Serpentine Galleries’ Play as Radical Practice toolkit

This post looks at Serpentine Galleries’ ‘Play as Radical Practice’ toolkit, a creative resource produced between the Gallery’s learning team, artist Albert Potrony and the Portman Early Childhood Centre (UK).

Image credit: Serpentine Galleries

In 2014, the Serpentine learning team commenced a series of artist residencies with the Portman Early Childhood Centre in Westminster, London (UK) run as part of their Changing Play programme. Changing Play aims to explore the possibilities of play through exploring current practices and alternate re-considerations of early childhood education.

Last year, artist Albert Potrony undertook a 12-week residency at the Portman as part of the programme in which he worked collaboratively with children, staff, parents and Serpentine to explore the potential of free play in the school system. Throughout the residency, Albert created a series of material-led play spaces featuring matter such as recycled tubes, plastic sheets, ropes and reflective plastics. During the sessions, children were encouraged to creatively explore the materials alongisde peers and adults through play. Before, during and after each session, the artist, Portman staff, parents and Gallery team engaged in critically reflective discussions that considered the relationships between the programme’s various components such as the materials, curriculum, people and pedagogical underpinnings. The ‘Play as Radical Practice’ toolkit is a direct product of these collaborative discussions.

The toolkit is comprised of three main parts: a booklet, a 24-piece card game (pictured below) and an accompanying film. These work together to share and further consider the imagery, questions and ideas generated from the residency. The toolkit also seeks to support early educators to form solidarities with the children they work with and to advocate for free play in the state school system. This is done through taking a individuals taking position as well as including thoughts and questions from multiple perspectives.

I really like the way the card game explores the residency’s emergent debates and ideas from multiple perspectives including children, parents, curators, the artist and centre staff. Each of the cards in the game features an image and provocation such as field notes, a quote and/or question. For example, one card combines an image of a child and staff member playing with the artist’s materials in the nursery. A quote from a Portman staff member is then presented alongside the image with four interconnected questions:

” ‘They are different children with different members of staff. It’s really interesting, when you read the school reports you think ‘I don’t see him like that at all.’ He may be really chatty with me and really quiet with someone else and also the children behave differently depending on who is present, which is that thing about stepping away from them and letting them play by themselves as part of that witnessing.’ Staff

What is witnessing? Who does it? What does it mean? Witnessing as assessment?  “

These work together to situate the emergence of the educator’s idea around the standardisation of learning within the specific context that it was produced. Furthermore, the card invites the reader, or ‘player’ of the card game, to extend, challenge or support the teacher’s experience through critically thinking about the questions themselves.

Each card is further divided into key themes such as space, relationships, standardisation and chaos/order. Each one of these themes prompts deeper consideration and re-considerations around the imagery, quotes and questions featured in the toolkit. The accompanying booklet investigates these themes more extensively alongside quotes from key early childhood and play theorists such as Hillevi Lenz-Taguchi, Tim Gill, Simon Nicholson and Arthur Battram. You may also come across the introduction I wrote for the toolkit in the booklet, lol. I do wish to point out that my role on the programme is insignificant in comparison to the amazing educators, curators, artists, children and parents who worked together on an ongoing basis to produce the complex conversations, thinking and practices throughout the residency.

The toolkit booklet can be downloaded from the Serpentine website here. A limited number of printed toolkits are available free of charge from the Serpentine learning team. For a copy, please email: jemmae@serpentinegalleries.org . The Play As Radical Practice film will be available to view on the Serpentine website in the near future. An interim report of Serpentine’s World Without Walls programme, including Changing Play, can also be downloaded from the University of Nottingham’s Centre for Research in Arts, Creativity and Literacies website here: worldwithoutwalls_interimresearchreport_final-copy

What is a children’s ‘creative learning environment’ in an art museum?

In this post I explore the question of ‘what is a children’s creative learning environment in an art museum?’ Various understandings of this question are drawn upon to consider its relationship with other terminology such as ‘space’ and ‘relational learning.’

A shadow self-portrait taken by child

Creativity stems from the latin word ‘creō’ that means to make or to create. This word  suggests that creativity is a process that supports the formation of previously inexistent things such as ideas, physical objects or meanings. An environment can be understood in various ways, including possible associations with the natural and physical world. The Oxford online dictionary gives two definitions of environment. Firstly as ‘the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates’ and secondly as ‘the setting or conditions in which a particular activity is carried on.’ Both definitions imply that an environment is something that extends beyond physicality to non-material forces such as society, emotions, discourse (the way we talk and communicate) and concepts.

A creative learning environment can therefore be seen as a specific temporal, social, historical and cultural context in which these forces intertwine and momentarily shape how, what and why a learner is learning. Once this moment has passed, the forces unravel before continuing to transform and recombine in future learning contexts. This connects with what cultural geographer Doreen Massey’s (2005) describes in her writing on ‘space’ as forming from the emergent interrelations between human and non-human things over time and place. A learner’s experience in a learning environment can therefore be seen as a series of interconnected relational moments in which these diverse and complex forces come together.

This framing is built on an assumption that the world, and human knowledge, is in a continuous state of change, transformation and interconnection. In an art museum context, this could take many forms such as a dedicated space for children and families, a workshop, a performance, an exhibition or even a person’s experience of walking through the building to go to the bathroom.

A creative learning environment allows for the expansion of possibilities for learning instead of limiting them. Pre-set curriculum, guidelines, policy and regulations in schools have tendencies to control and reduce children’s ability to construct new relations in their learning and play (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence, 2007). Moving away from this, art museums are uniquely places sites for learning through their separation from formal curriculum. Whilst art institutions still have their own rules, regulations and guidelines, they also offer the potential for expansive learning possibilities with and through art. This then presents the possibility for new and complex relations to form over time, creating a network of connections between peoples, places, meanings and things.

To relate this back to the physical design of a learning environment, Mark Dudek argues that architecture for early childhood centres is not driven by a need for what is novelty and new but rather by an environment’s capacity “to grow and develop alongside the evolving patterns of its hosts, especially those of the children themselves… (Dudek, 2013: 7-9).” This suggests that a significant strength of a physical learning environment is in its ability to be creatively adapted and modified to new relations that emerge over time. Flexibility in design is therefore critical.

I am also drawn to the term ‘creative laboratory’ as a means of describing the pedagogical principles outlined above. The associations connected with a lab, such as it being a place that encourages experimentation, questioning, testing things out and productive failures seems like a metaphorical fit for these ideas. However it could also be argued that these qualities are simultaneously emblematic of an artist’s studio, FabLab or makerspace. Perhaps the term ‘creative learning environment’ is an over-arching expression for any learning context that encourages the expansive, dynamic and unpredictable growth of human knowledge.

References

Dahlberg, G., Moss, P., & Pence, A. R. (2007). Beyond quality in early childhood education and care: Postmodern perspectives. Oxon: Routledge.

Dudek, M (2016). Nurseries: A design guide. Oxon: Routledge.

Massey, D (2005). For Space. London: SAGE Publications.

Techniques for facilitating children’s learning in art museums: Demonstrating

This is the third post in a series on techniques for facilitating children’s learning with and through art in museums. The first introduced the broader ideas and debates underpinning facilitated learning, the second explored ‘suggesting’ and the third featured ‘questioning’. In this post the method of ‘demonstrating’ will be explored for its ability to extend, support and challenge children’s learning processes in art museums.

Each post includes a description of a technique in addition to how and when it may be useful. These should not be seen as all-conclusive methods of teaching and learning but more as different options to experiment with. I see these posts as thinking snapshots and hope they might generate deeper consideration around how others understand and implement methods in their context.

Demonstrating

To demonstrate means to show or explain how something is done (Cambridge Dictionary online, 2017). In an art museum, demonstrating could be used to show children how they could experiment with a resource, pronounce a new vocabulary word, use an art tool or explore different ways of thinking through artworks. MacNaughton & Williams (2009) also suggest that demonstrating is a means of assisting children in learning alternative and more effects ways of exploring a problem. Demonstration can therefore be used to introduce both verbal and non-verbal skills that aim for learner’s to then be able to use them independently. Finding a balance between children’s self-directed explorations and an educator making a decision to intervene and demonstrate a new skill or technique can sometimes be difficult to find.

Demonstrating new skills and behaviours can support the construction of new possibilities that children can use to explore artwork meanings, materials and concepts. Like other facilitated learning techniques, demonstrating can help to encourage more complex ways of thinking with and through art.

Artists may bring specialised knowledge on concepts, tools, art techniques and ways of engaging with art that they can then introduce to children through the instructional process of demonstration. The need to demonstrate skills suggests that there are limitations to the deconstruction of instructional-based learning and that children’s learning with and through art can be facilitated further through the introduction of new knowledge by someone with more advanced understandings of a particular skill. Bolt & McArdle (2013: 14) elaborate on this:

“With mantras, then, of self-expression, freedom and creativity, art teachers may avoid providing much direct instruction about art making to children, all the while having ‘rules for breaking the rules’ and to ‘teach without teaching’ (McArdle, 2008: 367) which go unspoken and taken for granted. Many preservice teachers, having themselves been left in primary and secondary school to develop ‘naturally’, give the lie to this notion of ‘natural unfolding’, when they arrive at university with little or no skill or artistry and without artistic language or insight. The discourse of ‘natural unfolding’ is attractive to those who know nothing about art, and it is convenient in the contemporary era of bare bones educational funding. If there is no teaching to be done in the arts, then there is no need for an art teacher.’

As this quote implies, the demonstration of specific skills and techniques that assist children’s thinking with and through art may be useful in facilitating and complexifying learning. Demonstrating does not necessarily mean that children need to progress through a series of fixed developmental stages of understandings. In a facilitated learning environment, demonstration can alternatively be seen as a method that gives children further possibilities for experimentation and explorations. A child may choose to take the skill or technique further or they may choose not to. Therefore, whilst demonstrating does require a child to imitate an action or behaviour to learn something new, it does not necessarily produce a singular way of doing this.

For example, picture a four-year-old child walking into a material-based family activity in a sculpture garden. The activity features an array of ‘loose parts’ materials (leaves, sticks, twine, logs, stones and clay) laid out over the lawn next to an Andy Goldsworthy artwork. These materials can be explored in a myriad of ways and do not require a gallery staff member to verbally introduce the activity to the family. The child runs over to the materials and stack the logs onto of one another. After a period of time, an educator or artist may decide to start playing alongside the child, picking up small pieces of the clay, rolling it into small balls, sticking it to a log and then squishing sticks into the clay. The child may watch this non-verbal demonstration of the clay’s ability to act as a connecting materials and begin to explore this technique themselves or they may continue to stack the logs and ignore the demonstration. Either way, the educator has opened possibilities for the child’s further experimentation and thinking through the materials.

A second example could be if an artist wants to encourage parents to talk with children in a workshop, they may create a situation in which they can demonstrate asking a toddler a series of questions that encourages more complex thinking through an artwork. The parents may then extend off this demonstrating and start a conversation with their child asking similar questions to what the artist did. Once the conversation starts to flow, they may then experiment with variations of different questions or even construct their own. Alternatively, they may ignore the artists demonstration all together.

Extending upon these examples, demonstrating can further support children’s learning when an educator:

• Uses clear, direct language to support their demonstration (MacNaughton & Williams, 2009);
• Creates logical and sequential steps that breaks down how to perform the skill. This can make a complex skill easier to understand. The educator must be familiar with the steps themselves so as not to confused themselves or children while demonstrating it (MacNaughton & Williams, 2009);
• Allows children lots of time to practice the skill, ask questions about it, discuss it as a group and seek further information if required;
• Encourages children to experiment with the technique in new situations or contexts once they feel comfortable performing it as a basic level;
• Gives further guidance or feedback in relation to how the skill could be used with other skills, materials and concepts.

Demonstrations can sometimes be an overly simplified version of an action or behaviour. This can be problematic if the learner does not understand that they have the ability to extend and expand upon the skills or techniques being introduced. Demonstration alone may be insufficient in facilitating children’s learning with and through art and may be more effective when combined with other techniques such as questioning, suggesting and giving feedback. Together these give children more options that can be combined with their self-directed explorations and experimentation.

I would love to hear your insights and feedback on demonstrating techniques to facilitate children’s learning with and through art in museums.

What is your experience of demonstrating skills to children and parents in art museums?

How do you allow for a balance of both instruction and children’s self-directed learning?

References 

Bolt & McArdle (2013). ‘Young Children, pedagogy and the arts: Ways of seeing.’ In McArdle & Boldt (Eds). Young children, pedagogy and the arts. Routledge: New York.

Cambridge Dictionary online (2017). Cambridge Dictionary website. Cambridge University Press.

McArdle, F (2008). The arts and staying cool. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 9(4), p. 365-374.

MacNaughton, G & Williams, G (2009). Teaching young children: Choices in theory and practice. Second edition. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

 

Techniques for facilitating children’s learning in art museums: Questioning

This is the third post in a series on techniques for facilitating children’s learning with and through art in museums. The first introduced the broader ideas and debates underpinning facilitated learning, the second explored ‘suggesting’ as a method for presenting children with options for different learning trajectories. Each post will include a description of a technique in addition to how and when it may be useful. These should not be seen as all-conclusive methods of teaching and learning but more as different options to experiment with. I see these posts as thinking snapshots and hope they might generate deeper consideration around how others understand and implement methods in their context.

Eduardo Paolozzi, Wittgenstein in New York (1964). Screenprint on paper. 763 x 538 mm.Tate collection

Questioning

“Asking questions to children provides them with an opportunity to think and use language in a functional manner by allowing them to report observations, describe experiences and make predictions.” Ramsey & Fowler (2004)

“Our vision is a world where people think for themselves and can confidently ask questions, answer questions and understand the world around them.” The Exploratorium 

Questions are asked to find our more information or reconsider something from a new perspective. An educator may ask a child a question for various reasons including directing attention to a particular issue, stimulating curiosity, helping to pinpoint an individual’s level of understanding or encouraging deeper thinking (MacNaughton & Williams, 2009). Questioning can also be used to challenge assumptions, investigate a problem or prompt metacognitive learning processes.

Questions can be closed or open. Closed questions can be useful if a simple recollection of information is needed to assess where an individual’s current level of understanding or interest is at. However, these can also be limited in relation to pushing a learner to think past what they already know. Alternatively, open questions may encourage children to question assumptions and deepen understandings.

Open-ended questioning can also be used to move learners between different types of literal, analytical and conceptual thinking, allowing learning to complexify. This process can be referred to as Socratic questioning (Richard & Linda, 2007). Fisher (2007: 623-624) outlines these stages as:

1. Literal questions that ask for factual information such as:

• What is this about?
• What happened?
• What did you have to do?

2. Analytical questions that encourage critical thinking such as:

• What question(s) do you have?
• What reasons can you give?
• What are the problems/solutions here?

3. Conceptual questions that encourage abstract thinking such as:

• What is the key concept (strategy or rule) here?
• What does it mean?
• What criteria are we using to judge this or test if it is true?
• How might we further investigate this concept, strategy or hypothesis?

Combined together, these questions may encourage increasingly divergent and critical thinking over time. Below is an example of a conversation between an educator and a group of six year olds driven by Socratic questioning (Ibid: 624):

Teacher: Why did the mother think that her baby was best?
Child: Because it was beautiful. She thought it was beautiful.
Child: She thought it was beautiful because she was the mother.

Teacher: What does it mean to be beautiful?
Child: It means someone thinks you are lovely.
Child: You are perfect …
Child: Good to look at.

Teacher: Can you be beautiful even if no one thinks you are lovely?
Child: No. You can’t be beautiful if no one thinks you are beautiful.
Child: You can be beautiful inside, you can feel beautiful …

This conversation illustrates possible lines of enquiry driven by questions that continuously respond to the children’s evolving thought processes. The extract demonstrates how the basic principles of ‘what beauty is’ was interrogated through the cumulative questions asked by the educator. Each question extends children’s thinking as opposed to asking new questions that are separate from their responses (Fisher, 2005). Socratic questioning is one approach that can be use to make learning more complex, contextualised and personally relevant. This could be a useful strategy to experiment with when talking to a group of children in an art museum or developing a paper resource around artworks, artistic processes and art concepts.

Questioning can also be used to increase children’s aesthetic awareness of artworks (MacNaughton & Williams 2009). Take as an example, Janet Cardiff’s artwork Forty Part Motet (2001), a sound installation featuring the choral composition of the Renaissance English composer Thomas Talli. To encourage aesthetic awareness, an educator may ask: Where have you heard music like this before? What else does the music sound like? How could we make music like this? Why do you think the artist chose to make the room dark? Why do you think it was important for the speakers to be placed in a circle?

Janet Cardiff Forty Part Motet (2001). Video from Tate website (2017).

Questioning around this particular artwork could be further contextualised within a child’s experience through an educator describing their experience of the artwork as a starting point for group enquiry. For example:

“When I was walking around the space, I tried standing in front of each speaker so that I could listen to the different voices coming out of each one. When I did this, I could feel the sound moving physically in my body and as this happened, it felt like I was also experiencing different singer’s emotions inside of me. Did anyone else notice these feelings? How would you describe them? Did the singer’s emotions all feel the same or did they change throughout the song? How did the different voices sound and feel different from one another? “

I would love to hear your insights on questioning as a technique for facilitating children’s learning with and through art in museums. The next post will feature the method of ‘demonstrating’ as a teaching and learning strategy.

References 

Fisher, R. (2005). Teaching children to think. Second edition, Cheltenham, Nelson Thornes.

Fisher, R. (2007). Dialogic teaching: developing thinking and metacognition through philosophical discussion. Early Child Development and Care. 177 (6/7), p.615-663.

MacNaughton, G & Williams, G (2009). Teaching young children: Choices in theory and practice. Second edition. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Ramsey, J & Fowler, M (2004). “What do you notice? Using posters containing questions and general instructions to guide preschoolers’ science and mathematics learning’, Early Childhood Development and Care, 174(1), p.31-45.

Richard, P & Linda, A (2007). Critical thinking: The art of Socratic Questioning. Journal of Developmental Education. 31(1), p. 36-37.

Tate website (2017). Tateshots: Janet Cardiff viewed July 16, 2017 at http://www.tate.org.uk/art/videos/tateshots/janet-cardiff

Techniques for facilitating children’s learning in art museums: Suggesting

This is the second post in a series on techniques for facilitating children’s learning with and through art in museums. The first presented broader ideas and debates underpinning facilitated learning. Each post will include a description of a technique in addition to how and when it may be useful. These should not be seen as all-conclusive methods of teaching and learning but more as different options to experiment with. I see these posts as thinking snapshots and hope they might generate deeper consideration around how others understand and implement methods in their context. So, let’s hear it for….

Suggesting

To suggest something means to present an idea for consideration (Cambridge Dictionary online, 2017). Suggestions give children a choice as to how their learning path may proceed (Mac Naughton & Williams, 2009). Suggestions can be made verbally through language or non-verbally through actions such as selecting materials, the positioning of equipment or physical gestures. Like other facilitated learning techniques such as questioning, modelling and giving feedback, suggestions can encourage children to explore their learning processes in a new or deeper way, leading to more complex thinking over time.

Image one credit: Centro Internazionale Loris Malaguzzi

Suggesting differs from direct instruction in that it implies there are options. If a suggestion is being used, it is important to consider that a child may not want to act upon it. If a child does not have an option, for example if an artwork cannot be touched due to conservation requirements then direct instruction may be a more appropriate means of communicating information. This could also be accompanied by an explanation as to why there is no choice. For example, “we cannot touch this picture as we have special oils on our hands that are good for keeping our skin soft but if we touch the artwork these can damage it.” If this information was delivered as a suggestion such as “perhaps you could try not touching the artwork” it might be unclear and confusing as to what the child can and cannot do.

Image two credit: Centro Internazionale Loris Malaguzzi

Suggestions can also be made without human intervention. The selection and arrangement of artworks, materials, concepts and resources could propose particular ways of thinking and physically experiencing a gallery space. For example, the plastic cylinders in Image One (top) and the large paper sheets in Image Two (bottom) may prompt significantly different cognitive, social, emotional and aesthetic learning processes. The cylinders may provoke explorations around stacking, placing, dismantling, balancing, arrangement and construction. Alternatively, the large paper sheet may suggest gentle movements, swaying, rolling, folding, hiding and enveloping. These ways of experiencing art and gallery spaces may then catalyse or restrict particular meaning-making and thought processes. An immersive art installation such as Yayoi Kusama’s Obliteration Room could also make various suggestions towards people’s engagement that changes over time as the materials, spatial arrangement and meanings associated with the artwork also transform.

Extending upon this, here are some possibilities for how suggesting could be implemented in an art museum learning programme. Some of the questions have been adapted from Glenda Mac Naughton & Gillian Williams’ book ‘Teaching Young Children’ (2009):

Verbal

• “You could have a go at… drawing the sculpture from different angles.“
• “This printing tool might work better if… you push harder on the handle so that the paint stamps onto the fabric.”
• “Maybe you could… have a look at different artworks that are made out of clay… to think about how you could approach… making your vase using different sculptural techniques.”
• “How about we see if we can find… some artworks that explore the concept of infinity.” 
• “Perhaps you could think about how… this artwork relates to your experience of being in a family?”

Non-verbal

• Using body language to demonstrate or model different behaviours or techniques.
• Altering the aesthetic arrangement of a space so that it stimualtes the construction of new thought processes and relations. REmida centres often do this through presenting familiar recycled materials in unfamiliar ways.
• Carefully considering the grouping of artworks, concepts and materials. What ways of thinking might a particular arrangement provoke?
• Considering how the placement of things (artworks, materials, resources, furniture) allows for people to physically interact and move in a space.
• If an artwork cannot be touched then consider putting a barrier around it or asking floor staff to politely let children know they they cannot touch it as they enter the space. This may fall under ‘direct instruction’ but I had to sneak it in somewhere (#1 pet peeve when it does not happen).

I would love to hear your insights and feedback on using suggestions to facilitate children’s learning in art museum. Coming up as an exciting sequel to ‘facilitation’ and ‘suggesting,’ the next post will discuss the technique of ‘questioning.’

References 

Cambridge Dictionary online, 2017. Cambridge Dictionary website. Cambridge University Press.

Mac Naughton, G & Williams, G 2009. Teaching young children: Choices in theory and practice. Second edition. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

 

Children, art & the carnivalesque

This post discusses Bakhtin’s term of ‘the carnivalesque’ in relation to children’s art museum programming. Whilst radical moments of change offer the possibility of social and cultural transformation, I argue that these need to be supported by a system of sustainable relationships that facilitate children’s ongoing learning over time. The role of the learning curator is then discussed in relation to producing practices that support such processes.

Marina Abramovic ‘The Artist is Present’ (2010) at The Museum of Modern Art. Image credit: i.vimeocdn.com

The carnivalesque: a term conceptualised by Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin in his book Rabelais and his world (1941). In the text, Bakhtin describes a carnivalesque moment in relation to an occasion, such as a festival, event or performance, where social order is temporarily subverted through comedy, laughter or an unexpected creative process. Bakhtin connects these moments to the recombination of societal connections and the opening of new possibilities, structures and hierarchies.

The notion of the carnivalesque is often discussed in relation to art forms such as performance, dance and live art. Many children’s programmes in art museums would also fall under this classification. In these activities, children are able to be a part of something radically different that they would not usually be able to do in their everyday life. The inability to predict what will happen in these moments creates an atmosphere of excitement, fun and playfulness.

I, like many children, love these moments. They offer temporary instances of ridiculousness and chaos that can easily get forgotten in day-to-day life. At the same time, I am cautious of what they solely offer children if not embedded in a sustainable system of relationships in children’s lives.

So much of learning emerges from relationships. Relationships between children, their environment, things, educators, friends, families and broader communities. These relationships set the foundation for independent and co-constructed learning processes. If these moments of change are not embedded in relationships, then it is easy for whatever happens to fall away to nothing. Also, if the artist’s motivation to create the carnivalesque activity is driven by a reaction to a perceived societal deficiency, my concern is that the activity could encourage a dualistic way of thinking about the world as ‘us’ and ‘them.’ The danger in this is that it has the possibility of further encouraging divide instead of cultivating a system of dynamic and complex connections that form the  basis of enduring relationships. So how do we build a sustainable system that supports children’s learning in art museums over time?

John Dewey proposed that the primary driving force of meaningful education is a teacher’s commitment to children’s social, emotional and intellectual growth. Dewey stated that no acquired knowledge of education theory or specialist knowledge can compensate for a deficiency in this personal trait. He extended on this to specify that the time, financial and bureaucratic pressures in education settings can restrict the abilities of what an individual can do even with such a commitment.

If we take this notion and apply it to art museum education, the learning curator must carry the personal trait of an unquestionable commitment to children’s learning and development. Their social role is then to facilitate the relationships needed to support learning over time. To do this Malaguzzi (1993) proposes “we need to define the role of the adult, not as a transmitter but as a creator of relationships — relationships not only between people but also between things, between thoughts, with the environment.”

Constructing a pedagogy based on relationships takes time, financial investment plus continuous individual and institutional commitment to children’s learning. This is a much complex, difficult and demanding process. But it is also one that holds the possibility of establishing a sustained and enduring practices that support children’s growth over time. Placing children and their relationships with artists, learning curators, their families, the physical environment and wider communities as central to art museum programming begins to construct a network of interconnected systems that support and sustain learning and development.The focus then turns to how these relationships and programming are being produced. What processes can we develop that actively support such pedagogies?

It is possible that advancements in the rigour of children’s pedagogical practices in art museums may not be acknowledged by art critics, art historians and artists who lack the knowledge of education theory needed to distinguish between the nominal value of terms such as progressive education, experiential learning and constructivist learning environment and deeply considered practices. Children’s programmes are rarely featured in curatorial dialogue or art magazines despite some practitioners putting a huge amount of research, intellectual and creative rigour into their production. I do not believe this necessarily come from a place of meanness but more a lack of understanding of specialised knowledge. Perhaps over time shared understandings of early childhood learning practices in art museums will grow and generate wider dialogue around children as co-constructors of art and culture, developing an even deeper system of relationships.

References

Bakhtin, M 1941. Rabelais and his world. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Malaguzzi, L. 1993. ‘Your Image of the Child: Where Teaching Begins,’ seminar presentation held in Reggio Emilia June 1993. Complete transcript available at: https://reggioalliance.org/downloads/malaguzzi:ccie:1994.pdf

PhD data collection… day one

Tomorrow is a big day. I have my cameras charged. My consent forms printed. My clipboards are sitting in my backpack. A giant paper roll to display pedagogical documentation is rolled up next to the front door. This comes on top of months of reading, thinking and discussing the literatures, conceptual foundations, data collection methods and methodology of my PhD research. To say that tomorrow is my very first day of data collection is a partial truth. I have been doing pieces of data collection over the past year, mostly in the form of visiting and observing different ‘creative laboratories’ within cultural institutions. Tomorrow will be the first day that I start to apply and test my critical ‘pedagogical documentation’ methodology. I will also begin to explore the theory, challenges and possibilities of the application of child-centred practice in art galleries.

Tech check!! A big shoutout to Poundland for selling useful stationary at bargain prices.

My first thought is that I am so excited to be around the children again. Since I finished up my work in Australia last July, I have not been around children on a day-to-day basis. With the exception of a couple of side projects my time has been predominantly filled watching hours of Beyonce and Carl Sagan video clips researching, reading and writing my literature review and methodology sections. During this time it felt as though something fundamental was missing from my life as I was away from the kids. I knew this would happen and was one of the reasons I was initially quite hesitant to do my PhD. Children challenge me artistically, intellectually and in a fundamentally different way to adults. I have heard many colleagues and friends working in art education say the same thing. I don’t mean this so much in a ‘Lou, why do humans have two eyes and not ten?’ way but more so in relation to the questions surrounding adult practitioner’s potential to design a social and physical space in which children can explore and express their feelings, beliefs and curiosities alongside others. I do find it a bit unnerving that in some museums, staff working directly with children are often at the bottom of the institutional hierarchy. As well as staff sometimes being employed who have very little or no experience working with large groups of young children. As well as the unfortunate and incorrect notion some people have that working with children is so easy anyone can do it so why waste money on employing qualified and experienced staff when a volunteer can do it? Having skilled practitioners who know when to ask a question, or introduce a new material, or to stand back and let the child play independently is crucial in constructing a child-centred creative environment. However, getting back to my point, I am most looking forward to the chaos, complexity and fun of being back around children for the next few months.

My imminent data collection is based around the potentialities and challenges of using pedagogical documentation [1] as a rigorous and critically reflective methodology within children’s gallery education. This can be defined generally as when children’s self-led learning strategies and play practices are collected using visual research methods and critically discussed by groups of educators – or in the instance of this research, artists and curators. This process also allows art and education practitioners to reflect upon children’s experiences in addition to their own thinking and actions. I do often think about why cultural institutions have not already developed pedagogical documentation spaces. This would provide a means of exploring and reflecting upon how people learn individually and in groups within their institutions. Actually, I mainly just question myself over this and whether or not such a methodological process can be applied to an informal site of learning and within the hierarchical structure of a museum. In my bias opinion, such a critically reflective and rigorous methodology is frequently absent from gallery education and socially engaged art. I am not aware of a museum, gallery or artist who has used pedagogical documentation consistently throughout their practice. If you do know of one, please email me.

A second major focus for the data collection is researching how teams of people – individuals who come together within a cultural institution – construct, present and plan future actions based upon the reflection of children’s experiences. This means that the research is not just focused on how an individual artist can reference pedagogy but how cultural knowledge can be constructed through a dialogic and collaborative process between artists, curators, children and their families. I am extremely interested to see what findings result from the application of such an approach.

Another key consideration entering the data collection is that I am not solely the practitioner. Whilst my role may be somewhat fluid, my central responsibility is that of a researcher. This is new too. The emphasis within academia on the use of language as the dominant means of communication makes me uncomfortable. My human composition somehow results in feeling most comfortable expressing complex emotion and thought through making things, whether that be art or developing creative space for others. From now on text will be the main output, eeeep. I had better stop telling myself I am not good at writing and get on with it.

I know that the next few months will present many unpredictable things. When this inevitably occurs, I will strive to keep my heart and mind open and embrace what new trajectories could emerge from them. To quote OutKast, ‘you can plan a pretty picnic but you can’t predict the weather.’ 

I thought of that quote in ALDI this morning. Definitely using it in my thesis.

References

1. Reggio Children & Harvard Project Zero 2001. ‘Making learning visible: Children as individual and groups learners,’ Reggio Children.

A visit to the Children’s Wing at The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark

As part of the first stage of my PhD research I have been visiting a number of ‘creative laboratories’ in cultural and educational settings. In doing so, my aim has been to observe the diverse ways in which interdisciplinary teams of people have approached the construction of children’s creative environments in different contexts.

My PhD is an action research project. This is to say that it is comprised of a series of iterative research cycles, in my case four, which each seek to build upon the findings and reflections of the preceding cycle. Within my project, each cycles proposes to develop, challenge and reflect upon the construction of a critically reflective heuristic thinking tool that will be used to guide conversations between artists, curators, educators and researchers developing creative environments for children in art galleries.

Kusama’s Gleaming Light of the Soul (2008). Louisiana collection.

This first stage of action research is referred to as ‘the reconnaissance’ in which an individual revisits and reflects upon what they know about their practice based upon their prior experience. It is also a time to scope out the broader field of practice to assess where one’s practice fits within wider theories, literature and practice. The ambition of doing so is to identify knowledge gaps and concerns around one’s practice which will be addressed in subsequent research cycles. My ‘reconnaissance’ has provided an excellent opportunity to reflect upon my work as a children’s curator. I have always found that one of the best ways to sharpen and deepen my ideas is to connect with people who are interested in similar theoretical concepts (i.e child-centred practice, social constructivism, Reggio Emilia, loose parts theory) but apply them in different ways and in different contexts.

Over the past 12 months I have visited The Tinkering Studio at The Exploratorium, The Atelier Van Licht at the Central Museum in Utretch, the artist-in-residency programme at Lillian de Lissa Children’s Centre & Nursery in Birmingham and the Bay Area Children’s Museum in Sausalito, CA to observe and learn more about the construction of different ‘creative labratory’ approaches. Last month I visited another, the Children’s Wing at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark. I had heard numerous colleagues talk about the space over the past few years and was excited to finally have the opportunity to go myself.

Children play in the painting studio on the ground floor of the Children’s Wing. Image credit: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

The Children’s Wing opened in 1994 and is made up of a three-story space purpose-built space especially for children. Whilst I was there I met with one of the artist-educators working on the programme who discussed the team’s approach. The aim of the activities is to encourage children to explore the notion that ‘small-scale experimentation with materials and ideas are the foundations of artworks displayed throughout the gallery.’ Underscoring this premise is an understanding that through encouraging children’s exploration of materials and artistic processes, they will gain a sense of curiosity around the art featured in the gallery spaces.

The Wing consists of five separated spaces each featuring a different craft or creative play activity all of which are supervised by artist educators. Outside the Wing, a Lake Garden extends into the surrounding natural landscape of the Louisiana property. The busiest area appeared to be the permanent painting and clay studio (pictured above), which fills the entire bottom floor of the Wing.

The number of families visiting the space impressed me, especially considering it was a Tuesday morning. Everyone seemed to be having a fun time with many young children making and playing alongside their parents and grandparents. It was fantastic to see the human resource investment put into the space. The artist educators were both greeting families and engaging in reflective conversations with children around what they were making.

Poul Gernes’s The Pyramid, scale model, from an unrealised 1967 concept.

Formalfabet (1966) Form Alphabet.

In addition to the Children’s Wing, I was extremely impressed with the Louisiana. The setting and layout of the museum reminded me a lot of the amazing MONA in Hobart, Australia. When visiting I also highly recommend climbing and sitting on top of the reconstruction of Poul Gernes’s ‘Pyramid’ (pictured above).

NB: The term ‘creative laboratories’ is one that I have constructed and defined within the context of my PhD research and is not a term necessarily used by the institutions discussed. Within the context of my research, creative laboratories are a place where people can go to creatively explore, experiment and freely play with ideas and materials in large variety of ways. The Reggio Emilia approach also often utilises the metaphor of the kindergarten as a laboratory. An expansion of this idea can be found in a recent blog post I wrote for the American website Art Museum Teaching. 

 

The new Tate Modern & art as a reflection of human experience

The new Tate Modern opened on Friday and it is fantastic. I could post an arty picture of the swish new building or write something about it being a new era for modern art in London. Instead I am going to post a visual representation of an intensely meaningful connection between one visitor and the new exhibition hang. I may be over analysing something that does not need to be analysed – not the first time that has happened – but to me this person has articulated a deep connection between their own human experience and a group of artworks which reflect and represent the complex emotions and thoughts of their life.

1. “this means my family being pulled together and have to stick together”

Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt), Horizontal Square Reticularia 71/10, 1971. Steel rods and metal beads. Tate collection.

2. “this represents my family coming together.”

Cristina Iglesias, Pavilion Suspened in a Room 1, 2005. Steel. Tate collection.

3. “This represents something different about my family.”

When I questioned the visitor further about this particular artwork they replied along the lines of “well the top one is my mother and she loves us but can be a bit strict sometimes, then there is my Dad below and he works a lot and sleeps on the weekends but is funny and likes to play with us too, then there is my sister – she is nice but she can be mean sometimes and then there is me and I am a mix of everyone but I am also just me too. And we all line up together, just like the blue blocks.”

Donald Judd, Untitled 1980. Steel, aluminium and perspex. Tate collection.