Can the Arts Save Education?

Can the Arts Save Education?

Yes!
Okay, I'm done.
No, seriously, the arts are the new go-to solution for failing schools.

We have tried extrinsic rewards, or "positive reinforcement" through certificates, stars, stickers, contests, jellybean jars, and praise ("good job!"). We have tried testing out the wazoo, tying test scores to teacher pay (a miserable form of behavior modification that fails our children so why try it with teachers?). We have tried speeches and grand-standing. We've tried firing teachers. Has any of this improved test scores or even stopped the downward slide in many schools?

No!

The definition of insanity is doing the same sort of thing over and over again, expecting that the next time it will work. How we have been trying to improve education is, by that definition, insane.

The arts are instrinsically motivating. The arts instill not only discipline but a desire to pursue discipline because that discipline helps the individual to improve at what they most love doing. Pursuing an artistic endeavor nurtures self-esteem and integrates the mind, body and emotions. Teaching through the arts motivates children to go more deeply into a subject because they are more committed to the process of learning. Finally, states are getting serious about giving the arts their due. "There's lots of evidence that kids immersed in the arts do better on their academic tests".  In many schools children are being taught through project work that includes some art form, be it music, movement, drama or dance. You won't find this in the school just around the corner, necessarily, but it is happening out there.

I have written extensively about project work and arts integration in early childhood, specifically in preschool. During the Bush years my graduate professors often spoke wistfully about how preschool education was ahead of elementary education. High-stakes testing and the emphasis on teaching reading and math to elementary school children through "scientific" methods have failed to live up to their promise.

Teaching and learning through the arts gives children the juice, the food they need to want to learn. It is satisfying and intrinsically rewarding to create, using new knowledge and information, with the guidance of a teacher who understands integrating curriculum and artistic work. Children are hungry for this. Let's feed them.

Creating in Three Dimensions

Three dimensional construction is a mainstay of the preschool curriculum. In my school we have a center for these small wooden blocks, a large muscle rug for the huge wooden blocks we call "hollow blocks", and we also stock plastic milk crates in two outdoor closets on our playground. Construction is very popular among both boys and girls. And since there has been an ongoing major construction project across the street, construction has become even more meaningful. The children see the steps of real building going on in their neighborhood.

In this photo the children have constructed a zoo. We haven't gone to the zoo (to be arranged) but when we brought out the plastic animals the children saw their opportunity and took it! Their passion is intense. They cooperate in ways that are amazing for three and four year old children. They don't stop and ask why we have blocks. The reasons to them are self-evident.

Why do we use blocks in preschool? Do children play with blocks in first, second or third grade? Why aren't we sitting them down and making them do workbooks? Why aren't we asking them to make Winter pictures of snowmen since so many children's books equate snow with Winter, regardless of the fact that many regions of the world have no snow at all? Why aren't we drilling them on letters and numbers, rewarding them with stickers for correct answers?

Because we know that what the children are passionate about are also interests that lead to a broader and richer development of their talents and abilities. What children learn through block play is how to manipulate three-dimensional objects in space. They learn to visualize what they want to accomplish before they even take out a single block. The more practice they have, the more accurate their visualizations become. Over time their creations become more complex and intricate, not to mention surprisingly skilled. They are practicing Spatial intelligence. Schools beyond preschool have traditionally neglected it (see the above link). These skills are devalued by traditional schools when they could become an integral part of a child's future. This is a vacuum in education that needs to be filled.

Kindergarten, first and second grade are still considered early childhood by all experts in the field. Yet recess drops to almost zero, children are asked to sit still way too much for their growing bodies and intelligences, and they are asked to do work and take tests that have no relevance to their actual futures. Learning is dynamic. Children are active learners who have all of Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences in their growing brains and bodies. Let's continue to exploit these intelligences into the early elementary school years. They will learn to read and write and compute, but they will do so in an organic way that includes engagement and interest in truly creative work 

More Outdoor

My delightful colleague, Dr. Christine Schull, who teaches at our sister Nova Campus in Alexandria, wrote me that she enjoys my blog, and uses it as a resource in some of her classes. She said she particularly likes my posts on outdoor learning. As an enthusiastic people-pleaser, I must (and am happy to) dedicate this blog entry to her.


I am aware that outdoor education is a broad umbrella encompassing adventure camps, zip lines, nature trails, and simple outdoor gardening. All of this is wonderful stuff. My own children participated in Arlington's Outdoor Lab when they were in elementary school and they were always very energized by the experience. It led me to wonder why outdoor experiences were parceled out in such stingy servings.


Now outdoor education, or outdoor classrooms, are gaining popularity in preschool and childcare centers, and it is a real shot of energy to what otherwise has been a rather static approach to early education. Static, you say? Haven't we gone beyond coloring sheets and cookie-cutter art? (Well, some of us have.) Aren't we well into developmentally appropriate practice, NAEYC accreditation, Star rating systems,  and other improvements that have made our profession a Profession and our centers and schools immensely beneficial to children? Emphatically, YES! But we continually move ahead.

I myself, as both a teacher-educator and teacher of young children, am struggling to catch up with all of the great information on outdoor learning for preschoolers. In the mean time, we provide opportunities that my children did not have in preschool (but that I had, without preschool!)--opportunities to be intimate with dirt and water, sand and grubs; opportunities to identify birds by their nests and calls, and opportunities to sit in cobbed playhouses with dirt floors playing bakery. At our center, aside from two sand areas we also have a dirt box and shovels that look like adult gardening shovels but sized for young children. Very young children make holes they are proud of, then stand in them to measure themselves against a playmate who is not standing in a hole. "Look! Now I'm shorter!" They switch places and exclaim, "And  now I'm taller!" Other, older children, say they are digging dirt to make a road. They mix the dirt with water to "pave" the ground. Across the street is a huge construction project that they have visited on a field trip. They have seen paving in action. Integrated curriculum works outside, just as it does inside.

Here is a video about outdoor learning that will give you an overview of the idea of learning outdoors. For me, having learned and grown up outside until age six, this is a no-brainer.

Creativity and cognition go hand in hand

In my course, Art, Music and Movement for Young Children we talk about process versus product. We discuss open-ended learning opportunities. These phrases become a mantra for Early Childhood Teachers who are serious about making art experiences into learning and development experiences rather than simply craft products to take home to Mommy and Daddy.

    "Creativity becomes more visible when adults try to be more attentive to the cognitive processes of children than to the results they achieve in various fields of doing and understanding." Loris Malaguzzi.

The founder of the Reggio Emiglia program tells us that creativity and cognition (thinking) are interrelated. As the old song says, "...you can't have one without the other...". Why do teachers of young children still ask them to replicate their own craft models, such as snowmen, jack-o-lanterns, Christmas trees et. al? These practices, proven to be less then optimal for learning and development, persist in preschools and even kindergarten classes throughout the country. As many teachers point out, these activities teach children to follow directions. Granted, they do, but let's not pretend they are art experiences, or exercises in higher order thinking because they are most emphatically not. They are cute presents a child brings home to his or her family. And frequently they aren't even done by the child. The pieces are cut out by teachers, and teachers tell them where to put the glue! Where is the creativity cum cognition there?

I can get rather bent out of shape about this. Steam comes out of my ears when an adult student tells me that a colleague takes a piece of paper from a child and puts it in the "right" place after the child has failed to do the activity "correctly".

Above is a partial picture of a dearly creative youngster. (Privacy is sacred, y'all) She began with the picture of herself with rainbow hair. Then she proceeded to convert herself into a "squid". I asked her if her squid had rainbow hair and she said, of course! But then she did something that perhaps a teacher of the cookie-cutter craft mold would have been anxious about. This girl began scribbling color all over the paper. As she worked, she told me that the squid lived in rainbow water. I asked a few more open-ended questions and she made it clear that the squid had to have color over and around her because, " she lives in rainbow water". The picture began looking like an aquarium from another planet. Blue, green, read, yellow, orange flowed over and around the "squid", which had tentacles hanging from the former body of our artist.

Here is the cognitive process at work. Here is a child drawing her conception of what it would look like if the ocean were rainbow colored and a squid lived in it. Both words and marks flowed from this girl. She was in the midst of artistic process. At our school, no one will ever tell her the ocean isn't rainbow colored, and that she can't turn herself into a squid. She knows that better than anyone.

"Your children have so much personality!"

Here you see a girl drawing a line in the dirt of our playground. She is focused, and calm. The dirt is endlessly fascinating. It holds many treasures both in and on it. Soon she will go off to climb or collect other treasures, and stop again to experiment with other tools, both manufactured and natural. Her friends do the same, both boys and girls. There is time for this in the day because it is essential to the growth of her mind. She will need to discuss what she discovers later in morning meeting, or at lunch, or during activity time. And she will have the opportunity to try out her drawing using other media. She will extend and expand on what she has learned outside.

In our day we discuss every aspect of our curriculum with the children, and they easily offer tips and suggestions to us. Everyone has a say. We ask important, open-ended questions and expect answers not only at the time but after, while we are on the playground, for instance, or at lunch. We eat with our children and everything is discussed. I don't mean to make it sound like a graduate dorm! The children are under five and conversations can become silly and even naughty! But they know that anything they say has value to us, and we will take their comments and questions seriously, whether about the construction project across the street (is that a dump truck?), the lines they are drawing in the dirt (I can make a rectangle!),and the food we are eating (ugh! you brought mushrooms?). Perhaps partly because of our program's emphasis on individual inquiry, and partly because each teacher is open as a person to the children, our children have a reputation to the various adults who come to observe. A former college student of mine said, "they are lively, but so well-behaved". And each year those who come to observe for both state and county licensing say something even more interesting. They say, "They have so much PERSONALITY!" 

I think this says volumes. When the state and county regulators go to other childcare centers do they see children who are not as inquisitive, not as lively? Do they see children who are marched through the day doing coloring and worksheets, or going from activity to activity every fifteen minutes or half hour? Do they have concrete playgrounds instead of outdoor environments? 

Possibly we just have more interesting children coming to our center!  I can't say for sure, but I must admit, they do have so much personality!

Cob Isn't Just for Corn

Children stomping on mud. What more could a child want? But stop for a minute and wonder: If children stomping in the mud could result in building birdhouses, sculptures, even playhouses, would this be an optional fun activity for young children or part of a learning project that touches on all developmental domains and content areas?
Consider the following: Our children discovered, while digging in the sand under the climbing equipment, that there was clay at the bottom. They knew that we were going to be building cob birdhouses and they wondered if the clay they found could be used for such a purpose.
Cognitively, they were making plans to use something they had (as far as they knew) discovered for the first time. They knew that cobbing required clay, made into mud.  Their playground playhouses were made of the stuff, and they were very familiar with its use. So when they "discovered" a lode of clay, they volunteered to mine it. Working purposefully, they continued to dig, placing clay into a bucket for the work that was to come. I love seeing the children work so intensively to create something that is needed. Children are so often asked to do activities that have no relation to real life. These activities are implemented by well-meaning teachers in order to teach skills and content, but the work the children do has no relationship to the adult world. When our children discovered clay, they made a connection from what they were doing to something larger than themselves and their learning needs. They knew they were a part of the larger community that created an environment for living things.

The next step was to collect the clay, and measure the hole they had dug. We gave them tape and a long shovel so they could mark where the hole came to on the shovel. Later inside they would compare it to a tape measure, learning that they had dug a hole fifteen inches deep. Here were math skills used in service of the larger project. Some of the children carried the collected clay into the school where it would be combined with shredded paper and water to make the material for the birdhouses. The recipe for cob is clear. There is a certain ratio of clay to paper (or straw) needed. The children helped work out how much more clay was needed. More was needed, so while we used old clay from our crafts closet, the children continued to dig for more.

After kneading outside and in, the cob was applied to a wooden frame that will eventually become a birdhouse for our playground. This is a work in progress, but more learning is to take place as the children use their journals to reflect on what they themselves have contributed to the project.

All subjects are covered in a project-oriented curriculum. All domains are covered as well. Yet we do not use cute materials or teacher-made felt-board sets to teach. We teach, and the children learn, through their own serious and focused efforts to contribute to the larger world.

The Rhyme is the Thing

Sometimes my fondness for a children's book drives my approach to teaching children. Since I particularly adore Mittie Cuetara's book Terrible Teresa and other Very Short Stories because it uses a form of poetry I loved as a child, I use it to teach rhyming, sequence, and creativity. Children love the farcical stories that each four-panel cartoon tells. Their favorite is the title story,"Terrible Teresa"  which ends with the line, "you must go to baby jail", and has a drawing of a toddler in a crib. They laugh the side-splitting laughter of the newly initiated fan of comedy. They want to emulate this. What can a teacher do but provide the opportunity, materials, and help so that they can do it?

First we demonstrated the process by pinning four papers to the bulletin board and asking the children to suggest a protagonist. Once they agreed on one, we had them generate ideas for the first line of the poem, to be written on the first panel. My teaching partner, Sue, wrote the line and drew the character, a whale. Then we pointed out the last word in the line and asked for as many words as possible that rhymed with the word. I wrote these on the dry erase board. The children supplied ideas and we suggested ways to order the wording so that the rhyming word was at the end of the line. After perhaps five minutes we had a four-line poem, and rudimentary illustrations. Several children asked if they could write and draw their own "Terrible Teresas".

The next day we put out small rectangles of white paper.  I invited two or three children at a time to the art table to create their own story, using the same method we had used with the large group. The difference was that the children drew their own illustrations and generated the ideas for the poem, along with rhymes. Some children needed more help than others, of course, but it was very exciting to see that they "got" the idea. Each child wanted to continue until they had completed four panels, even if they had to wait until the next day to do it. We now have eight of the children's stories mounted on construction paper taped to the wall outside the classroom where parents can admire them. Those who did not do stories are now motivated to try, because they want to see their work displayed. Peer pressure is a powerful force in teaching!

Using  humor with children is motivating. They want to emulate models that are clever and strike their funny bones. From this adorable quality comes rich creativity, and the practice of diligent work.

Here is the text of the above story, written by a five-year old:

"Rainbows made him scaredy-cat.
He told him Mom about that.
On the rainbow his skateboard sat.
He slid down and fell flat."

It doesn't scan like James Thurber, but by gosh, it is good stuff for a preschooler!