Teaching young children to nurture there creative side is the same as teaching in general, it is about knowing your children, listening to your children and being really in tune with your children.
Teaching young children to nurture there creative sides, involves aiming high for your children and believing in the value of an idea.
My in depth investigations and thinking started to clarify after winning a scholarship to Reggio Emilia in 2010. Visiting Reggio Emilia and studying with 100 other like minded individuals was like finding your clan.
(Ken Robinson can enlighten you more about finding your clan.)
Reggio Emilia is a province in Italy where they have this world famous curriculum based around creative expression.
In Reggio Emilia they have a way of seeing the world through children’s eyes, they have a deep understanding and spend a significant amount of time collaborating with each educator to understand what children readily absorb through there experiences.
They capture the naivety of children’s thoughts as well as the animated high spiritedness children have for objects of desire.
Reggio Emilia was the inspiration behind my blog and if the reader wishes they are advised to go back to the beginning of my blog and read my article about my experiences in Reggio Emilia.
After attending Reggio Emilia I started studying 5 children in my centre to see if the desire for art is embedded in a person.
I was particularly interested in involving boys in art, as well as what I thought were disruptive children (big mistake, but we must challenge our perceptions to really learn value)
As well as children that had little interest in art.
I hope to gain permission to share these stories with the reader in time, but for now I am going to share the first finding of my enlightened perceptions of the time children spend being creative.
Finding the point of entry, accepting your invitation into a child’s perception of creativity…..The ground work.
The children I have known and that have shared there artistic expression with me , if I think back I can recall one defining moment where I have observed and believed that there is a spark of desire in there actions.
And it is a spark of desire, a mesmerised look, an intruding thought, an extension of interest that leads them to link what they like and desire in the world of creativeness and colour.
How do they get there you ask?
You follow them on their journey, you introduce them to the mediums of there choice.
For some children that first introduction is fleeting and for others it is vast and hollow and tactile with great sensory involvement, because using art will awaken all your senses.
The very nature of art is intuitive, so a first experience can be quite a moment, don’t try to hard to analyse it, this is not an analytical experience. This is a feeling moment, a time just to be.
Whatever you want to call it, it will be an introduction and I implore you to be very gentle with a child in there first experience. Do not analyse, or push for greatness all at once.
Instead offer time, patience, acceptance, describing words then sit back and watch.
Allow yourself to be the observer, even if it means watching paints being tipped over.
Start with infants and toddlers, relax a little, unwind your expectations, your head is easily clouding with what you are expecting.
But it is not your expectations that matter in this moment.
Let infants and toddlers show you there point of view.
Infants and toddlers will want to see paint tip, that is there stage of development, and what better way to learn about the texture and clarity and denseness of paint than to see it tip and pour and run out.
Even better set it up so it can tip and pour and travel. Travelling adds a deeper level of engagement.
The sooner we realise it is time to let children do what comes naturally to them; the more we will be allowing creativity to form.
I believe we must adopt the same attitude for older children who have clearly not had experiences with paints because they will also tip and smear and splat, be very careful not to scold children away from an experience you have set up because they do not follow your point of view.
Getting children back into art practises when they have had a bad experience is very difficult.
Speaking from experience I think we need to be very gentle with the beginning stages of art with our children.
Curiosity tells children what they want, desire impels children to act, educators can feel the need to rush in and correct, it is my desire to break that cycle.
Next time I would like to share my opinion on MESS……
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