0.2 Part two: special topics  (Page 19/39)

Overview

The arts play a central role in many cultures around the world. In Bali, for example, the community participates in art-making frombirth to old age. Each member of the community knows him/herself to be "an artist." In other cultures the artist is put up on a stage to sing alone or theterm "artist" is reserved for people demonstrating a particular level of skill or advanced form of study.

From the example of the Reggio Emilia preschools, however, it becomes clear that children are, indeed, natural artists, andthat educating through the arts comes easily. In this section, we move from this premise of an natural fit between education and the arts to examineapplication in the classroom and our communities.

Learning through the arts supports the work of multiple intelligences and helps create a venue for different ways ofknowing about ourselves and others. Art stimulates the imagination, nurtures students' willingness to be innovative, to problem solve, tolearn about each other, and other cultures. It reinforces observational and interpretive skills, and adds a qualitative dimension to life. Throughart children learn about working in groups, working alone, and expressing personal insights and emotions. Art creates a lively dialogue withinourselves, our schools, and our community.

Emerging creativity

Given what is known about young children's learning and about their amazing competence to express their visions of themselvesand their world, how can the classroom be modified to best support children's emerging creativity?

Time - Creativity does not follow the clock. Children need extended, unhurried time to explore and do their best work. They should notbe artificially rotated, that is, asked to move to a different learning center or activity when they are still productively engaged and motivatedby a piece of creative work.

Space - Children need a place to leave unfinished work to continue the next day, and a space that inspires them to do their best work. Abarren, drab environment is not conducive to creative work. Rather, children's work is fostered by a space that has natural light, harmoniouscolors, comfortable and child-sized areas, examples of their own and others' work (not only their classmates, but as appropriate, also theirteachers' and selected adult artists), and inviting materials.

Materials - Without spending great amounts of money, teachers can organize wonderful collections of resource materials thatmight be bought, found, or recycled. These materials can include paper goods of all kinds; writing and drawing tools; materials for constructionsand collages, such as buttons, stones, shells, beads, and seeds; and sculpting materials, such as play dough, goop, clay, and shaving cream.These materials are used most productively and imaginatively by children when they themselves have helped select, organize, sort, and arrange them.

Climate - The classroom atmosphere should reflect the adults' encouragement and acceptance of mistakes, risk-taking,innovation, and uniqueness, along with a certain amount of mess, noise, andfreedom. This is not a matter of chaos, or of tight control, but instead something in between. In order to create such a climate, teachers must givethemselves permission to try artistic activity themselves, even when they have not been so fortunate as to have had formal art training or to feel theyare naturally "good at art." Through workshops, adult education classes, or teamwork with an art teacher or parent, classroom teachers can gain theconfidence for, and experience the pleasure of, venturing some distance down the road of self-expression in a medium in which they did not know theycould be successful. Their skill will then translate into the work with the children.