‘Children’s learning with new, found and recycled stuff’ symposium at AARE

This post discusses the symposium presentation ‘Material play: children’s learning with new, found and recycled ‘stuff’ given by Professor Pat Thomson, Nina Odegard and Louisa Penfold at the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) in Canberra, Australia.

Image: Bradley Cummings

On November 27, 2017 Pat Thomson (University of Nottingham), Nina Odegard (University College of Oslo and Akershus) and myself (University of Nottingham) presented at the AARE conference on young children’s learning with materials through play. Julianne Moss from Deakin University was the session discussant. The symposium was put together as a result of our common research interest in material-led play in early childhood education.

The symposium was built upon the proposition that many educators and artists working with young children are committed to play-based practices and understand this as critical to individual and social learning. The session focused specifically on early years arts-orientated play through asking: when children are ‘doing art’ play what are they learning with the materials they choose? The presentations explored the idea that when children are playing with materials they are simultaneously:

• learning about concepts such as line, pattern and form;
• learning about the properties and potentials of materials such as how they can be pushed, pilled, stretched and transformed;
• learning what materials are and do in the world;
• being called and directed by the materials, forming possible selves with materials and forming new relations with the world
• being given the possibilities to work with materials without having to name, define or categorize what they are doing

Why is this important? Academics and education practitioners are becoming increasingly interested in ways that humans can and need to be de-centred in order to take account of the importance the material, both organic and inorganic, worlds in which we live. This is essential in creating discourses and practices that offer hopeful action in an ecologically and ethically challenged world. This also comes at a time when policy makers around the world increasingly position play-based early childhood curriculum as trivial and not sufficiently focused on knowledge and skills. Consequentially, we identify an urgent need to push further with discussion on why materials matter in early childhood play-based arts programmes and projects. Our concern was to not only explore and explain the importance of play in early childhood and to promote the value of the arts, but also to broaden our explanations of what this is.

Young children’s thinking with natural materials in art museums

Image: Louisa Penfold

Louisa’s presentation explored the invitations natural materials such as logs, leaves, sticks, stones and clay offer in young children’s play in art museums. Data generated in an early year’s art studio session at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, was used to consider the encounters (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., 2017) between children, artists, curators, artworks, materials and the museum space. Lenz-Taguchi’s notion of intra-active pedagogies (2010) – where one’s attention shifts from interpersonal relationships to the relations between humans and non-human entities – was drawn upon to consider children’s learning with and through artworks and materials in the art museum.

Descriptive examples of visual documentation including photography and video footage was discussed in relation to how the ‘stuff’ curated for the art studio provoked open-ended possibilities for children’s thinking and learning. The presentation concluded with the suggestion that through thinking with materials, new pedagogies are able to be constructed that allow artists, learning curators, children and their families to continuously produce and reconsider the relations between themselves, others, artworks, materials and the natural world.

Imagining immanent didactics

Image: Louisa Penfold

Nina’s paper focused on the concepts of aesthetics and aesthetic explorations, ethics and how these open possibilities for creative thinking, doing and being. Concepts of new materialism were discussed in relation to the potential they bring for expanded discourses and practices relating to recycling, sustainability and consumption.

The presentation drew upon data generated in a ReMida creative recycle centre in Norway. Results suggested that children were ‘rhizomatic thinkers’ (Dahlberg, 2016, p. 131) in their aesthetic explorations of recycled materials in which children’s learning shifted between disciplines to make use of the ‘vibrant matter’ (Bennet, 2010) and ‘how matter comes to matter’ (Barad, 2008). Nina also focused on pedagogical practice in which children’s process itself is valued, and there is a reduced or no focus on the result (Dahlberg, 2016). This builds on previous research out of the ReMida centre (Odegard, 2016) that argued that recycled materials can open up to the discovery of new ‘hidden’ pedagogical spaces, that produce meeting places for the emergence of new ideas (Odegard, 2012). The children´s exploration with vibrant matter like recycled materials seems to evoke creativity, curiosity, problem-solving and narrate stories. Through this, the paper argued for a paradigm shift away from the neoliberal way of measuring and categorizing learning and towards an emphasis on the collective and creative pedagogical processes.

What can rope do with us? Agency/power and freedom/captivity in art play.

Image: Bradley Cummings

Pat’s paper, co-written with Anton Franks, discussed an ongoing ethnographic study conducted within the ‘World without walls’ programme run by Serpentine Galleries in London. The programme supports artists undertaking residencies in one early childhood centre in central London. The residencies focus on different kinds of art/play that draw upon the artist’s practice and selection of materials for the programme. The presentation discussed data generated from Albert Potrony’s residency in which the artist elected to use large material objects such as card, plastic, foam and rope.

Throughout the sessions, numerous children were drawn to/called by the rope (Bennett, 2010). Perhaps unexpectedly, the children wrapped/tied up their teachers and the learning curator with the rope. The data suggested an explicit exploration of the kinds of power-laden relationships that exist between adults and children in educational settings. Drawing on field notes, photographs and interviews, the paper presented an analysis of the materials on offer and their affordances. The presentation concluded considering the material differences made by, with and through the rope, and probe further the ways in which it co-produced caring and ethical experimentations with power, agency, captivity and freedom.

Following the presentations, attendees had an opportunity to play with an array of materials arranged in the symposium space. As a group we then asked and explored questions such as why were particular materials chosen and not others? What was possible with the materials and what wasn’t? What about the play experience can be put into words and what can’t? Did you feel a desire/need to name, categorize or define your installation? What senses were used, and what feelings were evoked through playing with the materials?

Overall, we hoped that the symposium shared thinking and opened up new discussions around early childhood education, play, the arts and materialism. We were inspired by the questions and discussion amongst the group throughout the presentation and hope to build upon this in the future.

Image: Bradley Cummings

Image: Bradley Cummings

References

Barad, K. (2008). Posthumanist performativity: toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. In S. Alaimo & S. J. Hekman (Eds.), Material feminisms (pp. 120-157). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Bennet, J. (2010). Vibrant matter, a poltical ecology of things: Duke University Press.

Dahlberg, G. (2016). An ethico- aesthetic paradigm as an alternative discourse to the quality assurance discourse. 17(1), 124-133. doi:10.1177/1463949115627910

Lenz Taguchi, H. (2010). Going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: Introducing an intra-active pedagogy. New York, NY: Routledge.

Odegard, N. (2012). When matter comes to matter – Working pedagogically with junk materials. Education Inquiry, 3(3), 387-400.

Odegard, Nina, & Rossholt, Nina. (2016). In-between spaces. Tales from a Remida. In Ann Beate Reinertsen (Ed.), Becoming Earth. A Post Human Turn in Educational Discourse Collapsing Nature/Culture Divides. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Pacini-Ketchabaw, V; Kind, S; & Kocher, L. (2017). Encounters with materials in early childhood education. New York, NY: Routledge.

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

‘Researching young children’s experiences in museums’ event at MMU

This post reports on the ‘Space, materials, the body: Researching young children’s experiences in museums’ symposium held at Manchester Metropolitan University on May 23, 2017. 

Photo pinched from: underfivesinmuseums.com

I almost did not write this post. In fact, I had basically written it off as I didn’t have the mental capacity to do it immediately after the event and now several months have gone by and it seems kind of outdated. However, the ‘Space, materials, the body: Researching young children’s experiences in museums’ had quite an impact on me and my thinking. I want to write about it because it I felt like the ideas that were discussed made a real contribution around the possibilities of early childhood education in cultural institutions.

The symposium aimed to bring together researchers and practitioners working with young children in museums. Key questions explored throughout the sessions included:

• How can we conceptualise child in museums differently?
• How can we think about the material, spatial and bodily nature of very young children as they explore and move through museum spaces?
• What are the implications of this for museum provision (such as programming and interpretation), and what does research need to look at next?

The event was coincidentally held the day after the Manchester terrorist attack. As I walked through the university to the conference venue I could feel the meteorite storm of emotions from the morning news circulating inside me. Manchester holds a special place in my heart. I absolutely loved the three months that I lived there in 2016. The mix of the industrial buildings and vibrant artistic communities reminded me much of my beloved hometown of Melbourne, Australia. My experience of living in Manchester was of a place full of proper hard-working people, doing quite innovative things in a very understated way while also being warm, genuine and welcoming. Of course, there are exceptions to this Northern England stereotype but I felt so at home there. I was very excited to be back in town. I guess this is why the attack felt like such a momentary dagger to the heart.

Abi Hackett, Christina MacRae and Lisa Procter presented a keynote paper on the topic of ‘Vibrancy, repetition, movement: Reconceptualising young children in museums.’ The presentation drew upon post-humanist theory to re-frame how we interpret children’s behaviour and learning in museums. I was particularly interested to hear how the team described museum objects as ‘entanglements’ of the human and non-human worlds. Through drawing on data from various research projects, the team also discussed aspects of human experiences that were difficult to rationalise or capture in words. These ‘non-representations’ add to the complexity of museum programming and construct new ways of thinking about children’s meaning-making experiences.

I most enjoyed Rachel Holmes and Christina MacRae’s workshop on de-centring children as the sole locus of meaning-making in museums. The session used data collected from the Clore interactive studio at Manchester City Art Gallery to explore three different constructions of childhood: the cognitive child, the socio-constructivist child and the post-human child. As a group we analysed and interpreted the data through these different lenses and discussed the limitations and possibilities of each construction. A convincing point was made in relation to the necessity to think beyond one’s discipline when interpreting data and developing programming.

I unfortunately missed Andrew Stevenson’s presentation on ‘sound walking as a method’ as a result of our presentations being run in parallel. I was disappointed as upon first reading of the abstract, ‘sound walking’ sounded suspiciously like something one may have thought up whilst taking ‘shrooms at Burning Man. On second reading it also sounded like an interesting, left-of-centre methodology that may illuminate non-verbal ways of experiencing places.

I gave a talk on pedagogical documentation as a tool for learning and change in children’s art museum programming. The presentation reported on a 13-week action research project that introduced pedagogical documentation – a process that seeks to make children’s and adult’s learning visible –  to the early year’s Atelier programme at the Whitworth, University of Manchester. Key findings from the research suggest that pedagogical documentation can be made specific to gallery learning and used to record a wide array of children’s and family’s experiences. These observations can then be used to generate collaborative critical reflection that can then be used to inform future programme planning. The research also indicated that pedagogical documentation is useful in supporting gallery team’s reconsideration of assumptions, ethics and practices towards children in art museums. This then allows for practices to become more complex, for that complexity to be made visible and therefore open to interpretation from others. This process can be used to support the emergence of alternate pedagogies that are constructed from within a specific social, political, cultural and temporal context. Any die-hard pedagogical documentation fans can read the full abstract here.

I also attended Laura Trafi Prat’s practical workshop on ‘drawing as a method of inquiry’ that explored this artistic process as a means of encountering museums in a more embodied and material way. As a group we created a series of unfinished abstract drawings that were ‘responsive to life as movement, change and flow’ (taken from the workshop abstract).

Overall, I felt the event really pushed the boundaries of how academics and practitioners think about young children in museums. A challenge that researchers, including me, may face in drawing upon post-humanist constructions of childhood is around how these ideas are put into a simple, concise and useful form that non-academics can then incorporate into their everyday practices with children in different museum contexts.

Abi Hackett has also setup a new ‘Under 5’s in Museums’ website that includes extended outlines of the presenter’s abstracts from the event as well as updates on museum related research projects from the Education and Social Research Institute at Manchester Metropolitan University.

 

A visit to the Reggio Australia pedagogical documentation centre

This post features a summary and reflection on the theory, principles and practices of the Reggio Emilia process of pedagogical documentation. The possibilities and challenges of what this reflective methodology holds for children’s gallery education are also discussed in relation to my doctoral research. 

“There is a constant relational reciprocity between those who educate and those who are educated, between those who teach and those who learn. There is participation, passion, compassion and emotion. There is aesthetics. There is change.” Carlina Rinaldi

Last week I was fortunate enough to spend an afternoon visiting the Reggio Emilia Australia Information Exchange’s documentation centre at the University of Melbourne. I was interested in taking some time to think and reflect on how other early year’s educators are working with the process of pedagogical documentation within their own education settings. This is particularly pertinent to me after spending the past few months working with the early year’s team at the Whitworth Art Gallery where we constructed our own documentation processes in the Atelier programme.

Pedagogical documentation can be defined as (taken from the Reggio Australia website 2011):

“making the visible records (written notes, photos, videos, audio recordings, children’s work) that enable teachers, parents and children to discuss, interpret and reflect upon what is happening from their various points of view, and to make choices about the best way to proceed, believing that rather than being an unquestionable truth, there are many possibilities.”

Whilst this process is common practice in many progressive education nurseries and kindergartens, its use within museums and galleries is near non-existent.

Reggio Australia’s mission is founded upon the premise of advocating for ‘social justice and democracy in education, giving priority to active, constructive and creative learning by children’ as well as promoting ‘the critical role of research, observation, documentation, and interpretation of children’s processes of action and thought.’ These principles are consistent with the philosophies of the international Reggio Emilia educational approach that was developed in post-World War 2 Italy by philosopher and psychologist Loris Malaguzzi.

The Reggio Emilia approach is built around a framework of social constructivist learning theory. Originally proposed by Vygotsky (1930), social constructivism can be defined as the understanding that human’s intellectual, social and emotional growth is developed through social interactions with others of varying skills and expertise. It is through these interactions that new understandings and knowledge emerges from within the specific social, cultural and historic context that an activity is occurring. This sounds like quite a broad and generalised theory but the way that Reggio apply it within early childhood education settings is quite specific.

Pedagogical documentation plays an integral role in generating these new understandings. Through making children’s and practitioner’s learning visible and open to interpretation, old beliefs and practices may be contested and new understandings co-constructed among groups of people.

Image credit: http://www.smith.edu

Documentation generation is always motivated by a collective intention (usually a question) that is collaboratively decided among the team. Once documentation is collected, it is then collaboratively interpreted and reflected upon through a participatory process of dialogue, negotiation and exchange. From these reflections, new questions and intentions are set for the next learning environment. This iterative process works to build a rigorous and responsive curriculum that is in a continuous state of emergence. Documentation therefore becomes central in constructing a democratic and reflective pedagogy that values subjectivity, multiple interpretations of reality and questioning.

Here are my reflections from the documentation centre:

• Reggio is one of numerous child-centred approaches to education but possibly the most well-known. Whilst my work and research has many shared understandings around how human knowledge is developed, there are also many points of difference. These mainly arise from an art museum not being a school and therefore a different set of rules, divisions of labour and tools exist that mediate how teams of people interact and learn. These differences need to be acknowledged and then considered in relation to what new strategies and tools need to be developed to facilitate the learning of children, parents, artists, education curators and other practitioners in art museums.
• The pedagogista (this is a Reggio term for an educator who specialises in learning theory) I met with at REAIE made an interesting comment about the need for practitioners to deeply understand the theory and principles of the educational approach before embarking on collecting the documentation. Without this, the documentation becomes a series of pretty pictures without a pedagogical process around it. Understanding theory gives integrity, rigor and meaning to the practice.
• The need for adult practitioner’s to be open and reflective in their practice. These are actually personal traits and (I swear I am not a cynic) often rare to find in people. Anyone who has ever worked in an art museum for any length of time would probably have identified the sometimes large amount of egos and competing agendas circulating the building. Being self-reflective and adopting a growth mindset can be a very vulnerable place to operate from within this sort of environment.
• The need to not only describe learning process but also focus on the analysis of learning in the documentation.
• The need to holistically consider the cognitive, social, emotional and aesthetic learning processes of children. To isolate one, for example to only discuss learning in relation to cognition, is to paint an incomplete and bias perspective of human knowledge.
• The need to perceive learning as a dynamic, creative and transformative process that is continuously forming new relations between people, ideas, materials and non-human entities.

I left the documentation centre feeling inspired and optimistic. I love the value Reggio Emilia place on uncertainty, questioning and dialogic exchange but within a rigorous and methodical education process. As an art educator it is simultaneously exciting, thrilling and terrifying to see the world in an unformulated and forever changing way.

Despite what barriers some people are trying to put in place to create social divisions and fuel supremacist ways of thinking, the reality is that we live in a world that is forever changing, diversifying and becoming increasingly interconnected. And no-one knows what will happen in the future. The timeliness of the need to construct and apply pedagogies built upon democratic exchange, uncertainty and diversity are just as critical now as it was in post-World War II Italy. The contribution such an approach to learning makes is significant to both our education system and in the shaping of an empathetic and moral society.

References

Reggio Australia website (2011). Our Vision and Mission. Viewed January 18, 2017. Available at: https://www.reggioaustralia.org.au/our-vision-and-mission

Rinaldi, C (2004). In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, Researching and Learning. Oxon: Routledge

Vygotsky, L (1930). Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 

Learning with Serpentine – Interim Report

This is a repost from the Centre for Research in Arts, Creativity and Literacies (CRACL) blog. The original post was written by Pat Thomson, Professor of Education within the School of Education, University of Nottingham (UK). 

We have been conducting an evaluation of learning in the Serpentine’s World without Walls programme. We have just reported on our interim results from an examination of two projects. One was the first instalment of Changing Play, a project conducted in partnership with the Portman Children’s Centre.

Anton Franks did this first set of research. His investigation of the work that artist Albert Potrony did suggests the following benefits for children:

• awareness and understanding of a range of materials and objects, manipulative skills in handling large and small materials and objects, and ability to conceptualise them in form and use
• imaginative development in the interaction with materials, objects and other children, allowing experimentation in applying and combining of materials.
• linguistic development in the use of words, utterances and in the construction of narratives accompanying play and reflecting on it afterwards is essential in early conceptual development.
• the richness of children’s narratives incorporated their understanding of social relations and responses to immediate and mediated culture – many instances of children making references to familiar media characters (notably Power Rangers) and to their experience of social and cultural life (home life, rockets, putting people in prison)
• the ability to ‘read’ materials and objects – to name things in their playworld and to construct complex narratives ­­adapting them to their imaginative purposes – are powerful precursors of literacy development
• looking at the images the artist had taken of the children in play and then reflecting on them later, interpreting them and making narratives assisted the development of memory
• continuity and consistency in working regularly with a particular group of children – the original plan was to work both with the Nursery and with a drop-in parent and toddler group, ‘Stay and Play’, but after reflection and discussion with staff this was modified to concentrate on working with the Nursery children
• particularly apparent was children’s increasing sense of autonomy in the playworlds they created, affording them a clearer sense of their own developing character and personhood for themselves and in relation to others. Children were able to lead adults into and through their imaginative worlds, involving them in their play

There were also benefits for nursery staff and children. You can read our full interim evaluation report here as a downloadable pdf. worldwithoutwalls_interimresearchreport_final-copy

Early Years Fab Lab at The Bay Area Discovery Museum, California

“People need ‘tools’ that empower them to work independently, they need these tools and technology to make the most of the energy and imagination each has… society needs to project individual skills and voices, people need to move, to think and have the means to communicate with one another. People cannot make everything for themselves, they need to collaborate and share in a community for it to function.’ Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality (1973).

This post features an interview with Elizabeth Rood, Vice President of Education Strategy and Director of the Centre for Childhood Creativity at the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito, California  in which she discusses the timeliness, importance and challenges of developing the world’s first early years Fab Lab.

Children and parents create designs using a laser cutter during a prototyping session at the Bay Area Discovery Museum. Image credit: Bay Area Discovery Museum

“We want to shift the way that people think about learning so it is not only based on transmission and close-ended answers. Instead we want to create a rich environment that promotes design, building, construction and an excitement around learning through technology!”  Elizabeth Rood

On May 14, 2016 the Bay Area Discovery Museum will open the first early years Fab Lab designed especially for children aged 3 to 10 years old. The Fab Lab movement came out of the MIT Media Lab in the early 2000’s with the original laboratory aiming to explore how technology can power under-served communities through access to information. Labs typically consisting of a small digital workshop space featuring digitally controlled tools such as 3D printers, design software, laser cutters and technology-powered products which individuals to bring their personal ideas to life. There are currently around 600 labs running around the world in museums, libraries, schools and community spaces. Fab Labs are closely linked, yet distinctly different from the maker, DIY, hacker and open source movements through their focus upon design, engineering and creativity.

I visited the Bay Area Discovery Museum in August 2015 whilst in San Francisco doing an artist residency at the Prelinger Library. I was extremely impressed by the museum’s commitment to child-centred practice and the development of an interdisciplinary creative learning pedagogy based on hands-on play.

Louisa Penfold: Elizabeth thanks so much for taking the time to talk this afternoon. The Fab Lab sounds amazing and I am sure there will be lots of people very interested its development. Perhaps we could start by hearing about the value of creativity in childhood and what unique offerings the Bay Area Discovery Museum provide in relation to that?

Elizabeth Rood: One of the things that people get caught up on is whether or not kids actually can be creative when many definitions of creativity are about having some sort of meaningful output that is not just personal but helpful towards the universe and the world. Yet it is really clear from the research that the quality of kids imaginative play is actually a significant predictor of creativity in their adult life. We actually authored a paper recently and one of the key findings in it was the way in which the quality of kids play in childhood, especially if they are able to access rich environments, ends up equipping them with the creative and innovative skills needed for future success. Therefore a lot of value is placed on making sure kids have really rich creative experiences when they are young that will set them up for life. The other finding from that paper was that it zoned in on seven key teachable skills which allow children to develop into more creative adults.

The research shows that creativity is influenced more by your environment and less so by your inborn genetics… so we are more likely to have our parent’s political views passed onto us than creativity.

So rather than focus on this elusive idea of creativity as an inborn trait, if we recognize that these seven habits of mind that help nurture kids and support their growth, then it will lead to them becoming really creative people.

Here at the museum our mission is all about creativity and in our community work we are helping people see the creative potential in all kinds of thinking across different disciplines and not just art. Certainly art is one area where kids are able to build a lot of creativity but as a museum we really want people to realize that deep thinking in math is about creativity and being a really good scientist is about creativity and being an engineer is about creativity.

3D printers will feature in the Fab Lab. Image credit: Bay Area Children’s Museum

LP: Yes, for sure. I am interested in the comment you made about the link between a rich environment and creativity. From your research and from your experience working in this field, what are the qualities of an environment that constitute a rich experience for children?

ER: A lot of it has to do with whether or not children are empowered and invited to chart their own course or whether a model is put up by adults, or their peers which says ‘this is what is supposed to happen.’  For example, if you walk into an art creation space and there is a model and an attitude which says ‘okay, now you make it.’ Or another example could be in regards to a science experiment where an attitude may be that there is only one way to go about doing it. This idea that one needs to learn what the experts know and mimic it needs to be turned on its head. We need to put kids in the driver seat!

First of all encouraging the idea that there is not one right path or one right answer. A simple example of this is that we don’t ask kids ‘what is 2 + 8?’ we ask them ‘what are all the different ways you can get to 10?’ Even just in a small flip like that, you could encourage the mind to do much deeper thinking. And also you are setting up the framework of their being multiple right answers and through that a value is placed on originality and original thinking and through that we are teaching our kids that they don’t have to mimic the people that have come before them. So that’s a really big piece of a rich environment.

Another aspect is that research clearly demonstrates that cognitive flexibility is a huge part of creativity so the more we can experience new things and expose our children to diverse ways of thinking about the world, the more the brain becomes wired to promote creative thinking, new ideas and awareness.

The final part of a rich environment links back to the importance of pretend play. I think that sometimes people think that pretend play is something we should be doing to ages five or six but then after that comes this social commentary that it’s not healthy or normal to engage in imaginary play. However if you look at people who have one Nobel Prizes and done amazing ambitious things in their lives there is a huge number of those people who had very rich imaginary worlds pushing into their adolescence and adulthood allowing for the construction of rich imaginary worlds. This allows for a different kind of thinking about reality. These are the kinds of a snapshot of experiences that we would like kids to have at the museum.

Children and museum staff play with a programmable car  Image credit: Bay Area Children’s Museum

LP: So leading on from those ideas of cognitive flexibility, process-based learning and pretend play, in terms of the development of the Early Years Fab Lab at the Bay Area Discovery Museum, what sorts of skills will children learn within the space? I say this in the sense that may parents and teachers have great fear around children using screen-based technology such as iPads and computers as they it as passive consumption of media that takes away time from hand-on creative learning. How will the Fab Lab promote creativity and promote creative skills?

ER: I think part of what we are trying to do is establish a new model of what high quality use of technology in the early years can be. A key quality, you know you have visited the museum, there is no technology on site. This is going to be the first piece of technology at the museum. Part of the reason for this is that we want to promote pretend play and rich imaginary worlds and that often screens, media and technology can be set up to say ‘this is the right way, the right answer to this question.’ A lot of the Apps that are out there are close ended, they made have an educational value such as teaching vocabulary, but they don’t tend to be open-ended. So for us, part of us is about making sure that technology is a tool for creation as opposed to passive consumers of the technology. So that’s a huge difference!

Part of the danger of screen time is not the screen itself but the way in which adults are using them as babysitters.

Within the Fab Lab there is a screen that kids design on, more specifically a touch screen which children and parents are able to use side by side. And the experience doesn’t end there, they then fabricate either a 2D or 3D printout of what they designed so they are using the technology as a tool to make something. Part of what Fab Lab does is linking the artistic and design processes with some of the science, engineering and math concepts to help kids build the kind of underlying design thinking that is really critical in fields like engineering or architecture and any human-centred design field.

LP: So what tools and equipment will feature in the Fab Lab?

ER: At the moment we have Surface Pro tablets and the main reason for that is they have both a touch-screen and ability to plug-in and use keyboards or a mouse. So that is the main computer software that we will use. There will also be iPads as some of the software is optimised with them. In terms of fabrication equipment we have laser cutters that can be used with wood, plastic and cardboard. Then there is a vinyl cutter which is fun for making stickers with the little kids, mainly for use with clip art. There will also be 3D printers which will be running in the space but more for demonstration purposes than anything else as it’s not the right tool to use with young children. It’s a real buzz word, especially in the Bay area so it’s important that we can demonstrate the technology.

The other machines we are prototyping with are small C2C routers and table top routers. We will also have an industrial sewing machine which will be fun. Then there will be simpler things that are not so much about fabrication but more about technology and engineering such as circuit and coding games and toys.

LP: I’m curious to hear a bit more about the development of the technology going into the Lab. The design software and high-tech tools used in traditional Fab Labs have been created for adult use. How has the development team built the technology so that it is safe and accessible for young children?

ER: Well, because we are a museum and we need to have robust public programs experience and we also do a lot of work in the formal education sector with teachers, we have a two-pronged strategy of how we are going about this. So in working with schools, there is software that just was released called Fab@School Maker Studio which is really designed for kids ages 9 and up. It’s been built for in school classroom teachers to be able to do building and hands-on learning but not using very expensive fabrication equipment. It is using something that is called the silhouette printer that is a lot more affordable than 3D printers. We are using this software and in conversation with the software developers to simplify the interface such as using a touch screen instead of a keyboard and mouse. So we are developing something new from something that has already been released.

However this software does not necessarily work in the drop-in space as the program is very math based. It needs to be math-based as otherwise teachers would not be able to use it. At the moment in the United States there are only two things are being assessed which are literacy and math. So we are really thinking of how we can use the Fab Lab to do more hands-on learning.

Fab Labs are really at the intersection of active, experiential learning and technology. It is about linking creative, artistic power with science, engineering and math.

In the public program space, this doesn’t really work. Kids need to have something that is elegant and cool in which they can create something to take home and with a bit more of a wow factor in which they think ‘I want to keep doing this.’ So for the public program space we have landed on Adobe Illustrator, partially because it is the industry standard for fabrication and when you use it on a touch screen it automatically simplifies the interface. So it’s naturally more accessible for kids.

LP: What have been some of the most interesting discoveries you have had so far within the development process? 

ER: We have been surprised at how easily kids are using Adobe Illustrator. Kids as young as five have been easily using it and that has been a shock to us. It is really interesting how kids quickly pick up software that has been designed intuitively and elegantly.

Another thing that was really interesting is that parents are more engaged in the early years Fab Lab than they are in other areas of the museum. There is more reciprocal learning going on because it is new for the parents as well. So that has been exciting to see parents jumping in and doing the design alongside their children. Also Dads have been really engaged in the prototyping sessions which is great and we hope that this is a pattern that will continue over the coming months. Overall the adults are really more engaged!

LP: I am sure there will be many people and organisations that will be incredibly interested in your experience of creating the Fab Lab. Do you have any plans to share your findings with the wider community?

ER: Yes, absolutely! We are currently looking into getting funding to get a high-level complex AV system so that we can do remote-in so that people can watch kids in the space from far away. The Fab Lab movement is international and there are people all over the world that are interested in this and part of what we want to do is to share what we learn. This will partially be through the use of video in the space so that people in Belgium, Columbia and Mexico can all watch what is going on. Part of why we are so excited about being part of the Fab Lab movement is because it is international. We will also do writing and presentations to accompany this and possibly a bigger picture research project.

Part of why we are so excited about connecting with the Fab movement as opposed to just the maker movement is that the maker movement has a very open-ended ethos in which children come in and experience what they want. What we are trying to do is build more of a bridge between that open-ended processes and STEM learning. Through this we hope to say that ‘through doing this kind of building, lower income kids from subsidized preschools are learning about shapes in a stronger way that predicts greater achievement over their lifetime.’

A father and son play with cardboard cut outs from a laser cutter during a prototyping session. Image credit: Bay Area Children’s Museum

Further Links

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2013). Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Harper Perennial.

Fab Foundation website (2016). FabFoundation.org, viewed March 30, 2016.

Heading, H. (2015). Inspiring a Generation to Create: Critical Components of Creativity in Children, Centre for Childhood Creativity, Sausalito.

Singer, D.; Golinkoff, R.; & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2009). Play = Learning: How Play Motivates and Enhances Children’s Cognitive and Social-Emotional Growth, 1st Edition, Oxford University Press, London. 

TIES website (2016). Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM (TIES) , viewed March 29. 2016.

Creativity, Multiculturalism & Pedagogical Flexibility: A Conversation with Atelierista Lorna Rose

We live in a world of great cultural, social and political diversity. Recent politically-motivated attacks have been one of many complex contributed towards increasing concern, fear and distrust between members of our community. Yet the central pillar of a democratic society lies in a nation’s ability to value the richness of diversity and to allow its citizens to express their beliefs and opinions through various means. Within an early years education setting, designing for flexibility allows children to encounter educational experiences from diverse levels of knowledge, backgrounds and interests. This then paves the way for the possibility of collaborative learning, understanding, respect and friendship between people.

This week I spent two days at the Lillian de Lissa Children’s Centre & Nursery in Birmingham (UK) working alongside their artist-in-residence, Lorna Rose. 90% of the children attending the nursery are from an ethnic minority, over half speak English as a second language and among the 90 children in attendance, 28 languages are spoken. The ultimate goal of the nursery is for the children to leave with a sense of curiosity about the world. Lorna has been working as the ‘atelierista’ (an artist who works in an education setting) at the centre for over 10 years. This post features an interview with Lorna in which she discusses her approach towards designing creative experiences for children – one that is built upon child-centred practice, flexibility and collaborative reflection.

Further Links

Bragg, S & Manchester, H 2011, Creativity, School Ethos and the Creative Partnerships Programme Final Report, The Open University , UK.

Lorna Rose website (2016), http://lornarose.co.uk, viewed March 16 2016.

Plant, S (2009). A Celebration: Creative Childhood Project 2009-2010. Lillian de Lissa and Belgravia Children’s Centre, Birmingham, UK.

Rose, L 2009, Strength in Diversity, EYE – Early Years Educator, Vo. 11 (1), pp. 36038.

Rose, L & Carlin, A 2011, ‘Turning pupils onto learning: Creative classrooms.’ In: Elkington, R (ed.) Action Creativity – Working with Boys. Routledge, Oxon. pp. 39-51.

Thomson, P & Rose, L 2010. ‘When only the visual will do.’ In: Thomson, P & Sefton-Green J (eds.) Researching Creative Learning: Methods and Issues. Routledge. Oxon.

Thomson, P & Rose, L 2011. ‘Creative Learning in an Inner-city Primary School (England).’ In: Wrigley, T; Thomson, P & Lingard, B. Changing Schools – Alternative ways to make a world of difference, Routledge, Oxon.

Vecci, V (2010). Art and Creativity in Reggio Emilia: Exploring the Role and Potential of Ateliers in Early Childhood Education, Routledge, London.

The Ipswich Art Gallery, Australia

This post features a case study of the children’s exhibition programme at the Ipswich Art Gallery in Queensland, Australia. 

From 2011-2015 I worked as a children’s curator at the Ipswich Art Gallery in Queensland, Australia. The Ipswich Art Gallery is a special place for children’s creative learning with a well established and renowned children’s exhibition program. The city of Ipswich is home to a very diverse and predominantly low socio-economic community. The art gallery is currently one of the most visited in regional Australia. In my work and travels across Australia, America, Europe and the United Kingdom I have never come across anything quite like it.

Over the past 15 years the Ipswich Art Gallery has developed and presented over 40 in- house children’s exhibitions. The programme is informed by a set of  guiding principles which include; children’s exhibitions are curated for children not adults and learning begins with creative play. The Children’s Gallery is open daily from 10am-5pm with almost all programs being free of charge. New exhibitions are presented between every 4 – 12 weeks meaning that that there is continuously new creative experiences on offer for young visitors. In many ways the Gallery is more of a children’s art gallery than an ‘adult’ art gallery. At the same time, it is quite distinctly different from the American children’s museum movement. I often thought of the children’s exhibition programme as a combination of a Reggio Emilia atelier, the creativity/art slant of a children’s museum and an art gallery.

During my time at Ipswich, I worked as part of a creative team of curators, designers, artists, educators, academics and arts practitioners on the conceptualisation, development, and delivery of the children’s programme including exhibitions, baby and toddler workshops, school programs and children’s art festivals. A sample of these projects are featured below:

Wild Thing (2012)

Featuring Troy Emery’s colourful taxidermy animals and Nicole Voevodin-Cash‘s giant grassy hill, children created their own crazy costume and turned into a ‘wild things’ for some fun kinesthetic play. The exhibition also featured a dedicated play space for babies and toddlers.

Light Play (2013)

Children (0-8 years) used light as a creative material for  making ephemeral art using overhead projectors, light boxes, shadow sculptures and reflective materials. Light Play! was presented across three different programs: a 75 minute workshops for kindergarten and early primary students, baby and toddler workshops and drop-in sessions for the general public. The exhibition was influenced by the Reggio Emilia philosophy which promotes creative play through experiential and discovery-based learning. Image credit: top left/bottom: Ipswich Art Gallery, top right: peacefulparentsconfidentkids.com

Children (6-14 years) worked with conceptual artist Briony Barr to create collaborative ‘expandable’ drawings out of electrical tape. These sessions were run as 90 minute workshop in which children learnt about rules in art (Sol le Wit, Jim Lambie, Richard Long) and rules in nature (bifurcation, Fibonacci sequence) and how rules can be used to make unpredictable works of art. Children were then introduced to the medium of electrical tape and set a series of challenges to create 2D and 3D drawings that covered the room using rules. A video of a similar project to what was presented at Ipswich can be found here.

Construction Site (2007, 2009, 2013)                                                                                                In Construction Site children unleashed their inner-engineers to design and build cubby houses using foam blocks. The 2013 iteration of the exhibition included a giant ‘Ball Run’ in which visitors used tubes and recycled materials to create tracks for balls to roll down.

Image credits: far left weekendnotes.com.au, far right brisbanekids.com.au

Electronic Art (2015)

Children made squishy play-dough sculptures and wearable art pieces using electrical circuits and flashing LED lights. Throughout a 90 minute workshop children were introduced to the basics of electronics and electronic art including contemporary artists using circuitry in their practice. They were then able to use conductive play dough (5-11 year olds) or textiles  (11-14 year olds) to make a fun artwork to bring home. The program combined interdisciplinary skills from visual art, technology and science in a creative art making workshop.

Further links:                                                              

Piscitelli, B 2011. What’s driving children’s cultural participation in Australia?, National Museum of Australia website, viewed February 2 2016.

Piscitelli, B & Penfold, L 2015. ‘Child‐centered Practice in Museums Experiential Learning through Creative Play at the Ipswich Art Gallery’ Curator: The Museum Journal, 58 (3). P.263-280.