Gender Identity: The New Frontier

My mind is bending, maybe a good thing. I just read the Washington Post's front page feature about Kelsey Beckham, a biological eighteen year old girl who doesn't feel like she is either girl or boy. As a child of the fifties and sixties I cringe at ambiguity, especially where gender is concerned. Don't get me wrong, friends! I love my gay and bisexual friends. Having been in opera and music for so long, I could hardly avoid the reality of their existence, or the pleasure of their company. But gayness seems much more open and shut than this new concept of a "gender spectrum".

In early childhood courses, when we were allowed to teach human development vis a vis early education (the psych people took over those courses some years ago--a sore subject), we discussed gender identity versus biological sexuality. Little girls and boys are socialized to either one or the other idea of who they are according to their biological sex. The sociological and cultural influences run so deep that who children think they are and what they should and shouldn't like isn't usually questioned by either children or their parents. That is what we taught. We needed to provide opportunities for boys and girls to play with gender-neutral materials and toys. Steer girls to blocks and boys to art. Kicking and screaming if need be. Gender was socialized. Sexual identity was a given. At that time, we didn't talk much about the awesome pressure of the cultural norm, and that it came from all corners of the Ecological System, as Urie Bronfenbrenner called the concentric circles of influence on a child's development. These pressures are powerful.

A few years ago I had a young girl in school who said she was a boy. She was a passionate competitor, physically strong and agile. She felt right in a vest or “boy jacket”, and when we performed a child version of an opera with a prince, she was drawn to play him. She threw herself into the role, and none of the other children questioned that she would play a prince. The role seemed just right for her. She took my breath away. But she said she was a boy, not, as Kelsey says, that she was neither.

 In reading about this astounding (to me) new field of gender identity, fluidity, expression, etc. I come to the realization that when we work with young children, we must be alert, as always, to how children express themselves, and how we, as teachers, can help them express themselves more fully. We must educate parents to understand that this is important at home, too. Children need encouragement to try out the whole range of the artistic and athletic arts. Our acceptance of each child as an individual needs to include gender fluidity. We need to watch out for boys who avoid art simply because other boys don't want to do art. We need to provide opportunities for girls who secretly want to build with blocks or legos, but don't because the boys stake out the territory first and, by about four, tell girls that only they can do the building. It is not easy! I catch myself steering girls to the dramatic play when they aren't sure what to do. 

Last week, while acting out the children's stories, a girl wanted to play a father. Several children objected. I invoked "non-traditional casting" (theater term) and encouraged the girl to play him. 

The pressures are great to make children conform. It is so much easier because the children, after age four, are gender Nazis, guarding the purity of the party of one or the other. The parents laughingly (and understandably) go along with the cultural norms. What will the next child, confused about her/his identity, do? How will we, as teachers, respond? Can we make this a world safe for every preference and expression of gender identity? I hope we can.

Preserving the old, preparing the new.

This is one of the WPA mosaic tiles built into the walls of the North End Pavilion at Spring Lake (NJ) Beach. That pavilion was totally destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. The tiles, we heard, had been removed for safe-keeping before the storm. The new pavilion is an almost exact replica of the old one, which is such a joy to those of us who thought that a new construction would be a new look. Even better, there are replicas of the old tiles in place. To those of us who love the Jersey Shore, this was the right thing to do.

New and original architecture, and new art are good for culture and society. New and original people are, too! Once the WPA employed artists were the breath of fresh air, the innovators, the vanguard of art in the early 20th century. When I think of how the government actually financed them, I feel such pride that the U.S. Government saw employment of artists as equally important as employment of steel workers or machinists. This attitude towards the arts has not been carried along into the new century.

Ironically, teaching through the arts has been shown in research to be the most integrating path to healthy, mature and consistent learning. I find that using the arts as a pathway motivates students to bring all of their own "human capital" to their efforts. Just as those early WPA artists, paid by Uncle Sam, threw their best efforts into working with other craftsmen to produce useful and beautiful buildings, our students will work through the arts to produce beautiful "products" that demonstrate what they have learned. New and original people are the human product of this approach. 

Teaching through arts integration is rigorous. Students must address learning standards in both the arts and in other subjects, such as history, literature, science and math. They use their hands, bodies, voices, feelings AND intellect in the learning process. This is what we call, in the Early Childhood field, integrated curriculum. There are many ways teachers can learn this approach, one being at the Kennedy Center's CETA (Changing Education Through the Arts) program. Becoming a CETA school means getting teaching artists into your building. Wolf Trap also works with schools to train teachers to teach through the arts. There are many online resources ask well. Here is one example of a digital documentation of teaching both visual art and mathematics to kindergartners, and here are examples of lessons for grades 5 through 8 addressing both social studies and language arts.

An old building is not always worth replicating. Certainly old teaching methods aren't, either. We need to teach to the whole person, preserving the best the arts and education have to offer. Let's not ignore this challenge.

Becoming a Life-Long Learner

I will start backwards, since backwards design is the rage...
This is the Welcome Symbol of our stairwell ocean. He/she is an octopus made by children, stuffing shredded paper into stockings and gluing buttons on the tentacles to represent suckers (Wiki Answers says they are called that. I'm not making it up!). I suggested that, as younger children are starting in a week, we may have to give the octopus a smiley face, to make sure they aren't put off preschool permanently.

Seriously, though, the ocean in the stairwell is painstakingly designed and executed by creative teachers and eager children. The children take full ownership, calling it "Our Ocean". I shiver with delight when I hear this.

Since I do teach integrating the arts with curriculum, and emphasize project learning, this is a terrific example for me to document. What is at the top of the ocean? At the bottom? In the middle? What are these zones called? The stairwell answers and illustrates them answers. Our incredibly creative teacher, Carrie, made the adult signs for explaining to parents what we all have been teaching. There are various zones of depth that have differing amounts of light, and the sea life of each zone is adapted to that light. I do not intend to explain that here, but would rather show pictures and comment on the cross-curricular opportunities afforded by teaching this way. To have children just barely four and children turning five and a half participate in a project where each child has a creative role and can explain their own understanding of the learning appropriate to their developmental level is what we call "best practice" in the business. I call it amazing.

Our children used reference materials to illustrate their understandings. Sometimes they strove for accuracy and sometimes for whimsy. Being young children they usually combined the two to some degree.

Invented or developmental spelling is a literacy element in the project. Children sounded out the zone beside the adult explanations of each zone.

The most colorful and elaborate part of this exhibit is the coral at the top of the stairs. Children painted the coral and cut out sections. They helped tape the pieces up with teacher guidance. Fish and other sea life were added to show how they lived among the coral, which itself is alive.

The deep water has unusual sea life, not often shown in children's storybooks so it is helpful to portray it.

Jellyfish, made with coffee filters and either yarn or paper curls, were very popular with the children. They enjoyed both making and helping to hang them.

At the bottom of two flights of stairs lay the "trenches" where the life that can live with little light resides. Here we have an example of that life, an explanation, and a child's attempt to write the name of the zone. Accuracy isn't the point. The attempt to express meaning through letters and pictures is a hallmark of early and developmentally appropriate literacy practice.

I could go on, but I hope I've made my points. As I wrote in my first post about this project, children in the fifth grade are learning this material. And they are doing most excellent reading and writing, listening and discussing, I'm sure. When our children arrive at the fifth grade, they will have had this grounding experience of having been immersed in the life of the sea, a virtual world in the stairwell of their school. During the years between now and then we hope they will retain their keen love of participating in their own planning of projects, and that they will own their own learning. This is what we as educators want for our children. This is what makes a "life-long learner".

How to teach complex ecosystems to young children.

When walking down the stairs becomes walking to the bottom of the ocean...

Carrie, my inventive colleague, is creating the ocean in our two-floor stairwell. She read to her group about the different sea life at different depths. Her group is almost all four now, and they can explain, in their amazing way, what kinds of sea life is found, and what they need to live. Since I close the center two days a week I have the luxury of listening to them share the book with me. This is how I know they comprehend depth and light at each level, and some of the creatures who inhabit them. I must tell you something amazing: When I came to work Monday and started up the stairs, I had the uncanny sensation of being at the bottom of the ocean, walking up to light. I also perceived something similar to what I perceived entering the Rothko room at The Phillips Collection: Profound mystery.

The week before she had large paper out, different shades of blue paint, and children were helping her create her stairwell masterpiece. So I knew something was up, but not exactly what. She has presented our teaching team with a wonderful challenge to invent different ways for the children to interact with our "ocean". Sue and I are discussing sharing Sue's scuba diving hobby, and my own interest in teaching concepts through music and movement. Carrie and her partner Anne will be initiating art activities to populate the ocean with dwellers at each level of depth. Perhaps we will visit an aquarium. There are so many possibilities opening for project work because of simple paint, paper, and a mundane stairwell.

The stamp of approval came from an unlikely source. One of the local elementary school principals came to observe a future student (they do this routinely, kudos to Arlington Public Schools) and remarked, on ascending the two floors, that she should bring her fifth graders to our stairwell. They are learning about the ocean ecosystem. Experiencing it virtually (not digitally) would help their learning. Quite a feather in a certain teacher's cap, I'd say.

Learning to learn

A month and a half later, we are sitting in morning meeting, and I show our group a flyer from the Washington Opera's coming 2013-2014 season. On the front there is a color picture of the three ladies from Magic Flute confronting the (two-headed!) dragon over the fainted body of Tamino. I show this flyer to our children and they exclaim in joy--"Magic Flute! Look at that dragon!". A visiting former student asks, "Is he dead?". A student patiently  explains, "He's the prince Tamino". Another: "He fainted when the dragon came." They begin reminiscing about the performance, and who was whom, leaving the visitor baffled. She had never heard of this story that our four/five year old children know so intimately and recount with such enjoyment. And she is almost seven! 

I have written about the benefits of the project approach, and about how music connects with language in the brain to form richer concepts, and improve long term memory. But what about what I consider to be the dirty little secret in early childhood education? Many practitioners do not know how to or want to share the realms of art with young children because they themselves do not feel comfortable with them (the realms, that is). My adult students are usually enthusiastic about learning new ways to provide arts experiences, but many teachers have difficulty envisioning going beyond the traditional format of providing pre-cut pieces of paper or even coloring sheets to cut out and form scenes or stick puppets, or other "art". Thinking outside the box is possible but going there? Maybe not. Using classical music is considered great for "calming" children but giving them the experience of music and drama? Maybe not. If teachers think that learning about new children's authors is exciting and fun, they do not always think so about learning to appreciate opera and ballet. Yet young children are so drawn to these forms of art when the teacher is also open and enthusiastic about them.

What is needed is training that demonstrates to teachers that they can learn about anything new (as they expect their students to). Just as they learn about sea life to teach about it, they can learn about Mozart (start with Mozart's Magic Fantasy). They can explore Wikipedia and YouTube. They can talk to friends who are familiar with these theater arts and ask questions. Just as children ask questions to learn, so can we, the "big kids" who teach them. The teacher's brain must continue to make connections in order to be fresh and open to everything children can learn. And they must not underestimate their own ability to learn, anymore than they do their students'.

Virtual Classroom for Young Children?

November 27, 2011

On: Washington Post “Virtual Schools Expand Territory” Lyndsey Layton & Emma Brown.

My hair stood on end. That’s the best way I can describe my reaction to the article in the Washington Post reporting that Virginia public schools were paying for some young children to learn “virtually”. 

 When I think of virtual education, my mind goes immediately to the online course I teach for Northern Virginia College’s Extended Learning Institute, a course for adults who need college credits in their field and find that online learning helps them maintain their sanity by cutting out driving to “brick and mortar” classrooms. They are already working full-time and raising families. Online learning for them is the perfect solution.

Why would virtual education for young children make my hair stand on end? Because the courses I teach at Nova are on Early Childhood Education. I teach that young children do not learn subject matter in separate categories. Quality programs do not teach science for one period, language arts for another, and physical education in another. Young children learn all of these things all of the time through working with other children and knowledgeable adults. They learn not only how to write, but how to share pencils; not only how to observe a science experiment, but how to discuss that experiment while jockeying for position around the science table. Learning about vibration, letters, math facts, and insects goes hand in hand with learning to disagree without being disagreeable; to encourage a friend; to converse about a topic of interest.

According to the article, the most successful virtual student has a learning coach/parent at home to supplement the lack of social-emotional learning that is crucial to a child’s future, but that definition of success is test-scores. Test-scores don’t measure ability to get along in a group of diverse children. In the workplace that ability will be as important as the ability to do math or to read and write. Relating to your loving mother just won’t replicate this experience.

Most young children are also kinesthetic, or physical learners. According to my friend, Rae Pica, a nationally known expert on movement education, children learn best through movement. How much better can a math lesson get than when children learn to count, add and subtract by participating in a game involving the whole body? Physical cues integrate the various areas of the brain involved in learning all subject areas.

Creativity also gets short shrift in today’s test-driven world, but those we most admire in society, from the late Steve Jobs to Gloria Steinem, have lived on the creative edge, pushing for change to improve the lives of millions. I pose the question: Can young children who are educated by sitting in front of a computer from the age of four be able to access their own creativity when that treasure chest inside their body/minds is relegated to last place in their educational toolkit?

According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), children learn through play in a nurturing learning community of peers and knowledgeable adults. Does this image match that of the child sitting alone, or with his/her mother in front of a computer screen? You decide.

Dem Bones: Integrating Art and Science

Our two groups of four/fives took a walk before Halloween to see the neighborhood decorations. Skeletons adorned some of the trees and the children began talking about how they were scary. My teaching partner, Sue Nellor, and I talked about bones, and how we all had them. This led to our bone study. Since the arts are an integral part of our curriculum, we did more with bones in art than most schools would. Dramatic play included bone x-rays on a light tray. A human skeleton puzzle, created by Sue was on the science table along with cattle, and later deer bones. Books about the human body abounded around our large room. White chalk on black paper served as the medium for skeletal drawings. Several children made their skeletons look mean, and some cheerful, using the art experience to express their feelings. Other projects included making skeletons with sticks and using clay to explore a more 3d representation.

In staff meeting we discussed the ways we could enrich the learning and we came up with the idea of body tracings that included bones. The children had sung "Dem Bones", looked at posters about the skeleton, and felt their own rib, knee, back and shin bones on their own bodies. Would they be able to draw their own skeletal bones on their tracings? Would we end up with princess outfits and ball caps? We needed to see.

The children traced each other on white paper from a huge roll. That was the first step. The second was that they drew in their bones, guided by several posters and books with drawings of the human skeleton. The children each took to the task with enthusiasm.  It was fascinating to see how each child perceived the skeleton bones and translated that perception; some were all ribs, some many joints, correctly and incorrectly placed.  Some children couldn't resist drawing a face. The spine became a line down the center, or a line half-way down. The pelvis was included in some drawings. One boy asked where the penis bone was. A good question!

Next week we will visit the Smithsonian Natural History Museum by Metro. Our plan is to visit the Written in Bone exhibit to take us through skeletons to Thanksgiving, history, artifacts and other related subjects. Who knows what other arts activities will be born from this exploration?

How do you motivate teachers to be creative?

As anyone who reads my blog knows, I love to write with a picture in mind, even if the subject doesn't necessarily connect to the topic, I will make it connect. So if you read this, you can give me a thumbs-up or -down on how well I connect this picture to what I'm about to write!

In this photo, I am four and my brother is two. We were brought into a photographic studio of a tall blonde woman who had a large studio with big, rectangular shaped lights. I wasn't thrilled about having my picture taken with my dopey (sorry, Bob) little brother to begin with, and then we were asked to sit together on a table all cozy while the photographer struggled with her equipment. When she was finally ready to take our picture I had already had enough of her fussing, ignoring moi, and giving us curt commands. I did not want to smile and I definitely didn't want to look directly into the big rectangular light that  hurt my eyes. I fidgeted, and kept looking away. My mother, somewhere to my right, pleaded with me to cooperate. You can see from the picture that I did. but I was not happy about it!

What, does this have to do with motivating teachers to be creative, you may well ask, and with good reason! I will attempt to explain.

In the first place one has to consider that there are preschools where teachers and management have little interest in creativity in the first place. I am  not going to go there. They have their own reward, as they say in church. I am talking about how schools that have NAEYC accreditation, and have, in their literature, explanations of how their curriculum is creative, stimulating and developmentally appropriate. How does management--"heads of school", directors, and other administrators--motivate its teaching staff to go beyond creating the everyday, ordinary curricular learning experiences that usually satisfy the majority of parents who know little of what can really be done in the service of learning in its broadest sense?

One model I know of does it this way: Teachers are told to create exciting learning activities aligned with the school's yearly curricular goals and its literacy curriculum. Coming into the situation, a new faculty member believes that she can, within the parameters of the school's curriculum, create learning experiences that are as creative and interesting to children as possible, drawing from the world's cultures, traditions and arts to do so. But this teacher soon gets a surprise! Just as my four-year-old self came into a room of cold light, and admonishments to be still and smile, this teacher is asked to put aside her ideas and try to emulate other teachers, the reasoning being that if one teacher does something different, parents will demand the same from other teachers. Go ahead and be creative, but don't "show up your colleagues".

Imagine if the four-year-old, instead of being asked to sit still and stare while the photographer was getting ready, was given permission to explore the studio with parental guidance, and then asked how she would like to pose? I know, it isn't an analogy that quite fits (thumbs-down?), but there is some parallel here. Bear with me.

A second program expresses that it wants teachers to be creative, to bring their own strengths to the job of teaching young children. If teachers do projects that are different from those of other teachers, administrators encourage it, and when parents ask for the same in other classrooms, the pressure is on those teachers to be more creative, to make more connections, to go beyond the boundaries of the average aggregate of activities that are ordinarily used. That the administration has the back of the creative teacher ensures instruction and planning will evolve into new learning and new experiences.

Which way do you like? In which program would you want to teach?

Music and Movement: Inextricably Intertwined

How amazing it is to put music on during centers, put out a tote full of scarves, and watch children swarm the bag for the colorful banners of movement they would like to wield! If you are lucky and very sneaky you will be able to catch one of them in the act of finding their center and expressing the feelings evoked by the music, as I did in the photo. I have taught college students from several excellent texts that each emphasize a different aspect of what we call "Music and Movement", but these two concepts have no separate meanings to young children. They are inextricably intertwined. In Rae Pica's book, Experiences in Movement, she demonstrates the connection between music skills and movement skills. If the music is pizzacato--plucked strings suggesting light, quick movement, like in Benjamin Britten's Simple Symphony, Playful Pizzacato Movement--children can use movement skills like hopping or jumping. The creative movement becomes perfect for integrating science curriculum concepts about grasshoppers or fireflies blinking on and off! If the music is legato, or smooth and connected--like in Mozart's Rondo in A minor, K 511--children can use movement skills like sliding and swaying. These movements show the smooth movements of fish in water, or birds in the sky. 

Once I played this last lovely piece for my fours so they could move smoothly and freely. One little boy sighed and said, "I love this song...". How glorious to bring together the beauty and power of great music for young bodies to give expression to their innermost feelings through movement. 

                                                                                    

Should children be guided in their art?

On the left is a photograph of a painting, done in silk stick (soft crayon), and liquid water color by a four year old. This work was done in three half-hour sessions in an art studio with an art teacher who had read Through Georgia's Eyes to the class before the sessions began.

The guidance consisted of this: A choice of silk flowers were offered to the children as models for their work. Then the children were encouraged to draw what they saw in pencil. If the children's drawings were not accurate, the teacher asked them questions that highlighted the difference between the flower and the marks on paper. At no time were the children made to feel "wrong". All instruction was geared towards greater perceptual awareness and visual discrimination, an important skill in later reading instruction. Once the flowers were drawn, the children traced their pencil marks in Sharpie pens. They were then provided with silk sticks for color. Again, the teacher made suggestions about contrasting and complimenting color combinations, but she respected each child's ultimate choice. The finishing touch was a watercolor wash, with different colors over each section. The children chose purple over yellow, for example, or blue over green. The effects were striking. In a later school art show these pieces, "in the style of Georgia O'Keefe", were dazzling. And the children glowed with pride.

I have taught Art, Music and Movement at Northern Virginia Community College for years, and our emphasis, consistent with early education practice in the arts, is to value process over product. This is a good thing! We want to get away from cookie-cutter crafts that have been and continue to be rampant in preschools across the country. But I now believe that a loose interpretation of "process" art denies children the opportunity to grow in their creative, aesthetic and cognitive abilities. A little expert guidance seems to bring more out of a child that is there in the first place. What do you think?