed with measuring talent, ability, and potential, we often overlook the important role of inspiration in enabling potential.
Inspiration awakens us to new possibilities by allowing us to transcend our ordinary experiences and limitations. Inspiration propels a person from apathy to possibility, and transforms the way we perceive our own capabilities. Inspiration may sometimes be overlooked because of its elusive nature. Its history of being treated as supernatural or divine hasn’t helped the situation. But as recent research shows, inspiration can be activated, captured, and manipulated, and it has a major effect on important life outcomes.” – Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D.,
Co-founder of The Creativity Post; Author of Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined
If you are inspired, you love something. That something is what allows you to override the difficulties and setbacks, the mistakes and frustrations. This love of something/inspiration is the necessary foundation for perseverance to occur when the work is hard.
The Kindergarten children have been engaged in a project inspired by The Cabinet of Curiosity or Wonder.
These rooms filled with collections began before museums existred in the 15th century. 
After looking at objects as having meaning with their families, I wanted to present the experience of how people have historically looked at objects and have access to objects.
A trip was planned to go to The Walters Museum to view their Cabinet of Wonder.
I began to ask hard questions again. Instead of What is love? It was What is wonder, What is Curiosity? What do you think a Cabinet of Curiosity or Wonder is?
We are going to go see A Cabinet of Wonder or A Cabinet of Curiosity. What do you think this might be?
Isaiah: Something you open up and there’s stuff inside. Can we open it?
Anyone else?
Silence.
What is “wonder”?
Maggie: It’s when you think inside your head about something that you love.
Mira: I don’t think you love something you wonder about because if you are curious you don’t know about it. So you don’t love it, yet.
Can we make a Cabinet of Curiosity ourselves?!!
That’s a really interesting idea.
How about if you start by thinking of a time you were outside of Washington, DC. Think about an object of wonder from somewhere you visited. It can be something you saw, found, or bought that you would NOT encounter in DC.
Willa: I was in the woods. I don’t know where but it was outside Washington, DC and I found this leaf with yellow and orange and I brought it home.
Mira: I saw a jellyfish n Florida
Ainsley: At Cape Cod Beach, a wave.
Maggie: A dead snail in a seashell in New York, where the Statue of Liberty is.
Ibby: A sand dollar at the beach house, I don’t know where but I’ll ask.
Noah: I saw a dead shark at the beach.
We are going to go see A Cabinet of Wonder or A Cabinet of Curiosity. What do you think this might be?
Rowan: A cabinet and you wonder what’s inside of it.
Audrey: A drawer.
Dominic: A place where you can keep all your treasures.
Lusa: A cabinet you open and wonder what it is for.
Tate: You guess what’s inside it. If you don’t get it right, you don’t open it.
We are going to go see A Cabinet of Wonder or A Cabinet of Curiosity. What do you think this might be?
Isaac: It means you go in it and it feels fun and there’s all kinds of delicate stuff.
Percy: It’s a tunnel and it has weird weird stuff and you wonder in your brain what it is.
Collette: I think it has toy Barbie’s and a toy museum.
Jordan: Maybe it has dinosaur bones.
Lucinda: I think it has tiaras and crowns.
What is wonder?
Evan: Wonder is something you see and you really like it but you don’t know what it is.
Sonora: Wonder means you know something but you don’t know what it is.
We are going to go see A Cabinet of Wonder or A Cabinet of Curiosity. What do you think this might be?
Ryan: A room with lots of collections.
Eric: All different stuff from old times.
Tali: I think it’s like a place where you keep really cool stuff. Wondering is thinking about the cool stuff you see.
Hazel: I think a Cabinet of Wonder is where lots of people wonder, What’s in it?
Eric: Yeah, like people say, “What is this?”
We are going to go see A Cabinet of Wonder or A Cabinet of Curiosity. What do you think this might be?
Aurora: When you open a cabinet and you wonder about it a lot.
Gabriel M.: I think it’s something you wonder about, you just think.
Liam: It means you don’t have any idea what’s in the cabinet.
Samuel: I think it’s a person inside a cabinet.
Madeline: If you heard there was something inside the cabinet and you didn’t know what it means, you wonder what it’s about.
Gabriel: Curious is Wonder!
(At the Walters Museum in Baltimore, MD)
The Kindergarten children went on the road trip to The Walters Museum of Art in Baltimore, MD.
While there, children went on a scavenger hunt, picked three objects to sketch (to later be written into classroom “Wonder Stories,”) engaged in a strory-telling circle inspired by the objects around them, and were read books about mummies and armor as they sat surrounded by the real objects.
They LOVED this.
Each child found inspiration that resonated within from the walls of the Cabinet of Wonder.
Children, parent chaperones, and teachers returned from the trip with ideas, excitement, and enthusiasm. We also came back with rich resources to take this project in divergent directions.
I explained that travel used to be just for a very few rich people. Most people never left where they lived. That meant, if you were born n Washington, DC, at a time before museums, you would not see a Palm Tree or a desert. You would only see the geography and culture of the people who you lived with. Unless you had the opportunity to visit a very wealthy person’s Cabinet of Wonder.
Prior to the trip, the children were already planning to create their own Cabinet of Curiosity. The children pulled out their sketches of an object they saw, collected, or bought when traveling outside of Washington, DC. These objects range from Grandpa’s old toy collection on a shelf in Pennsylvania to tall buildings with TV screens in NYC to an outdoor shower in North Carolina.
Wanting to put this in a context to make them aware also of Georgraphy, the children have begun a new strand of this project. They mapped where their personal object of wonder is located on a map in the studio.
Mapping.
What is a map?
Liam: It’s something to find out where something is.
Madeline: It shows you different countries and cities.
Gabriel: To lead you where you want to go.
Samuel: Sometimes you get what you want. Like treasure. It shows you with arrows. Like a pirate map.
Benjamin: It helps you how to get home.
Looking at the map and noticing the land and water, Isabel added this:
There’s less where we can stand and more where we can drown.
Rowan: If you want to go to a jungle, you might want to look at a map.
Tate: A map is so if you get lost or if you wanna see where the world is.
Riley: A map is to look ahead.
Lusa: To see where you are.
Only two children out of two classes knew where to find a location on the maps.
Percy new exactly where Idaho was. He told me he has a map puzzle so that’s why he knows. The other kids were very interested in how far Idaho was.
With hints, eventually all the locations were found. A world map was added because several children had objects of wonder outside the US, like Audrey, Ryan, Madeline. and more.
Most children are growing up with GPS devices as their maps. How does this effect the concept of mapping and the related lessons that Geography brings?
Here is an article that shows an alarming trend, American Schoolchildren Appear Lost in Latest Study of Geography Aptitude
From this article,
“Students aren’t learning subjects such as geography and history as teachers spend more time on math and reading to accommodate standardized tests, said Roger M. Downs, a Pennsylvania State University geography professor.
As “classroom time becomes an even more precious and scarce commodity, geography, with subjects such as history and the arts, is losing out in the zero-sum game that results from high- stakes testing,” Downs said in a statement released with the results.”
and
“Geography “provides the context for understanding many of the complex social, political and economic relationships that exist in our world,” said Garrison.”
Having the maps has created cross-fertilazation for all children using the studio.
Every group seems to question and interact with the display of maps. Just last week a three year old said to me, “…hey, why do you have these planets on the wall?”
The individual Objects of Wonder are now a blueprint for creating a Kindergarten Cabinet of Curiosity.
Similar to the Fairy house project, with more complexity-the children are slowly developing what steps to do next as they begin to visually represent in the context of the 15th-17th Century phenomenon.
Repurposed cigar boxes, some broken apart are being transformed.
For many, it means following plans to create and determine background colors that makes sense for the object.
Using clay, representations are being made and added as a three dimensional object to fit inside the cabinet. Scale, correct use of craft to ensure the clay objects are strong, and thought to making the clay clearly express their idea are just some of the challenges the children are facing.
Percy making the log home he stayed in when in Idaho with his family.
Kamrin working on representing a wall of stuffed animals of every sort he saw in Virginia.
Lilah trying to figure out how to create the outdoor shower she saw.
The children who experienced the ornate cabinets and chambers filled with cabinets at The Walters Museum are also using mosaic and gold and silver paint to give their cabinet a historic design.
Every child has to manage where they are in the project, what materials they need, how to use, care for, and clean up the materials, what to do next, and what to do when something falls apart, or just doesn’t work out.
Love in learning is not an “extra”. Children who are motivated will push themselves to persevere in all domains of learning when they have the drive to do so. Isn’t that the same for adults?
I am ending the post with an article I read recently, Save your Relationships: Ask the Right Questions. Before you skip the rest because it sounds like a horrible self-help text consider the subtitle:
“A caring question is a key that will unlock a room inside the person you love”
(I would also say in the school context, A caring provocation will unlock a room inside the people you love and teach.)
The act of teaching, parenting, and being in a relationship is the ability to provoke both understanding and expression.
How often have parents said to me, “My child never tells me what they did all day. How do you get them to do this?”
Here’s some examples from the article
“How did you feel during your spelling test?
What did you say to the new girl when you all went out to recess?
Did you feel lonely at all today?
Were there any times you felt proud of yourself today?
And I never ask my friends: How are you? Because they don’t know either.
Instead I ask:
How is your mom’s chemo going?
How’d that conference with Ben’s teacher turn out?
What’s going really well with work right now?”
This article concludes by saying
“Questions are like gifts – it’s the thought behind them that the receiver really FEELS. We have to know the receiver to give the right gift and to ask the right question. Generic gifts and questions are all right, but personal gifts and questions feel better. Love is specific, I think. It’s an art. The more attention and time you give to your questions, the more beautiful the answers become. “
Sound familiar?
That’s because when I asked the PreSchool children, What is love?, Miles’ response summed up the above text.
He said:
“All these questions are love.”
(Early Childhood sanctioned hall graffiti. 2014)
One heart at a time
This year at SWS, I have three new classrooms of children to interact with. For the first time we have two 3 year old preschool classrooms and one classroom with non-categorical medically fragile children.
Scarlett, one of our children from our first SWS 3 year old PreSchool program
and
Ayanna, who is in Ms. Maureen’s non-categorical class next door
Because they are located on the ground floor, many people have not had the opportunity to greet the possibilities that grow with these new populations.
In a Reggio context, this has been an opportunity to truly believe in the concept of the 100 Languages.
The idea that children are able to express themselves through 100 Languages and that teachers/facilitators need to be “Visual Listeners” to observe, understand and extend that conversation (especially non-verbal conversations) has always been a tenant that I embrace.
In the context of our new classes, the pre-school children do not necessarily possess the strongest ability of expression verbally and with the medically fragile children, the majority are non-verbal.
With the preschool children, my goal has been to engage the senses, develop their capacity to be in a small group that gives and receives, and the experience/environment to express themselves and their theories and for them to find value in this.
Using the outdoors and the garden as a provocation to “see,” I set up this provocation in the studio.
“There’s something on the round carpet for you to see. Please walk around it, look closely, have a seat, and think about what it is.”
“It looks like a snowflake!” Abbey
“Green stripes!” Joe-Joe
“Green pictures!” Oskar
“A flower and the petals.” Miles
“Like the sun!” Emily
“It looks like a spider.” Coby
“I think it looks like a spider web.” William M.
“It looks like a diamond.” Elana
The previous week I had the children paint and asked them what they “saw” or imagined in a painting. Because of this, they returned to this type of thinking and few children noticed or verbalized that everything was green without prompting.
“There are 100’s of greens in the world, and we are going to hunt for them in the garden today.”
I attended a conference where a presenter shared that because of the extended time young children are spending on ipods, iphones, and other close range viewing screens- children are not developing full spectrum color sight as well as full long range distance sight.
As an artist and human this appalled me. To counter this possibility, the intention was to get the children to observe all the nuances of color outside, especially in our vibrant garden.
After an exciting and intense green hunt, the children engaged in painting only in green. It also was an opportunity to introduce small brushes and small paintings, another way to make marks, learn to take care of paint colors, and have a shared experience in the studio.
“What do you think of your small green paintings?”
“This one (green color) is kinda blue. The dark green, it is melting all the light colors up.” William T.
“Mine is beautiful.” Jillian
“They look like the grown up paintings.” Simon
Continuing the provocation of nature and the garden, I facilitated embodying leaves and the concept of metaphor within the concept of the fall leaves and three year old children.
With the non-categorical medically fragile children I began a journey of non-verbal communication and relationship through materials and the senses.
My goal is to develop a relationship of caring and trust, a community of “makers” and an awakening of senses through projects and materials.
.
At first I was a little timid. How much can I touch, move, adapt with these young children. What is safe for them? What is a good risk? How much can I expect?
(Making musical percussive shakers)
The beauty of eye contact and a pat from a child who initially stayed across the room and by week three began to join me and “make”, observing a child realize they are making marks instead of watching others make marks, the reactions to cause and effect, the feel and sound of materials, the lightness of being when I began spontaneously singing to engage them in a new project, the non-verbal greetings of joy when I walked in by week four, the deep beauty and surprise of touch (both human and materials.) The richness in these small moments of connection is vast. 
The continuity of the garden and nature explorations and inspirations continues with the Prek 4’s and Kindergarten classes.
I have such gratitude for the community (led by Jennifer Mampara and Nicole Mogul) in creating and maintaining the garden that greets every child, family member, friend, and visitor as they enter our school.
At a staff meeting last month, 2nd grade teacher Erika Bowman spoke with great admiration and awe at a community who makes it a value to create and grow a bountiful garden, the first year existence in new location.
For the PreK 4’s, all the project work has been about facilitating the development of visual voice to express their observations in the garden.
Each small group picked a vegetable to touch, observe and then sketch. Before beginning each child was asked to observe their plant silently and think about something they noticed after looking really really really closely. Then we took turns sharing and listening, learning that listening to your friend is an important part of the curriculum. Listening to another child gives the group new ways of thinking, seeing, and doing. This is a practice that I want the children to value.
Here’ a radish conversation:
“Whoa, there’s a pink thing down there!! Charlie B.
“There’s spikes on the stem.” Liam
“The leaves are a little pokey.” Priya
“There are lines on the leaf.” Julia
“The shape on the leaves is blurry like, wiggly.” Santino
One of the cabbage groups had a very interesting conversation that developed into theory building:
“I can see little holes in the leaves.” Myles T.
“Caterpillar must have ate it.” Quinn
“I see a bubble. It’s a bubble of water.” Melin
“Why do you think the leaves have those bubbles?” Ms. McLean
“I think maybe a bumble bee came. I think a bumble bee came and sting the leaf to make a bubble” Edwin
“I think it’s juice that someone spilled.” Quinn
“I think it’s bumble bee honey. I think a bumble bee ate the leaf, then licked it and the bumble bee made a juicy on the leaf.” Anais.
“Yeah, I think it’s from a bumble bee licking it.” Myles T.
In the following weeks children used their sketches from the garden with a corresponding photo of the vegetable and used paint to make an observational painting in the studio.
This time the children had to be extremely observent not only about line and form but color. 
Going through the same thinking process, children were asked to silently look closely and observe the color and then we went around the table and listened to each other’s observations.
“The white on the leaf is cause the sun is shining.” Mason
The following week each group progressed to making Observational Art of the same vegetable, this time using materials.
First they had to shop and collect materials. Next they had to arrange the pieces so it made sense using their photo, observational drawing and observational painting as a resource.
“Why do you have all the colors if we only need greens and red and pink ?” asked Gabriel. He had a radish and was a little disappointed when I asked him if his radish had all the rainbow of materials color that he had placed on his paper.
“Because then I would be doing all your thinking. You get to make your own decisions and this is how I can see your thinking. It’s hard but your brain will grow.” Ms. McLean
Before gluing, I ask children to place the obkects on the paper, allowing them to edit and change, unti shape, form and space begin to come together and make sense into the form of their vegetable plant. When I see they have solid ideas forming, I place the glue down for them to use. Because of this process, children usually continiue to add and delete objects as they observe nuances not noticed before.
Sometimes a child will need what is called scaffolding.
“I see the red stem very clearly. What do you see inside the leaf?
“Red lines!”
Andrew then went back, getting more materials to show his new observation. (below)
Children are learning to make visual metaphors by using objects to represent and symbolize real thinking and observations. This is no different then learning that letters symbolize words that can represent thinking and observations. This is literacy.
Cora’s cabbage
Melin’s cabbage
Ava’s Swiss Chard
When looking at their representations, I avoid having children at this stage present their own work.
Here are the two “scripts” I give them:
“Please share what was difficult or hard about making this observational painting.”
And/Or,
(With the Materials Observational Art project, each child was asked to “read” the art of another child’s work in the group and respond,) “When you look at Ingrid’s Observational Art, what is it telling you she noticed.”
This intentional reflection practice encourages children to utilize visual thinking strategies (instead of “I made a stem.”), listening (the artist is eager to hear what his/her friend sees in his/her art) and another layer of observation development. It also illustrates the belief that every child has something to learn from another.
Using the garden and nature as a provocation with all grades, (but with a different approach) allows for a continuity and collective understanding for the representations throughout the school.
The Kindergarten children were challenged to tackle symbolism and meaning through color and objects.
In this provocation, they were asked to make a plan for a collaborative sculpture where every color or image had to represent or symbolize something from our garden or nature experiences.
These plans stayed up on the big whiteboard in the common are. They were a constant reference point and guide as children made choices as to which part of their plan they wanted to create to be added to the collaborative group sculpture.
Here’s Noah working on wrapping blue fabric around sticks he had painted yellow. “It represents the sun and the sky.”
As children progressed in making all the small symbollic pieces, the counter became a bounty and source of ideas.
Each week Kindergarten children returned to see visually what the next step was.
Last week many of the small group sculptures were assembled.
The process was truly an act of trusting the group, as the head became unbalanced and balanced as the children took turns drilling and adding pieces.
An unintentional lesson was in fact Balalnce.
Nature Garden Centerpiece/Sculpture (Orange/Gold Variation) 10/22/13
My sticks look like flat oranges. It represents oranges. –Lilah
I planned to do the stick. I painted it gold. The gold represents the sun. –Dorian
I made it be like an acorn tree. I painted it blue like water around the earth. –Aksel
I painted the head golden like hot lava. –Gabriel
I made the thing about some flowers that are in our garden. They are kind of colorful and they are are very soft. And they are small. The petals are warm. Flowers are important in nature because they are beautiful. –Anabel
I painted the golden part on the head. I was thinking of rocks. Some rocks are golden.
-Kamrin
The acorns represent the sky, the blue acorns. The sky has clouds. The sun shines on it. –Sofie
Nature Garden Centerpiece/Sculpture (Blue Variation) 10/22/13
I made flowers. They help bees and butterflies live. –Mira
Flowers make the world a beautiful place. –Willa
I did the sun. It helps flowers grow. –Dylan
I made grass. Grass is good for the world because it makes people walk on it. –Willa
I made a flower. Flowers help butterflies and bees. Butterflies make pollen. Bees make honey for us. If they weren’t alive we would have no pollen or honey. And then we wouldn’t be happy because if there was just plain yogurt, you would want honey in it. It doesn’t taste so good, if you mix it up with honey it’s good. -Ibby
I made some sticks that I painted yellow. It represents the sun. And the blue that I put on, represents the sky. –Noah
The red roses, they can grow good and live like if you water them a bunch they will be good. They will grow better. –Isaiah
The blue face represents the water and the sky.
-Ainsley
Nature Garden Sculpture/Centerpiece (Orange/Blue Variation) 10/16/13
The flowers represent nature. -Isabel
Flowers make earth look beautiful. They bring pollen for bees and butterflies, to help other flowers grow.
–Aurora
The leaves represent flowers. If there were no leaves then the flowers would never have water. Cause the leaves have little tiny strings that go into the tree that gives water to the flowers.
–Gabriel
After you grow cucumbers you wash them. You can cut it up and then you eat them. You can turn them into pickles and eat them too. –Benjamin
The tree represents growing things.
The head represents the sun. The glasses represent water. The water makes things grow.
–Liam
The carrots symbolize eating. And they also help you grow. –Samuel
The leaves give us air. -Madeline
Nature Garden Centerpiece/Sculpture (Green/Brown Variation) 10/15/13
I painted the head green and brown. The brown symbolizes dirt. The green symbolizes leaves, spinach, and grass. –Riley
I made the sticks like with the tomatoes. The beads represent the tomatoes. -Lusa
Birds like gardens because they like fruit and stuff. –Gael
The apples represent a tree. When you eat apples you get very healthy. The apples stick on a tree for a reason, so they don’t get bruised. –Dominic
The carrot grows. The root grows from the bottom, and the carrot is part of the bottom. You pull it up from the leaves. You wash it, and then you eat it. –Tate
So leaves, they survive on trees. So it is beautiful.
–Rowan
The caterpillar and the butterfly symbolize nature because they live in the dirt and nature is in the dirt. -Audrey
Nature Garden Sculpture/Centerpiece (Purple/Brown Variation) 10/15/13
The brown paint represents the dirt in the garden and also the earth. –Harvey
The carrots go in the dirt. –Eric
The necklace represents the rocks of the ground.
–Sonora
On top, the stick represents trees with berries.
–Hazel
It symbolizes a flower to the branch. I see a carrot tree, there also might be an acorn tree.
–Issa
The purple is for the whole wide world to grow. If people die, the purple takes their spirit and buries them.
–Geraye
The flowers symbolize prettiness.
–Tali
The jewels symbolize a shiny thing, like the sun shining down. It also makes music, like a jingly.
-Ryan
I no longer am teaching the older expanded grades of (this year) 1st and 2nd.
The growing pains of a Reggio Inspired school are , How do you keep the continuity, caring and intimacy of a small community, while at the same time expand to secure a vital future and create a new revolutionary model of public education?
This questions helped me to develop some small “interventions” to cross-fertilize the entire community through creativity.
The first small intervention I just recently tried, is inviting two first grade children to be studio assistants for an hour while I have a 3 year old group.
My first two friends were Kayden and Remi from Ms. Scofield’s class. I wanted them to experience being in a different developmental bracket, so I asked them to visit while a had 5 three year olds in the studio.
I broke their time in to two segments. Before I went to retrieve my three’s, I invited Remi and Kayden in.
“The three year olds have been exploring nature around the school. They have such wonderful ideas about the changing of the seasons and the leaves right now. However, you have the experience to illustrate and respond to their ideas, like an artist who does the pictures for another writer.”
Here are there responses.
They took this work seriously. They didn’t laugh or question the validity or ideas of the three year old children, they simply, responded visually.
I will continue to explore the possibilities of these types of new interactions.
Last week many of the teachers attended a professional development at Washington International School, in conjunction with the DC-Project Zero (Harvard Grad School of Education Research Collaborative/Institute.)
One of the speakers, Ben Mardell said, “We can make children (young children) big or small.”
At SWS, our youngest smallest children are not considered small. We see them in big ways, as individuals and as part of the community.
The first ever SWS Yarn Bomb was the second intervention or act I facilitated to bring the community together in a creative cacophony of joy and color.
As I view the images of children/adults of all ages equally participating, it clearly makes visible the strength of honoring every individual at their current stage of development.
People stop by and ask me, How’s it going? What do you think of this big place? How’s the change? Do you like it?
This is a great experiment in expanding the heart. It is beating, it is warm, it is vigorous non-stop beating, it is at times exhausting, but it is, truly wonderous and just the beginning of a ripple of change. A ripple that will keep on moving outward, one heart at a time.
Out into the Universe
THIS IS IT, THE PREMIER OF RAINBOW BEINGS FLASHMOB VIDEO! Click this link[fve] [/fve]Rainbow Beings PreK Flashmob from Marla McLean on Vimeo.[/fve]
Yesterday was summer solstice. Yesterday was the last day of school. How perfect that this was the day the children got to watch the Rainbow Beings video and then dance. What a great ritual for the most colorful light filled day of the year.
And to add to this auspicious post, tonight and tomorrow is The Super Moon, when the moon is brightest and closest to earth for 2013.
All are a metaphor for the random acts of joy and light that these rainbow beings brought to Union Station.
It is also a metaphor for our school community and the web of light it creates within, throughout, and out into the Universe.
Happiness being taught
Show some emotion.
If you work with young children, you know there are many opportunities to experience emotions.
Last month I was working on a project with some 1st graders. The provocation was to plan a story without writing the details or the the ending.
Why? Well, I noticed the 1st graders had figured out how to draw and make graphic representations well enough, to respond quickly to pretty much any prompt or observation. However, their ideas and drawing were somewhat static. The figures (even though well done) seemed to be a stuck at the same level and their story development was not stretching them.
I wanted to know what would happen if each page, a part of the plan was tackled slowly and thoughtfully through a new process.
First, I asked them to look at their story plan and only draw the setting part. “If you said it was winter what needs to be remembered? If you have a location of Washington DC, how do I know it from the picture? If it is night time, show it.”
I was surprised that I had to teach them to “read” or evaluate what they had drawn, to see if it made sense. Having the plan to refer to , made this facilitation quickly become an independent process. Instead of saying, “I’m done!” and me asking “how do you know?” and them responding “Because I did it,” the responses became more intentional, such as “They all have mittens and coats, and there’s snow and a sidewalk, and rowhouses.”
The next time in the art studio the focus was on facial expressions.
Emma Clare, “It’s when you show how you feel on your face.”
Using mirrors and books as resources and really practicing and noticing, the children checked their plan to see if they needed to represent an expression that was happy, sad, surprising…
Bridget
Emma
Carrington
Carrington for several tries drew a U shaped bottom lip and a parralel line for the top lip. Hmmmm, I would say, I’m not seeing an expression of happiness or laughter. I am seeing the same smile you always draw. I want you to push yourself and solve this. I kept prompting, look closely at your top lip in the mirror. What shape is it making? She became extremely agitated, “I don’t know what to do!”. After several attempts and nearing frustration, she realized the top lip is (unbelievably) shaped like a traditional frown line! Once she figured this out, she was elated. She also began helping her peers to see the same thing.
Xavier, surprise
Xavier developed a technique of puposeful smudging, after he accidently dripped some ink on his page. This became a great resource for all the kids once shared.
Alden, surprise
Charlie, surprise
“Huuuh!?” Patrick
Maya concentrated looking in the mirror longer than many of her peers. All of a sudden she looked up at me, with tears streaming down her face-but smiling!
“Look Ms. McLean, I practiced being sad so hard, tears came out!”
Another time in the art studio, I asked them to pull out their story idea or plan and tell me, where they go to in their story.
I then asked them to try to walk, run, skip to their imagined place based on the 1st drawing figures in the setting page. It was hilarious acting out walking with both arms straight out and legs locked straight as well. Thus became the exploration of joints, viewpoint, and action. How does the body work? What do arms do when one walks? How often are both feet on the ground when one is moving? How does one look when being viewed sideways?
Dylan
Mahki
Eli
Adinath
This process was extremely difficult.While the intention was to help children think about movement, expression and observation, it became about perseverence.
I heard Christine Carter, Phd. speak at the Creativity and Neuroscience conference I attended.
She believes there are some simple steps to boost creativity:
Teach kids how to be happy.
While this might be simple, it is far more complex. Happiness is a set of skills that must be learned. She asks, “How’s that problem solving going when you are angry?”
The first place to start is LETTING KIDS FAIL. Children must be taught the skills, thinking and coping for when things don;t go as planned.
When children do not learn these skills, they hide mistakes, feel shame, expect others (parents/teachers) to “fix” things for them, and in teen years self-medicate through alcohal and drugs.
“No one is entitled to a life free from pain. ” says Christine Carter.
It is necessary to develop grit and persistance. Mistakes are opportunity.
Before one of the studio sessions, I had a conference with Alysia Scofield (one of the 1st grade teachers.) She expressed that many of her kids were quick to crumple up or dispose of any work when they experience any mistake, instead of working through the hard parts and transforming mistakes or trying to solve the problem. For this reason, I started the class by saying that if you make a mistake, you would not be able to grab another piece of paper today. Instead, you would need to figure out how to make a mistake into something wonderful.
I gave some examples of accidently dropping a big puddle of ink on my drawing. What could I turn this into? Silence.
What about a flower? A hole? A tree? A rug? In fact, the image became more interesting with the transformed mistake.Soon kids were making innovative suggestions.
“Ask each other for ideas! Artists always do that!”
Shortly after, Maya made some type of “mistake” and asked for another paper. I reminded her that this was the challenge, to turn the mistake into something else. She was not happy. She proceeded to ask, then beg for another piece of paper. I encouraged her to ask friends for suggestions. I told her she could ask me for suggestions if she wanted some. Friends began to chime in with innovative solutions. No.
In that moment, she became so angry, she began to cry, and ask and then return to begging for another piece of paper.
These are moments when you have to make a split second decision. I took a risk, “Maya, I know you can solve this problem. Everyone here is willing to make suggestions. I am so sorry you are feeling frustrated, however, I will not be giving you another piece of paper today. You are welcome to go get a drink of water or take a break if that helps too.”
Katie went over to give her a hug as she returned to drawing silently. She skipped free time and continued drawing, for a long time. Then she looked up at me. “I’m done.”
“Can I see?”
I looked.
“What do you think?” I asked
“It’s the best drawing I have ever done.” replied Maya, with a huge grin.
“I am really proud of you, you didn’t give up, you worked through the hard part, and now you feel really good.”
Big smile.
“It’s my best drawing ever.”
Hard. But not hard for hard-sake.
Another step in teaching kids these skills of developing the abilty to persevere is: Reducing Stress through Compassion.
Instead of focusing on the child/self (What did you do? Did you do your best? Were you line leader? Did you know the answer? Let me see yours) broaden kids capacity and vocabulary for compassion or the “other” with simple daily rituals.
Here’s two questions to ask your children everynight at the dinner table (and the rest of your family members and self too!)
“What’s one thing you did for someone today?”
“What’s one kind thing someone did for you today?”
The brain has a funny way of returning to neural passages ways again and again and again in times of stress or failure. This determines response. When kids (and adults) default to the ways in which they are supported and helped on a constant basis, they are able to frame or perceive problems differently.
Instead of defaulting to “Well he did it first!, or I couldn’t do it because the teacher wouldn’t give me more paper”, the child defaults to “Oh, I made a mistake, how can I fix it or make it better, who can help me solve this?”
Last week, I made a mistake. Somehow I completely skipped a studio group in Mr. Jere’s room the previous week. When I saw the skipped group, I said, “Ms. McLean made a horrible mistake. I had to change some groups around last week, and I completely skipped you! I feel terrible, because now you have double the work to do. In the future, please say something to me if you think you were skipped. I feel really bad. Grown-ups make mistakes too. I am so sorry.”
“That’s ok Ms. McLean.” replied Harvey, “Now you know what to do!”
The PreK’s have been working on the very long process of creating Soundsuits, inspired by artists Nick Cave.
Watch this video to experience the inspiration for this project: http://video.pbs.org/video/2226846036/ (your children can too, even if they are not in PreK they are aware of this project)
Once again, this is a project that takes tremendous perseverance.
Because I noticed the lure of the tools in the studio, the project started with an ankle piece.
I use real tools with students, and they needed to flatten the bottle caps and then use an awl to put a hole in it.
Dominc: “This is hard work. I’m gonna sweat!”
While some children were energized by the heavy work, others were fatigued. The amount of sensory inout and output varies from child to child. It is my job to notice who is awakened by this work, and remember to use this as an adaptation. At the same time, for those who fatigue early with heavy work, I notate who needs support to develop their core strength.
When Samuel found his name on a bottlecap he was thrilled. Suddenly, everyone was looking closely at what was printed on the bottlecaps. Soon anchors, elephants and “this is almost my name ” were seen. This act encouraged not only literacy and observation skills, but an understanding and acknowledgment of the extraordinary found in the ordinary.
The work on this project vacillated between focused heavy big work and small focused actions.
Attaching the bottle caps and beads so they create percussion, was once again difficult.
While this proved frustrating to many, Lucinda seemed to respond to the sequencing and constant twisting and connecting. Her Sound Suit ankle was overflowing with sound. She also was able to help others. Everyone in each group has a strength. Everyone has many challenges. By remembering that Lucinda can help peers in this part of the project, she is also able to receive help at other times. This is the culture that must be nurtured and taught in order for kids to be able to handle mistakes.
In every part of this project, every time someone completed a part, and tested it out- the perseverance quotient heightened.
Next it was time to revisit the artist Nick Cave’s work.
I started by asking “What is a suit?”
First I got blank stares and silence. Then slowly ideas emerged. This is the power of a group. It promotes formulating remembering, and responding in a social and conversational construct. It gives each participant a wider breath of looking at topics.,
“A bathing suit! ” Tate
“Superman wears a suit!” Liam
“A costume is like a suit.” Dylan
“My Dad wears a suit!” Audrey and Maddie expressed this in separate groups
“A coat you wear. Something you put on your whole body so people will notice you.” Gabriel (In Jere’s class)
Next, I showed them some videos of Nick Cave’s creations in action and still.
When I stated, “It will take a long time to make your own sound suit.”
Levi shouted out, “Its like the fish!”
He was able to connect the persistance needed to complete the wire project to the ideas of this new project. Hard. But not hard for hard-sake.
This is Eric using his Sound Suit idea plan to figure out what color he needs to select. He is shown using the tape on the table to measure the strips.
The concept that designing an object means more then one view is one leap these learners must learn or “read.” When I first proposed the template for designing the Sound Suits with a two-figure graphic, Mira was the first to figure it out. “Is that the front and the back of the shirt?”
This new way of thinking about a two-sided design using a one-sided paper was also hard.
Aksel was thrilled by the opportunity to alter the design. “Mine will have wings, look!” And he drew the colors so they looped like wings. So many adults do not realize that young children have strong ideas. It is when they have the time, facilitation and the culture to create original ideas that they come to fruition and visibility.
Next, the fabricating of the Sound Suits.
I broke down this part of the project into small bits. First, just weaving the flagging tape through the front and back collar. (Myself and a cadre of parent volunteers snipped two parallel snips for each strip to go through.)
Once again, this was difficult. many kids put the strips in backwards, or had trouble using two hands to manipulate threading the strips through the front and back of the shirt.
Using intentional language and uploading,
When I heard, “This is hard, I can’t do it!”
I said,
“Can’t is a bad word in the art studio-it stops you. What can you say instead?”
and
“This will be difficult. That’s ok. You can take a skipping break down the hall and return, you can stand, you can sit, you can shake your hands, you can jump. Everytime you come it will get a little less hard. The practice will make it easier for you to do. And when you do something hard, and complete it, you feel soooo good because your brain has grown, and you know you can do the hard parts.”
“I’m not very good at this.”
I replied, “That’s because you’ve never done it before. Stick with it, you’ll see, it will start making sense.”
“What are some things you can do when you are stuck?” (Ask for suggestions from other kids and adults, express that it is tricky and I need help, express it is frustrating because you are not alone, it is for hard for someone else in the group too.)
After two to three studio times of adding the collar and sleeves, I told the kids they could try the Sound Suits on.
When the first group tried to attach the flagging tape to the mid section of the shirt, it was too hard. The oversized shirts become just a mess of fabric when trying to find the inside. In this case, hard was just too hard. At this point I came up with a solution that I had a hunch might work.
Embroidery hoops! You can see this allowed for many opportunities to try techniques, and allowed the children to maneuver the strips through successfully.
I am intentionally changing the culture, wheras asking for suggestions is applauded as opposed to a sign of weakness. Wheras it is exciting when someone figures out a way that works for them, and it is shared as a resource for all.
Gabriel (in Ms. Hannah’s class) was having a hard time persevering. He complained and procrastinated. Maybe this felt too big or overwhelming so I helped him break it down further.
“Gabriel, why don’t you put four strips through the sound suit and then take skip all the way down the hall and back. You can do this each time.”
This helped. Then he started slowing down again.
“Hey Gabriel, how about you count out the strips you are using before you start, just four!”
“I’m gonna do a pattern!”
He returned to the work with energy.
All of a sudden I noticed he was talking as he worked, “In the lava, out the lava, in the water, out the water …”
His flagging tape became a metaphor and a mantra, and he worked to completion.
In the lava out the lava, in the water out the water. Hard, but not hard for hard-sake.
Working in collaboration with Movement Teacher, Shannon Dunne the kids are developing a new conversation with movement and patterns, their selves not as their selves but these “rainbow beings.”
(A flash mob in Eastern Market is being planned in a few weeks, an opportunity to bring these rainbow beings into the unsuspecting daily lives of the public.)
Here’s a peek at Shannon with Mr. Jere’s class taking turns watching two classmates have a conversation using their body and ankle Sound Suit piece “Remember and think about how one person talks while one person listens, and then you respond and say something. In this conversation you are doing the same thing, but you are using your body and no words to talk.”
See how attentive the rest of the class is.
This idea of choreography surfaced in the studio.
“Look Ms. McLean! ” said Aurora, “Look how to move.
Full Moon
and Half Moon!”
Now that so much progress is being made, they can’t wait to try out the Sound Suits in progress for anyone who will look, teachers, kids in the halls, and especially their classroom teachers and their peers.
Hard isn’t good for hard-sake. But hard is good within the context of a project that encourages not only personal growth but the development of a culture of shared community struggle and JOY!
The Sound Suits are not so interesting on their own, it is within the group that the emotions and purpose soar. It is the development of a community creating an identity as a group of rainbow beings that make this powerful.
It is hard. But not hard for hard-sakes.
It is fraught with mistakes. But what do you see?
I see happiness being taught.
The Intent, the Process, and the Beauty
This post is a continuation of my last post The greatest small gift, (March 6th.) I like to think of it as a continuing conversation or an opportunity to share documentation in a different “language.” It is my hope that through the two posts a deeper and fuller understanding of my work with young children is better understood and valued. More importantly that project work and children’s work is better understood and valued.
