The Craft of Aircraft Construction

One day I visited my little friend (three years and two months old), he met me at the door: “I am making aircrafts for my best friend”, he said. I was curious: “Making aircrafts?!” He picked two small folded pieces of paper from the floor and showed them to me.

I noticed another “aircraft” on the floor. It looked like a folded A4 page on the right way to become a functioning aircraft that might be able to fly around the room. But when I pointed to it, the boy was serious: “That one is not good at all!” implying that the two in his hands were much better. I was wondering which kind of criteria he had for quality of his work? He obviously had an idea that was leading his creative construction. He was though, still not satisfied with the two small forms.
“They were not ready jet”, he said.
“What do you need to complete them?”
“I need tape”, he replied.

He got some tape from his mother, but the construction problem was not easy to solve - not even with the tape - or maybe it was exactly the tape that leaded to new challenges: One had to take it off from the scroll, cut a piece, prevent it from curling, take it off from fingers, and finally places it around an aircraft. Quite complicated task for a three year old – but it is exactly the resistance in the material that made him try out, repeat, explore other possibilities - and learn. Without resistance from our environment we would not get to know about it, nor about ourselves, as Dewey (1934/29005) wrote.

The boy kept trying. His endurance seemed to come from missing and love for his friend who has been away from the preschool for days. The aircrafts were to become welcome-back-presents for his best friend. The boy had probably learned that you can make something for those you love. And here he was, expressing his feelings through creative work. His motivation to fight the sticky tape toward his goal, seem to have derived from his feelings, and his judgement of quality derived possibly from his empathy (Which kind of aircrafts would my friend like?).

Dewey, J. ([1934] 2005), Art as Experience, New York: Berkley Publishing Group.