The Snowy Day: Teaching Art, Teaching Tolerance

 

I am breathless with excitement! The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats, is fifty years old, and a commemorative edition is out. I’ve already ordered it after reading about it in the Washington Post Style section today.

I was ten when book came out and felt that I was way too mature to look at a mere picture book, but I did happily read it to my daughters when they were little. Since we were living in the D.C. area and only visited my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio a few times in winter, the magic of snow in the city was mostly unfamiliar to them. Those few times that we did visit home, they made snow angels to their hearts’ content, as did the story’s protagonist Peter in The Snowy Day. We never talked about Peter as black. He was a little boy, just like some of the little boys they knew in school.

When I began teaching young children, Keat’s stories became a regular part of my curriculum. We went outside in the snow (with boots on!) to make snow angels and throw snowballs at trees (not at people!). The children enjoyed making tracks in the snow with sticks, as Peter did. They experimented with footprints, and we looked for animal tracks. I even photographed snow-tracks of different animals for guessing games. After reading Peter’s Chair, the children voted on a design of a chair we would sand and paint for the school’s auction. One little boy asked his mother to bring his baby sister to school for show-and-tell. Peter had a baby sister, so he wanted to share his!

Once I began teaching Language Arts for Young Children at Northern Virginia Community College I required my students to do an author report, sharing curriculum ideas, biographical, and bibliographical information. Much to my surprise, and a testament to the truism that teachers learn by teaching, I discovered that “Jack” was not black. He was a Jew of Eastern European descent, and that he changed his name to Keats from Katz because of the anti-Semitism he experienced in New York. My own mother experienced such anti-Semitism in urban Cleveland during those same years. A simple story about a little boy became intensely personal for me.

Keats expressed his love for his tumbledown urban, integrated (“diverse”) neighborhood through his art.  Keats’ love of art, of his life in a city of graft and graffiti, inspired his storytelling even as both he and his subjects suffered from prejudice and bigotry.

Teachers can take Keats’ work as a springboard for many activities that inspire interest in science, art, literature and math. They do this all the time. African-American teachers can and do use The Snowy Day for Black History month, since Peter was the first black child featured in an American picture book. What else can we do?

A large part of teaching young children includes emotional literacy: Knowing and understanding your own feelings in order to understand other people. Can we talk about how Keats felt a kinship with his black protagonist because of his own experience in a less than tolerant country? Can we talk about feeling left out or disliked with young children by asking them to journal about their own experiences? Can we talk about understanding others? Even as my mother and her family suppressed her roots to get by in twentieth century urban American, (the family name, Mansfeld, was changed to Mansfield), Keats changed his name to hide his own roots. We don’t want children to feel they have to do the same thing with any aspect of their identities. We want them to become fearless in art and fearless in communication, bridging divides while expressing themselves authentically, just as he did. How do you do this in your teaching practice? Share your thoughts.

Pink Toys, Blue Toys

When I was a child, lo these many moons ago, gender identity was fixed and well-policed by cultural mores and taboos. As a young girl I preferred my brother’s doctor kit to the nurse kit Santa brought me, but my mother patiently explained that I was a girl, my brother was a boy, and we got the toys meant for who we were. How different it was back in the fifties. Or was it?

I read in The Washington Post, in an op-ed by Peggy Orenstein, that Legos, Inc. is aggressively marketing new sets that are aimed at little girls. Primary colors have always been the mainstay of Lego sets but what with the onset of girl-marketing the colors they are a-changing. The new sets, Creative Cakes, Butterfly Beauty Shop, and Stephanie’s Cool Convertible, to name just a few, feature pastel colors to match the pastel themes of each. No doubt these sets will find eager fans. I teach young children and those of us in this business are deeply aware of the power of pink (and violet) on young girls. I myself recently sponsored a pink crayon/marker drive at school to satisfy this lust among my pink-starved girls. To be fair, I included green in this effort to satisfy my boys who, contrary to popular belief, prefer it to blue.

But what’s to prevent this trickle of pastel blocks from becoming a torrent of aspiration-dilution in girls? Already my girls worship at the altar of the Disney Princesses. Once upon a time (my time) Cinderella had her own identity, as did Snow White. Perhaps they were defined by their relationships with men, but at least they weren’t lumped together and interchangeable. How far will this go?

After reading Lise Eliot’s Pink Brain, Blue Brain, my commitment to providing learning experiences for girls and boys that allowed for playing in cross-competencies was reinforced. If boys wanted to build, girls would be encouraged to build, and their minds seeded with the idea that Betty could build as well as Bob. If boys wanted or appeared interested in drawing and writing, their minds would similarly be engaged at any level that appealed to them. Perhaps, as Ms. Orenstein writes, this was behind Legos interest in making building kits for girls. Perhaps it was only a profit motive, taking advantage of the tyrannical gender separation that begins at age four. In any case, seeing these sets incites me to a sense of radical commitment to encouraging competencies in every area of children’s creativity, regardless of color (pastel or otherwise). If your daughter adores the Disney princesses you are not duty-bound to provide them with a steady diet of girly play opportunities (Pink markers and crayons are okay).You can guide them beyond the pink curtain in a playful and loving way.

For years I’ve taught the Nutcracker Ballet to fours. My unit always starts with asking children what they know about ballet. The boys invariably state that ballet is for girls (ugh) and the girls begin to pirouette. We talk about story-telling through movement, watch a video of the ballet in stages, and practice the difficult leaps and sprints they see on the video. By the end of the unit the boys might still say ballet is for girls, but leap and twirl to the Nutcracker’s music, asking for toy soldier dress-ups. Minds change gradually. Be a part of the change.

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.

P.S. Metro Map as Art

Before we went on our field trip we reviewed the metro maps so the children would understand how they worked. Since the D.C. Metro names its lines after colors, the children were especially attracted to lines that were named after colors they favored. The Orange Line, Yellow Line, Blue Line, Red Line and Green Line all had their fans. Since there was an interest in the visual aspect of the maps, we invited the children to create map art. Above is one representation.

Dem Bones: Our Fabulous Field Trip

How do you take sixteen four-year-olds and eight parents to the Smithsonian? By metro, of course! We decided to finish our project on bones by visiting the exhibit, Written in Bone . The advantages of working with children in a center located near a metro stop can't be exaggerated. The trip was easy, the learning monumental. 

We prepared the children with personal metro maps easily printed from the internet. They consulted their maps frequently and asked questions such as, "How many stops until...?" and, "What's the next stop called?", all while hugging poles or sitting in seats, giggling, as the train moved and rocked, . Including this practical literacy element made my professional heart quiver. Embedded Language Arts! Project learning! The children weren't thinking of such things. They were learning and using their learning outside of the traditional methods of worksheets and flash cards. We had examined deer and cattle bones. We'd played physician's office and hospital with xrays and a light board, leg braces and slings. We'd created art, both small and large, representing our own skeletons. Now was the time to see what the professional anthropologists did with bones.

We reconnoitered on the Mall, a sweeping vista that mocks the usual meaning of the word in American culture, and walked to the Natural History Museum. I won't describe the marvelous exhibits to you. Visit the museum or its website for the details on those. Suffice it to say the children were enraptured, and they impressed their parents with their new vocabulary words and knowledge, as well as their burning curiosity about every aspect of the exhibit. They greeted the adventure of eating in the museum cafeteria with equal enthusiasm. That's the rapture of early childhood.

We will return to the human body this year. Already the children express interest in muscles, ligaments, and organs through their book sharing. The Magic School Bus and the Human Body has become a popular book in our small library. For now we say adieu to our project. I encourage you who teach young children in traditional programs to embrace a more project-oriented approach. The learning goes on and on.

Wordle

I went to another Hybrid training course. It was three  hours of rehashing of what I have learned in other Hybrid Training courses, except that I do pick up some neat tricks each time I am required to attend one. This time I learned about Wordle, which is a site for creating art through words. Here is the Wordle I created for this blog.


I think that it is much smaller than it appears on the Wordle site, but you can see how lovely something you create out of simple words can be. The site is here.
Enjoy the fruit of my morning in another training class!

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?