Nature in Clay

Amy picked some leaves this morning as the snow began to fall and brought them into the studio to share with the children. 

We then offered the children a few ceramic underglazes to highlight the leaf impressions in clay.  We have used under-glazing on wet clay before.... another step into the unknown.  We look forward to firing the clay to see how the clay accepts the glaze. 

Structure and Freedom: risk taking and the art of not knowing

The school day begins.  Children enter the gate, peek through the round window, bid a final farewell and walk into school.  There are a few tears.  There are confident strides and last looks. They are beginning a new school year, meeting new teachers and peers and leaving the comfort of a familiar summer behind.  In classrooms they discover new things daily, attempting new works, adapting to social expectations and honing self regulation skills. They sit cross-legged in a circle, wait in turn to speak and navigate the various routines and spaces of our school.  As adults we often overlook their resilience and courage, taking for granted how much newness a child encounters daily and how willingly they do so.  

To reproduce a taste of this newness, I set up a provocation for our teachers to participate in.  I offered them a wide brush and some sumi ink with which to create the impression of a body and hair using the simplest of brush strokes.  Details were added later. As we worked, our discomfort, resistance and vulnerability became obvious. “Will other people judge our work?” “Am I doing this right?”  To counter this discomfort some announced, “I’m not good at this” or “I’m not an artist”. For others this activity was well within their comfort zone and they completed it sweat-free. By the next day our work was available for all to see in the school lobby.  

This week, I invited children to participate in the same activity and wasn’t surprised when they eagerly began to paint.  So eager in fact that parameters were harder to maintain. I noticed this. But continued to ask each child to use a simple brushstroke to express the body and another for hair. Art involves structure and freedom.  Both are necessary. Children typically embrace the freedom while adults cling to its structure. We need them BOTH.  

Children help us rediscover freedom and curiosity.  Adults have the ability to mindfully offer a structure to support growth, learning and skill development.   It’s a good balance. I look forward to learning and teaching alongside the children this year to discover the joy of not knowing, the power of risk taking and art of making mistakes.

The Big Reveal and the Art of "I DON'T KNOW"

In recent years I’ve noticed an increased tendency on the part of adults to impose learning rather than scaffold discovery. Imposed learning assumes a ready-made foreknowledge of what children need to know and relies heavily on prescribed teaching methodologies to meet said needs.  Some of this is necessary and useful but when our focus on test scores outweighs our need to cultivate curiosity, we are off the mark by a long shot.  Why?

Young children learn from what we do far more than what we say.  How we show up in the “classroom” of our daily experience communicates as much or more than any prescribed learning activity ever could.  When we focus on correct answers and established modes of discovery we indirectly discourage mistake making and risk taking.  Two things that are essential to creativity, innovation and resilience. Add to this that today's children face an unknown future with challenges prior generations never encountered and we have sufficient cause to pause.

Perhaps the ‘tried and true” methods of teaching, perceiving and approaching the world aren’t sufficient.  Perhaps it's time to examine what we don’t know (which, at least for me, is a lot) and recognize how uncomfortable we have have become with not-knowing.  Somehow a simple, "I don't know", makes us squirm with embarrassment and implied vulnerability. 

But we weren’t always this way.  

As young children we delighted in the unknown.  We asked questions every chance we got.  We marveled as the sun disappeared over the horizon only to magically reappear the next day. At breakfast we tossed our juice cup with scientific rigor over the table’s edge, watching it fall to the floor with a crash-and-bounce. Discovering with gladness a force we would later call gravity.  Somewhere along the line we grew up and forgot to be enthralled by the wonders of the world.  Here young children have much to teach us!  They “don’t know” a lot of the time. And more often than not, they’re cool with it.  They wonder and delight. They fall down.  They get up.  They try and try and try again. This kind of intelligence that has nothing to do with test scores AND everything to do with success.  

When we postpone the urge to provide an answer, assistance or advice, we preserve a child's right to discover and in so doing we champion our own. 

With this year’s research question : What might adults learn alongside young children about befriending the unknown, the art of imperfection and the value of risk taking? I hope to learn more from and with the children about how to wisely prepare for an unknown future while keeping our curiosity and intrinsic motivation intact.

The school is once again humming with the sound of work and play. Soon the studio will open its proverbial doors and the children will begin exploring! 

I couldn't be more eager to welcome them!  

Please join me in another year of learning and unlearning alongside your children! 

Studio Notes: 

• Mark your calendar for our upcoming Studio Orientation on October 10th from 5-7PM. We will have fun discussing share this topic along and sharing important information about the studio.
• If this research question gets you thinking and you might like to collaborate  email me at studio@cgmontessori.com
• And as always, I invite you to follow this blog for weekly posts and photos of our year.

Disclaimer: Perhaps as some kind of cosmic joke this particular blog post has insisted on a disparity of fonts, colors and sizes.  No effort on my part is countering it and so I am left with a chuckle.  Perhaps this is the beginning of my own efforts to embrace mistake making and the many unknowns on the road ahead.  Regardless, I apologize for the peculiarity of the script.